Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!
Question for the Week:
Who said this and when? “The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
Better Living Through Chemistry (If Permitted)
By Gilbert Ross, M.D.
The overwhelming body of scientific evidence supports the safety of myriad chemicals in use today. A fusillade of recent items by the New York Times, US News, CNN, and others purports to show how certain common pesticides lead to reduced IQs among children of women exposed to these chemicals while pregnant.
Dismayed, I carefully went over the paper that lies at the ground zero of the media frenzy. It is a study of the organophosphate (OP) class of pesticides by a group of researchers based at the University of California at Berkeley and led by Brenda Eskenazi.
California’s Green Jihad
Ideas matter, particularly when colored by religious fanaticism, wreaking havoc even in the most favored of places. Take, for instance, Iran, a country blessed with a rich heritage and enormous physical and human resources, but which, thanks to its theocratic regime, is largely an economic basket case and rogue state.
Then there’s California, rich in everything from oil and food to international trade and technology, but still skimming along the bottom of the national economy. The state’s unemployment rate is now worse than Michigan’s and ahead only of neighboring Nevada. Among the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan regions, four of the six with the highest unemployment numbers are located in the Golden State: Riverside, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. In a recent Forbes survey, California was home to six of the ten regions where the economy is poised to get worse.
The Dutch Ditch Multiculturalism
The land of windmills and tulips grew a pair in June and officially tabled legislation that effectively says to the Religion of Peace, “We are tired of bowing and kissing your Holland-hating-religious-freak ring. So, with all due respect, please assimilate to our particulars or we will shove a wooden shoe up your backside and deport you back to Suckistan.” No offense, of course.
Everyday Outlaws: Black marketers and suburban farmers
"Everything is illegal these days. You know it. You’re lucky if you get through your first cup of coffee without committing a federal felony or three. Your state legislature churns out new offenses targeting you for improper swimming gear or an unlicensed lemonade stand. As we saw yesterday, mere countycrats may already be building a SWAT team to raid your unpermitted garden shed. That sucks, of course. But the silver lining is that when everything is a crime, everybody is an outlaw — and inevitably a gratifying minority of new-minted enemies of the state embrace their status, don their broad-brimmed hats, and become capital-O Outlaws."
The Failure of Al Gore: Part One
It must be as perplexing to his many admirers as it is frustrating to himself that a man of Vice President Gore’s many talents, great skills and strong beliefs is one of the most consistent losers in American politics.
“All political careers end in failure,” said Enoch Powell; Gore has not won an election on his own since his 1990 re-election to the Senate from Tennessee. His 1988 presidential bid ended well short of the nomination. Many observers felt Gore was headed for defeat in a third Senate campaign as the south continued to swing Republican; Clinton’s offer of the vice presidential slot in 1992 gave Gore the opportunity to reach a national audience as his home state cooled. On his own again in 2000, gifted by the departing Clinton with the most bubbliciously expanding economy in American history and a comfortable budget surplus, and insulated from the innuendo and scandal of the Clinton White House by his still-vibrant marriage, he found the elusive road to defeat against a flawed and inexperienced challenger. Tennessee voted for Bush; Florida or no Florida Gore would have gone to the White House if those who knew him longest and best had rallied to his support.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”-Winston Churchill
When Constitutional scholar Barack Hussein Obama and the assortment legal advisers that surrounds him decided that the Commerce Clause authorized the federal government to force private citizens to purchase a product, freedom vanished from America
Time’s Orwellian Story on U.S. Constitution Refuted
Ken Blackwell
Time magazine’s cover story shows the U.S. Constitution and asks, “Does it still matter?” Reading this story, we kept waiting for Emmanuel Goldstein to show up for the Two Minutes of Hate. It was difficult to discern whether we were reading Time, or Orwells’ 1984. It portrays the Constitution as an outmoded document that we should ignore to whatever extent is expedient to pursue someone’s vision of a better society: “We cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle to a future with a sensible health care system, a globalized economy, and evolving sense of civil and political rights.”
My Take - In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Two Minutes of Hate is a daily period in which Party members of the society of Oceania (1984) must watch a film depicting The Party's enemies (notably Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers and express their hatred for them and their principles of democracy. I had to think about this reference to Emmanuel Goldstein for a minute, but I finally grasped why he used in this article; that is why I loaded my comments with links. I know this doesn’t appear to be a “green only” article, but it falls into line with an article that I am working on that I call, Bed Bug Commissars.
There is one area in this article that I take exception to, and that is the idea that the state can demand that we buy auto insurance because of the police powers of the state. That is erroneous thinking to me. The state can demand that we buy auto insurance because we are driving on their roads. Local and state governments own the roads, and have every right to demand that we meet certain criteria to use their roads. It is just like someone coming to your home and deciding whether or not they have to take their shoes off. When you go into someone else’s home you abide by their rules. When you drive on the governments roads you abide by their rules. A farmer driving all over his property can do so without a driver’s license, a license plate or insurance because it belongs to him.
“There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil – remain detached from the great”. “A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.”- Walter Lippman
Prominent climate change skeptics gathered at the Heartland Institute's sixth international conference on climate change on Friday to take on the body of scientific evidence showing that human emissions are contributing to global warming.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, a famous climate change denier, was set to headline the event's kickoff on Thursday, but canceled when he came down with a cold. Instead the Oklahoma Republican, who has long called climate change a hoax, insisting "we're in a cold spell," sent a statement alleging that while President Obama may have scaled back his speechifying on energy and the….
Leftists hate the way the U.S. constitution hinders their power grabbing
Some clever people today ask whether the United States has really been "exceptional." You couldn't be more exceptional in the 18th century than to create your fundamental document -- the Constitution of the United States -- by opening with the momentous words, "We the people..."
Those three words were a slap in the face to those who thought themselves entitled to rule, and who regarded the people as if they were simply human livestock, destined to be herded and shepherded by their betters. Indeed, to this very day, elites who think that way -- and that includes many among the intelligentsia, as well as political messiahs -- find the Constitution of the United States a real pain because it stands in the way of their imposing their will and their presumptions on the rest of us.
My thoughts
Answer to this week’s question. Cicero in 55 B.C.
All those many years ago when I went to school they taught us in history class that Rome collapsed as a result of moral decay. That was when they actually attempted to teach history by the way. I am always fascinated that almost no one knows who Thomas A Becket or Oliver Cromwell was. They just don’t teach this stuff any longer.
In England a few years ago they did a survey and found that somewhere around 40 percent of the kids thought that Winston Churchill was an astronaut, but they believed that Global Warming was a real threat.
I have been a history buff my whole life and would be considered a generalist. As I read more I learned what the moral practices of the Romans actually were, and I thought; if this is what they practiced how could their moral fiber become any more decayed? The reality is they became lazy. It isn’t entirely their fault. It’s actually Hannibal’s fault!
He roamed the Italian peninsula for over 10 years destroying the farms, bankrupting the small farmers who sold their land to the rich. When the war was over….they had nothing. The rich now had slaves and so there was no work; but they were citizens. So Rome provided bread and circuses. Bread to fill their bellies and circuses to shut their mouths! Did anyone ever wonder how so many people had time to go to all these games in the middle of the day? Rome became a gigantic welfare state, and the Roman Emperor’s had to keep it up because these welfare idiots had rights as Roman citizens and they could vote…at least for their Senators. And if that didn’t work they would riot. Rioting actually could bring a Roman Emperor down. What destroyed the Roman Empire was bankruptcy. Sure, it took many years of continual decay, but the end result was the same. Bankruptcy!
My interest has always been on the whys! Why do people do the things they do? Why do people believe the things they believe? Why do whole people become successful and others never become successful?
Over the last few of years I read “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Wealth and Poverty of Nations”. The one fact you must come away with is that central planning is always a failure in the long run. Eventually you have a very few people thinking they know more than the rest of society. In small communities such as tribal situations it seems to work fairly well; but as the community grows central planners are too far away from the problems and the solutions. And both the problems and the solutions become too complex for a handful of people to solve on a regular basis, and it doesn’t matter how smart or educated they are. At this point they are dealing with far larger numbers with too many variables. That’s why you keep hearing “it seemed like a good idea at the time”!
As you go through this next week, ask anyone: have you ever read the Declaration of Independence in total? I have listed some highlights that should force us to ask ourselves; did the passage of so many environmental laws, regulations and the formation of so many Cabinet positions, agencies and bureaucracies create many of the same impositions as did the King of England so many years ago. Not the mention the foreign agreements and treaties that directly abrogate Constitutional rights. Treaties take precedence over the Constitution according to the Supreme Court. At any rate….read the highlights, then read the whole thing and learn what drawing a line in the sand means.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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