Friday, October 31, 2008

You need to see this right now! Oh my God!

UPDATE:

Thanks to a friend for keeping this blog free of scams, hoaxes, and inaccuracies:


Sad to say, the video is a fake. Here's a comment I received back from a friend who was a Phantom Phlyer back in the day:
> It is a fake. The aircraft shown is an R/C model. The wing "broke off" in a low G maneuver such as you would need if you had some pins that needed pulling. There were no control cables which would need to be yanked out of the disabled wing. The gear would be flattened on a real aircraft with that hard of a landing.
>
> There are many comments on the internet by R/C people how they recognize the aircraft and the maneuver.
>
> It is a faked video.
You did ask to be informed if anything you posted was questionable.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Archaeologists report finding oldest Hebrew text

Archaeologists report finding oldest Hebrew text
Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:06pm EDT
By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Archaeologists in Israel said on Thursday they had unearthed the oldest Hebrew text ever found, while excavating a fortress city overlooking a valley where the Bible says David slew Goliath.

The dig's uncovering of the past near the ancient battlefield in the Valley of Elah, now home to wineries and a satellite station, could have implications for the emotional debate over the future of Jerusalem, some 20 km (12 miles) away.

Archaeologists from the Hebrew University said they found five lines of text written in black ink on a shard of pottery dug up at a five-acre (two-hectare) site called Elah Fortress, or Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Experts have not yet been able to decipher the text fully, but carbon dating of artifacts found at the site indicates the Hebrew inscription was written about 3,000 years ago, predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by 1,000 years, the archaeologists said.

Several words, including "judge," "slave" and "king," could be identified and the experts said they hoped the text would shed light on how alphabetic scripts developed.

In a finding that could have symbolic value for Israel, the archaeologists said other items discovered at the fortress dig indicated there was most likely a strong king and central government in Jerusalem during the period scholars believe that David ruled the holy city and ancient Israel.

Modern-day Israel often cites a biblical connection through David to Jerusalem in supporting its claim, which has not won recognition internationally, to all of the city as its "eternal and indivisible capital."

Palestinians, saying biblical claims have been superseded by the long-standing Arab population in Jerusalem, want the eastern part of the city, captured by Israel in a 1967 war, to be the capital of the state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"The chronology and geography of Khirbet Qeiyafa create a unique meeting point between the mythology, history, historiography and archaeology of King David," said Yosef Garfinkel, the lead archaeologist at the fortress site.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Objective journalism the loser

Objective journalism the loser

By Michael Graham Tuesday, October 28, 2008 http://www.bostonherald.com Letters to the Editor
Did you see that amazing video obtained by the Los Angeles Times of Sen. Barack Obama toasting a prominent former PLO member at an Arab American Action Network meeting in 2003? The video in which Obama gives Yasser Arafat’s frontman a warm embrace, as Bill Ayers look on?

You haven’t seen it? Me, neither. The Los Angeles Times refuses to release it.

And so an incriminating video of Obama literally “palling around” with PLO supporters becomes one more nail in the coffin of “objective journalism.”

Alas, the obit for objective reporting has been buried - along with the stories about Obama’s 2001 support for court-imposed “redistribution of wealth” and Joe Biden’s latest gaffe.

For the record (that’s J-school talk for “I actually know what I’m talking about for a change”), I am not a journalist. I’m an opinion writer and talk show host. But I admire reporters tremendously. I married one. My oldest son is named for the great H. L. Mencken.

So it is particularly heartbreaking for me to see the death of objective journalism. And believe me - it is stone cold dead. Sacrificed on the altar of service to Barack Obama.

Former New York Times [NYT] columnist and veteran newspaperman Michael Malone knows it.

“I’ve begun - for the first time in my adult life - to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living,” he said.

Malone is disturbed by the “shameless support” journalists have been giving the Obama campaign. Where’s the hardball coverage for Obama they give McCain? Instead, journalists are “actively serving as attack dogs for the [Obama/Biden] ticket.”

“That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault,” Malone points out. He blames the media, whose job it is to give Obama a thorough vetting “and has systematically refused to do so.”

This is hardly news to regular readers of the Boston Globe-Democrat, or viewers of MS-We-Hate-Bush. But when the Associated Press starts adding Kool-Aid at the water cooler, we readers are in real trouble.

Jay Newton-Small, a longtime AP reporter, points out in a column in the Washington Post that her old employer has begun practicing “accountability journalism,” which is a media euphemism for “picking the good guys and the bad guys.”

“Some of the most eyebrow-raising stories this presidential-election cycle have come from a surprising source: the stodgy old AP,” Newton-Small wrote.

The AP, once the gold standard of unbiased “hard news,” is now just another voice in the Spin Room.

Newton-Small asks:

“When the news organization entrusted with calling elections sets off down the slippery slope of news analysis, it’s hard not to wonder: Is the journalism world losing its North Star, the one source that could be relied upon to provide ‘Just the facts, ma’am’ ?”

Facts? Who needs ’em, when we’ve got Obama’s magic tax plan to promote and an uppity Alaska governor to trash?

At the risk of violating union rules, allow me to do a bit of reporting: A new study by the Pew Research Center found that, while 71 percent of Obama’s recent media coverage has been “positive” or “neutral,” almost 60 percent of McCain’s coverage over the same period has been “decidedly negative.”

And how much positive coverage did the media give McCain? Fourteen percent.

The American people have figured this out.

“By a margin of 70 percent to 9 percent,” another Pew study reported, “Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4.”

The percentage of Americans who rate reporters as objective and not favoring either candidate? Eight percent.

My friends in the Partisan Press, your reputation has now fallen lower than both President Bush (25 percent) and the Democratic Congress (18 percent). Journalistic integrity now ranks along side communicable diseases and nuclear mishaps.

Obama will likely be the next president. He will use that power to do things both good and bad. But when Americans look for tough, honest journalists to challenge him, where will we find them?

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/letters/view.bg?articleid=1128260

Monday, October 27, 2008

Why should we turn left when everyone is turning right

The Democracies of the world have already turned to conservative leadership, or are about to do so. American is flirting with the disaster of Obama's socialism. Please watch this 10 minute video to get a full perspective of the world situation and the danger of an American shift toward socialism.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

VIDEO: Dennis Miller on a recent Jay Leno show:





He was asked by Jay who he favors, and he said, 'I'm voting for McCain.
People need to understand that all of Hollywood is not for Obama, and anyone
who served their country in a rat hole as a prisoner for 5 years deserves my
vote. (Huge applause) Hey, he gave us 5 years, I'm willing to give him 4
back.

I don't like the fact that Obama has played his color card all by himself.
He said, 'People might not vote for me because my name sounds funny.' McCain
and his people have never gone there. Obama playing that card turns me off.

I'm not worried about the color of his skin. I'm worried about the
thickness. Quite frankly, he get a little too winey. (Huge applause)

And his wife; Sh e is a bad night. If she were barking in my ear while I was
driving, I'd take a sharp left and go off the cliff.

Barack missed the boat when he didn't pick Hillary, and I'm no Hillary fan.
But quite frankly, she earned to be picked, and I believe the American women
can relate to her. She has been cheated on more often than a blind woman
playing scrabble with a bunch of gypsies.

Sara Pallin isn't perfect, but I don't want her to be perfect. We've had
smart people as vice presidents before. Nixon was smart, and he turned out
to be a nightmare. Gore was smart, but I never got him. I want someone
normal as VP who is like me.

People say McCain will die 1 day after being elected. Hey, everyone knows
Barack smokes, and look at what the actuarial tables say about a 47 year old
smoker. He dies, we get Bidden, and he's as old as McCain. He dies, and we
get Nancy Pelosi, and then I'm leaving the galaxy.

Pastor becomes IRS target

Pastor becomes IRS target
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 10/26/2008 5:00:00 AM

A group that supports the false philosophy of separation of church and state has filed action against another pastor for having his say about politics.

Bishop Robert E. Smith is senior pastor at Word of Outreach and Christian Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has lodged a complaint against him for endorsing John McCain for president from the pulpit on October 12.

"Bishop Smith knowingly and flagrantly violated the law and has even dared the IRS to investigate him for it," says Americans United leader Barry Lynn in a press release. "I hope the federal tax agency promptly takes him up on that."

But Smith contends the law upon which the complaint was filed with the Internal Revenue Service is unconstitutional.

"Congress cannot make any law that prohibits the free exercise of my faith," the pastor explains. "So a part of my faith as a minister is not only to deal with issues, but to deal with the people who are making the laws that affect the issues -- because I preach a two-sided gospel: the gospel of Christ for salvation, and the gospel of the kingdom for the political stability of its people. So that gets into politics."

The Arkansas pastor remembers a time when pastors could speak freely from the pulpit -- and did. "Well, that's the way it has been," he laments, "but since it's coming out in the form as it is now, a lot of the pastors are getting cold feet and they're backing up."

Smith is one of 33 pastors around the country who have spoken from the pulpit on political candidates and issues as part of Alliance Defense Fund's project to challenge the law and generate a lawsuit to take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court. Complaints have been filed with the IRS against seven churches so far.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=298802

Saturday, October 25, 2008

MEDIA BIAS: IS IT THAT OBVIOUS?

IS IT THAT OBVIOUS?
Posted by Andrew Roman on Saturday, October 25, 2008 10:34:49 AM

Hold on to your hats. From the annals of impartiality comes this little statistical nugget – and don’t be surprised if you’re not surprised.

A new survey shows that Americans – by an overwhelming margin of nearly 8-1 – believe that journalists want Senator Barack Obama to win the election.

Do you need a minute to let that one filter in? Eight to one!

Pew Research Center for the People and Press , 70% of Americans say reporters would like to see the Illinois Senator become the next President, while only 9% say the media favor Arizona Senator John McCain.













Of those 70%, among Republicans, 90% see the media as wanting Obama in. Among Democrats, 62% do. Another statistic from the “no, really?” file … According to a survey from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, conducted from early September through mid-October:

Coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable—and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to one—the most unfavorable of all four candidates—according to the study ...

57% of all surveyed stories about John McCain during the time period were negative, according to the study, while only 14% were deemed positive.




















As I do my very best to recollect a positive John McCain story coming from the main-stream media during the past few weeks, please talk amongst yourselves. There are chips and dip in the back. Help yourself to the cheese balls.

It’s interesting to note that a mere 8% of Americans believe there is no discernible bias from the media, while 13% just don’t know.

These numbers are not exactly revelatory, but I am admittedly prone to a strange fascination about the ones who list as “undecided” or just say “I don’t know.” It’s evocative of the all-over-the-place tracking polls that show Barack Obama leading John McCain anywhere from one point to thirteen points, depending on the poll. The “undecideds” therein suddenly – and predictably - become central.

Candidates do cartwheels to curry their favor, while every microphone in town seeks them out for the eleven ‘o clock news. The attention is cheap and expected, but the great wishy-washy of the electorate relish it.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I cannot help but wonder - with ten days left until November 4th - what it is that these “undecideds” don’t know. Have they not been paying attention? What’s left to figure out? Do these folks genuinely not know who they’re voting for?

I also have to ask … what exactly differentiates these people from, say, Democrats? (Light bulb goes on). Ask an undecided voter (if you can find one) specific questions about anything they claim to be uncertain about and more times than not you’ll discover a fledgling liberal bubbling beneath the surface, longing to break free.

For instance, if you were ask one whether or not they favored extending the Bush tax cuts to everyone, an answer beginning with anything other than the word “Yes,” would tend to indicate that you’ve probably got a liberal in the making. If they embellish their answer with some invective about the rich getting unfair tax breaks, declare the conversation finished, hand them a copy of the Noam Chomsky Reader and a bottle of vodka.

There’s nothing else to be said.

http://romanaround.blogtownhall.com/2008/10/25/is_it_that_obvious.thtml

VERY IMPORTANT -I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist,"

Media's Presidential Bias and Decline
Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why
Column By MICHAEL S. MALONE
Oct. 24, 2008 —


The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I'm cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

My hard-living -- and when I knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I've spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there's always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word "said" -- muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. -- to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can't achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty -- especially in ourselves.


Reporting Bias
For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.

Sure, being a child of the '60s I saw a lot of subjective "New" Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from "real" reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.

I'd spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else's work -- not out of any native honesty, but out of fear: I'd always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense & indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes -- and if they did they were soon rehired into even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who'd managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level.

Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.

But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story & but it never happened.



The Presidential Campaign
But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather -- not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake -- but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?



Joe the Plumber
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.

I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide -- especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50.

Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes & and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.

So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.



Bad Editors
Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power & only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country &

This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world's largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling "Virtual Corporation." Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, "The New Heroes." He has been the ABCNews.com "Silicon Insider" columnist since 2000.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6099188

Survey: Win or lose, Republicans will be ones smiling

Survey: Win or lose, Republicans will be ones smiling
By DAVID MONTGOMERY
Washington Post
Oct. 24, 2008,
A GLOBAL LOOK

• Worldwide trend: It turns out the happiness gap is not just an American phenomenon. In country after country, happiness studies find that "conservatives" are happier than "liberals"

WASHINGTON — Now the good news for Republicans: They are happier than Democrats. They always have been, and they probably always will be.

Never mind that their presidential candidate is sinking in the polls while their president plumbs historic depths of popular scorn and their free market squeals for intervention while their investments evaporate on Wall Street. They are not just happier than the other guys, but more of them are very happy indeed, according to new survey results published Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

The pollsters were in the field asking about happiness this month, a period when economic news was gloomy for everybody and presidential campaign news seemed especially baleful for Republicans. Yet they found 37 percent of Republicans are "very happy," compared with 25 percent of Democrats; 51 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats are "pretty happy"; and 9 percent of Republicans are "not too happy," compared with 20 percent of Democrats.

The partisan happiness gap — unbroken for nearly four decades — is impervious to electoral ups and downs. It has something to do with worldview.

"I'm very happy," says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and a Republican. "When I was 12, I realized the world was not organized around my desires and wishes. The problem with guys on the left is they never figured that out at age 12. And they're just irritated the world is not organized around their vision. This makes them grumpy."

Chris Lehane doesn't sound grumpy. The Democratic consultant is on the phone from San Francisco.

"My guess is if (Pew) checked the cross tabs out in California, we're all pretty happy out here. The wine is still good, the food is fresh, the people are beautiful," he says.

Government-funded researchers identified the happiness gap in 1972. Since then, the Democrats have been comparatively more bummed out not just during the tenures of GOP Presidents Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bush. They were noticeably less joyful than Republicans even during the GOP fiasco of Watergate, and during the Democratic Carter and Clinton administrations.

This year, when things seem so rosy for Democrats, the joy gulch yawns wider than ever. The fraction of very happy Republicans has never been so much larger than the very happy Democrats.

What's the Republicans' secret to feeling groovy?

"They have more money," Paul Taylor, director of the Pew Social & Demographic Trends project, writes in the new report. "They have more friends. They are more religious. They are healthier. They are more likely to be married. They like their communities better. They like their jobs more. They are more satisfied with their family life. They like the weather better."

None of this proves being Republican causes happiness, Taylor cautions.

Do happy people get married, attend weekly religious services and vote for John McCain? Or does devotion to marriage, God and McCain cause them to be happy?

The study does identify a series of characteristics found in many people who call themselves happy.

Good health is a key factor. Marriage and religion are big, too, and so is wealth. (If money doesn't buy happiness, it appears to help with the down payment.)

When you control for all the other variables, Taylor says, a Republican is 13 percent or 7 percent more likely to be very happy than a Democrat, depending on which regression analysis model you use.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/6077261.html

Friday, October 24, 2008

Vatican denounces socialism

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html

RERUM NOVARUM

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII
ON CAPITAL AND LABOR




To Our Venerable Brethren the Patriarchs,
Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other ordinaries
of places having Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See.


Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor

That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not surprising. The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvellous discoveries of science; in the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses; the increased self reliance and closer mutual combination of the working classes; as also, finally, in the prevailing moral degeneracy. The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension; wise men are discussing it; practical men are proposing schemes; popular meetings, legislatures, and rulers of nations are all busied with it - actually there is no question which has taken deeper hold on the public mind.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Lots of good news: NYTimes profits slide; S & P downgrades credit rating

NYTimes profits slide; S & P downgrades credit rating

Oct 23 07:26 PM US/Eastern


The New York Times Co. reported a steep drop in third-quarter profits on Thursday, the latest gloomy earnings report in an industry battered by online competition and falling print advertising revenue.
The New York Times Co. said net profit fell by 51.4 percent in the third quarter to 6.5 million dollars, or five cents per share, from 13.4 million dollars, or nine cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

The company, which owns About.com, The Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune and 16 other daily newspapers besides the flagship The New York Times, said overall advertising revenue fell by 14.4 percent during the quarter.

Shortly after the release of its results, Standard & Poors said it was lowering the Times's credit rating to "BB-," or junk status, while Moody's Investors Service said it was placing it on review for possible downgrade.

Moody's changed the rating outlook for the company to negative from stable in July. A further downgrade would reduce it to junk status. Both companies said the moves were based on the uncertain outlook for newspaper advertising.

Print advertising revenue has been declining at newspapers across the United States as circulation drops, more readers go online for their news and advertisers shift their dollars to the Internet.

The New York Times's share price rose slightly on Wall Street on Thursday, gaining 0.19 percent to close at 10.70 dollars, but was down 3.74 percent to 10.30 dollars in after-hours trading.

The Times said print advertising revenue fell by 18.5 percent in the third quarter while online revenue from NYTimes.com and other websites rose by 2.5 percent.

"The decline in print advertising revenues this quarter accelerated as the economy slowed," New York Times chief executive Janet Robinson said in a statement.

While print advertising revenue fell, online advertising revenue grew by 10.2 percent in the quarter to 74.4 million dollars, The New York Times said, and now accounts for 12.4 percent of revenue, up from 10.6 percent in the third quarter of 2007.

It said total revenue fell 8.9 percent in the quarter to 687 million dollars from 754.4 million in the same quarter last year.

Circulation revenue rose by one percent due to an increase in home-delivery and newsstand prices for the paper.

The company said it managed to reduce operating costs by 6.8 percent during the quarter and "given the adverse economic conditions, we will continue our strict cost discipline."

The New York Times also indicated in its statement that it may cut its dividend. "Our board of directors plans to review our dividend policy before the end of this year to determine what is most prudent in light of the overall market conditions," said Robinson.

It also said it was looking at writing down the value of assets in its New England Media Group, which includes the Boston Globe, by 100 million dollars to 150 million dollars.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Monday, October 20, 2008

Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof

Lorne Gunter: Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof
Posted: October 20, 2008, 10:26 AM by Kelly McParland
Lorne Gunter


In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.

Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.

On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.

Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.

Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.

Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.

But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.

Dr. Loehle's work helps end this deception.

Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2."

An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."

Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible."

While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month.

For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."

Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.

It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.















lgunter@shaw.ca

National Post

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/20/lorne-gunter-thirty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx

Must view video: BRIDGETTE GABRIELLE

http://multimedia.heritage.org/content/wm/Lehrman-092706a.wvx


When you have 30 minutes and want to listen to a MOST provocative speech "Wake Up America" then watch this:

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Headline Humor


The Top 10 Percent of Income Earners Paid 70 Percent of Federal Income Tax

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/BudgetChartBook/fed-rev-spend-2008-boc-T4-The-Top-10-Percent-of-Income.html

The Top 10 Percent of Income Earners Paid 70 Percent of Federal Income Tax
The U.S. tax system is highly progressive. The top 1 percent of income earners, by household, paid 39 percent of all federal income taxes in 2005, whereas the bottom 50 percent paid a little over 3 percent. Further, 32 percent of all tax returns filed in 2005 were from people who paid no federal income tax at all.

Levels of Household Income Earners and their Proportion of the Federal Income Tax in 2005

Headline Humor


CIA’s Loss of Top Spies ‘Catastrophic,’ Says Agency Veteran

CIA’s Loss of Top Spies ‘Catastrophic,’ Says Agency Veteran


Only a few months ago, Sam Faddis was running a CIA unit charged with preventing terrorists from getting nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.


Today, only 50, the equivalent of a full colonel at the top of his game, he has quit.
Scores more like him, Faddis says, spies with years of working the back alleys of the world, have walked away from the CIA’s Operations Directorate at the top of their careers, at a time when the agency needs their skills the most.


The directorate is losing “25 or 30 chiefs of station” — the top CIA representative in a country or major city — “or their equivalent” at headquarters, every six months, Faddis estimates.
That’s out of an estimated thousand or fewer case officers — the men and women who recruit and manage spies — worldwide.


“The effect in any time in history would be serious,” Faddis says, “but at this time, when you’re trying to rebuild the agency from the cutbacks of the Clinton years, massively trying to catch up, at a time when you really need your most experienced people to run operations and mentor the new blood coming in, it’s catastrophic.”


“It’s getting to the point where we just don’t have any experience on the ground,” Faddis maintained during several hours of conversation over the past two weeks.
“It bears emphasizing that, where during the Cold War, it was a catastrophe to be [unmasked as a CIA agent] and sent home, if you screw up now, people die. The tolerance for mistakes is less than ever,” he said.


Faddis declined either to confirm or deny that any CIA personnel have died combating terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks.


But the grim, mum faces of former spies I’ve asked about agency casualties since that day speak for themselves.


A former program manager in the Operations Directorate, speaking on condition of anonymity because he still does contracting work with the agency, agreed with Faddis.


“It’s comparable to the hemorrhage of junior officers from the Army right now, in the sense that these are leaders whose experience and hands-on ability right in front of their people on the front line is so critical,” he said.


The CIA has said that money is luring away its best old hands. And it’s true that a large number come back as private contractors, doing virtually the same jobs at twice the pay.


Some say there are more contractors filling desk in the directorate now than career officers.
But many don’t return, Faddis maintains. And, theoretically, he and other operations veterans say, contractors can’t take leadership positions that have been emptied.


The CIA flatly denies there’s a hemorrhage of senior personnel.


“Last year, for example, it was in the neighborhood of 7 percent of GS-15s in the National Clandestine Service,” spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.


“And that’s somewhat below what it had been in previous years,” he continued. “It’s all quite modest. The notion of dramatic losses at that grade, or any other, is simply incorrect.”


A Culture of Timidity


In any event, it’s not the money sending them into retirement, the veteran spies I’ve been talking to say.


It’s the directorate’s management, which they maintain rewards sycophants at headquarters over operatives who have been “carrying out aggressive operations in dangerous places,” as Faddis put it.


“I think that one of the things that they’ve tried to portray over the last several years is that everybody’s leaving for the money,” he said. “And that’s not true.


“I mean, the money makes it easier. Nobody joined the CIA to make money. If money was your driving force, you never would have been there in the first place,” Faddis said. “People leave because they’re just fed up. They leave because of the management structure. They say, ‘I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried to change this place, and it’s just never going to turn the corner and I’m done.’ That’s the sentiment.”


Virtually none of the team chiefs and case officers who led the first CIA units into Afghanistan and Iraq remain with the agency, said Faddis, who recently authored a memoir, “Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq.”


It’s because the DO is plagued by a culture of “timidity and risk aversion,” Faddis said.
“But frankly I think there are other factors,” he added. “There’s a general perception of cronyism, favoritism, that the way to get promoted — that the guys who are not being promoted are the guys who are doing aggressive operations in dangerous parts of the world. If you’re a chief of station in a dangerous part of the world running aggressive operations, and your contemporary is a staff aide sitting on the seventh floor in meetings, there’s no question of who’s getting promoted. It’s the guy standing next to the boss telling him what he wants to hear. It’s not the guy in a dangerous place really trying to take the fight to the enemy.”


An agency operation veteran who recently penned an unauthorized memoir under the pseudonym “Ishmael Jones” advised the CIA to “cut layers of management ruthlessly to speed operations and to put more spies on the street.”


“Accepting the CIA’s ploy that it just needs a few more years to hire the right people” is wrong, Jones said. “The CIA has used this ploy for decades. The CIA has all the qualified people it needs. The problem is that they are poorly led.”
Burrowing In


Gary Berntsen, a former station chief who led one of the first CIA teams into Afghanistan after 9/11, agrees. He left in disgust over management.


In a new book, “Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism & National Leadership,” Berntsen writes that the agency’s personnel problems predated the Bush administration, but the president waited too long to double the size of the Operations Directorate.


“The act was welcome, but betrayed the fact that he had not sought an accurate understanding of the size and needs of he Clandestine Service during his first term in the White House.”
And still today, Berntsen says, “the most ambitious officers in the Clandestine Service have sought minimal time in the field and burrowed themselves in the CIA headquarters bureaucracy to attain advancement.”


So what?


According to some accounts, the CIA’s Predator drones and other new technologies are making up for the shortage of spies in the field. The veterans would take issue with that, but they also remind that the spy agency has other yawning missions: China and Russia, for starters.
The spy agency is “bleeding out” with the mass departure of veterans who learned how to spy the hard way, on the streets of hostile foreign environments, Faddis says. “There’s not enough people on the ground with any experience.”


“At minimum, what it means is that you can’t run certain kinds of operations,” he said. “You just can’t do it, you just don’t have — maybe you have the best and brightest coming in these days, and I don’t want to denigrate them — but there’s just no substitute for experience. At some point you need someone to clue you in on how to do this.”


His hair turning silver, but still youthful looking from days spent skippering his boat in the Chesapeake, Faddis says, “to me the real tragedy is there’s just a whole bunch of guys floating around here who are not in the building, but should be.”

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=hsnews-000002976430

Saturday, October 18, 2008

An open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy


This is entirely too long to post here. However, if you are science minded and think John McCain is wrong about global warming please go to the link and fill up with facts and logic that McCain probably won't take the time to learn. Beside even if it is long, "American Thinker" does not publish things that aren't worth reading. They must be top notch, they publish my articles! :-)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/an_open_letter_from_the_viscou_1.html


An open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy


By The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy.
Dear Senator McCain, Sir,


Israel's October surprise - strike Iran's nuclear facilities

Some Israeli officials have been threatening to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Are these threats empty or loaded? Will Israel strike before the US elections in November? And will there be an "October Surprise"? Answers to these questions and more, on Link TV's Mosaic Intelligence Report.







http://www.linktv.org/octobersurprise?gclid=CP_DiP7LsZYCFRoSFQodkCOJKw

Pew Research: “Rush Limbaugh,” “Hannity & Colmes” Listeners Best Informed About U.S. Politics

Pew Research: “Rush Limbaugh,” “Hannity & Colmes” Listeners Best Informed About U.S. Politics

October 18th, 2008 by Matthew Vadum


The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press tested the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults and found that the audiences of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity with Alan Colmes were the best informed about U.S. politics.

On two questions that asked respondents to identify the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives (Democrats) and to identify the current U.S. secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice), “Hannity & Colmes” viewers scored 84% and 73% respectively. Among Rush Limbaugh listeners, the scores were 83% and 71%.

On a question involving international affairs in which the respondents had to identify the prime minister of the United Kingdom (Gordon Brown), 59% of readers of The New Yorker and the Atlantic got it right, compared to 57% of NPR listeners.

Bishop reminds Catholics to remember Judgment Day in the voting booth(Vote for Obama-get zapped)


Bishop reminds Catholics to remember Judgment Day in the voting booth

Bishop Robert Herman St. Louis, Oct 18, 2008 / 08:03 am (CNA).
- Bishop Robert J. Herman, the administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, has written a column reminding Catholics that their vote will be a decision weighed on the Day of Judgment. He urged Catholics not to treat the unborn as the neglectful rich man treated Lazarus in the biblical parable.

“Judgment Day is on its way,” the bishop wrote in the St. Louis Review. “We cannot stop it. We don’t know when it will come, but just as surely as the sun rises daily, the Son of Man will come when we least expect.”

“For many, this coming election may very well be judgment day, for this election will measure us,” he continued, referencing Christ’s words of judgment in Matthew 10:32-33:

“Everyone who acknowledges Me before others, I will acknowledge before My heavenly Father. But whoever denies Me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

Bishop Herman asked the faithful to consider what kind of witness they give to God when they enter the voting booth on Election Day.

“The decision I make in the voting booth will reflect my value system. If I value the good of the economy and my current lifestyle more than I do the right to life itself, then I am in trouble,” the bishop wrote.

He cited Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici, which said outcry on human rights is “false and illusory” if the right to life is not defended to the maximum.

“The right of our children to be protected from destruction is greater than my right to a thriving economy,” Bishop Herman continued.

“My desire for a good economy cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion. My desire to end the war in Iraq cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion.”

Bishop Herman looked to the spiritual dimension as well.

“Those 47 million children our nation destroyed are still living. We have destroyed their bodies, but their souls are still alive. When our Lord comes again, they may very well be there to judge us. Even worse, Jesus tells us that whatever we do to the least of our brethren, we do to Him. We would truly shudder if we heard the words, ‘I was in my mother’s womb but you took my life!’

“It is quite possible that we might see these children, but, depending upon the choices we have made, we may very well be separated from them by a great chasm which cannot be crossed, much as the rich man who ignored Lazarus, the poor man, during his lifetime here on earth but was separated from him after death.”

Bishop Herman said the “deepest problem” with many Catholics is that they have become accustomed to rationalizing away a “life of sinful actions” headed in the wrong direction.

“My goal is not to engage you in some political party way but to engage you with our Savior and His teachings. We need to constantly challenge our accustomed behaviors in the light of the Gospel,” he wrote.

He said the issues of the coming election could help people learn about the teachings of the Catholic Church and to use the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

“When we do this, both we and the heavens will be filled with joy!” he asserted.

“Judgment Day is on its way,” he repeated, encouraging people to pray the family Rosary daily between now and Election Day.

In a previous column for the St. Louis Review, Bishop Herman urged Catholics not to put politics ahead of the Fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”

“Save our children!” he wrote. “More than anything else, this election is about saving our children or killing our children. This life issue is the overriding issue facing each of us in this coming election. All other issues, including the economy, have to take second place to the issue of life.”

Political axioms for both Republicans and Democrats

Subject: Political axioms for both Republicans and Democrats


If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed
-Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.... But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-Douglas Casey,

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-P.J. O'Rourke

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

I don't make jokes... I just watch the government and report the facts.
-Will Rogers


In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866 )

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-Unknown

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save Congress.
-Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

Steven Wrightisms

And More Steven Wright:



If you're not familiar with the work of Steven Wright, he's the guy who

once said, "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen

and replaced by exact duplicates." Here are some more of his gems........



I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.



Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.



Half the people you know are below average.



99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.



42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.



A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.



A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.



If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.



All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.



I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.



OK, so what's the speed of dark?



How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?



If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked

something.



Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.



When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.



Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.



Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.



I intend to live forever -- so far, so good.



If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?



Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into engines.



What happens if you get scared half to death twice?



My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your

horn louder."



Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?



If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.



A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.



Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.



The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.



To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism - to steal from many is

research.



The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.



The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.



The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.



Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have any film.

THE VALUE OF DRINK

I don't drink alcohol at all. But I do appreciate humor!

The Value of a Drink

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink
I feel shame. Then I look into the glass and think
about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes
and dreams .. If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out
of work and their dreams would be shattered.

Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this wine and let their
dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
~ Jack Handy

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell
happened to your bra and panties.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they
wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're
going to feel all day. "
~Frank Sinatra

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, smarter, faster and better looking than most people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ ~
"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
~ Henny Youngman

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not."
~ Stephen Wright

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to think you can sing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk,
we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin.
When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. So, let's all
get drunk and go to heaven!"
~ Brian O'Rourke

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause pregnancy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
~ Benjamin Franklin

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a retard.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Without question, the greatest invention in the
history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the
wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does
not go nearly as well with pizza."
~ Dave Barry

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell your friends over and over again that you love them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To some it's a six-pack, to me it's a Support Group. Salvation in a can!
~Dave Howell

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~
And saving the best for last, as explained by Cliff Clavin,of Cheers.

One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff Clavin was explaining the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm.
Here's how it went:

"Well ya see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not

Friday, October 17, 2008

Headline Humor -


The greatful sound of one hand clapping!

IF - Rudyard Kipling's Verse

IF
Rudyard Kipling's Verse

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

The Pig Parable: by Barbara Segura

One of my more creative friend's wisdom:

One day while riding in the car the girls announced they did not believe in the bible.. They had had a couple of arguments with friends who quoted the bible from a very fundamentalist point of view and some of these things ran completely contrary to what the girls know to be true. So their position was that the bible was wrong. I attempted to explain to them that you cannot hold the bible responsible for the way some people choose to interpret it. And that it was important to remember the style of writing used by the authors. I explained the difference between scientific writing, journalistic writing, fictional writing and parable writing. And that the bible was written by Jewish scholars who had been trained in the parable style type of writing.

This was how I explained parable.

Remember the story of the 3 little pigs. Not the cleaned up sanitized version where the moral of the story is have a rich relative or go on welfare. But the original story. The first pig wanted to play and have fun so built his house out of straw, the second pig was slightly more hardworking and built his house out of sticks, they then went out and played and bothered the very hard working third pig who was building his house of stone. In the original story the first two pigs are eaten by the wolf and the third pig survives due to his hard work. So, I asked the girls what the moral of the story was. And they said not to be lazy and to work hard. I asked them, Is this true? And they said of course it is true.

Now this is how I tied it all in.

The fundamentalist says , I believe in this story and though I have never seen a talking house building pig the story says there were talking house building pigs therefore I will believe that there are talking house building pigs and argue to death the truth of talking house building pigs.

The atheist says there is no such thing as a talking house building pig therefore the entire story is false and untrue and I will argue to death the falseness of it all.

As the girls laughed I said, do you see what the problem is? The point of the story was not to believe or not believe in talking house building pigs. But rather understand that hard work is better than being lazy. Which of course they had understood. The fundamentalist and the atheist both missed the truth.

I asked them then, which is more interesting, a story book or a text book? And they of course said that stories are always more interesting . I then went on to say that the bible is a truthful, fascinating and interesting book, but that if you get caught up in the fundamentalist interpretation or the atheist interpretation then you miss the power and truth of what God was saying. And since God wanted everyone to read the Bible it was not written as a text book, or a science book, or a newspaper article but rather in story/parable form so that all could enjoy and understand.

Barbara Segura

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Let's do our best to pass it on. Maybe some of them will get it.

Wake Up America Before It's Too Late

http://usawakeup.org/USSA.htm

I fear that the people who need to see this presentation have their eyes covered, ears closed, and brains on hold.

Let's do our best to pass it on. Maybe some of them will get it.

HEADLINE HUMOR


SCIENCE: Alaska glaciers grew this year, for 1st time in 200 years

Alaska glaciers grew this year, thanks to colder weather
By Craig Medred Anchorage Daily News

Two hundred years of glacial shrinkage in Alaska, and then came the winter and summer of 2007-2008.

"In mid-June, I was surprised to see snow still at sea level in Prince William Sound," said U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia. "On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July. At Bering Glacier, a landslide I am studying, located at about 1,500 feet elevation, did not become snow free until early August.

"In general, the weather this summer was the worst I have seen in at least 20 years."

Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.

"It's been a long time on most glaciers where they've actually had positive mass balance," Molnia said.

That's the way a scientist says the glaciers got thicker in the middle. Read the complete story at adn.com


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/53884.html
http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/555283.html

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Scandal of the Local Newsroom

The strongest hope for honest elections and a free America is conservative bloggers and readers. Traditional media outlets do a disservice to the country. Some of them are outright traitorous.

The Scandal of the Local Newsroom

Every election year, we conservatives say the same thing about the media - that their bias has never been this bad before. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I do believe this year the media has abandoned all pretense of objectivity.

In the past, media outlets were financed by political partisans and had an undeniable slant, but they were completely forthright about their political ideology - they existed to promote a particular candidate or party. Eventually, the media moved toward a practice of objectivity - reporters were trained to seek both sides of an issue in their stories in an attempt to be fair. Journalists like Edward R. Murrow and (to a lesser extent) Walter Cronkite may have been flaming moonbats, but they - for the most part - subordinated their political beliefs to their professionalism. They weren't perfect, but they didn't go overboard.

Today's journalists do not have the same respect for their profession, and their actions in this election are dishonoring one of the few professions protected in the Constitution. The MSM is no longer made up of reporters - they are now openly cheerleading the candidacy of Barack Obama, http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/msnbc-drops-all-pretense-chris-matthews-openly-campaigns-for-obama-now/ and creating anti-McCain stories out of whole cloth. http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/10/12/more-on-those-angry-racist-gop-mobs/

Even the normally-understated Glenn Reynolds has said the media is "outright campaigning for Obama." http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/025194.php

I have a BA in journalism, and over time have kept in touch with a number of people who are still working in that profession. So when one of them emailed me the following about the atmosphere in today's newsrooms, I wasn't surprised at all. This person does offer some hints at the end on how to push for more fairness in your local coverage:

Continue reading




It's unbelievable here. I've been through a few election cycles and have gotten pretty used to the open sneering every time a Republican candidate appears on the television, but this year is unlike anything I've ever seen.

Anchors were openly cheering when the news came out that Sarah Palin's daughter was pregnant. Some of the comments were so over-the-top childish and nasty that I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They're obsessed with her. They hate her even more than they hated Bush. And they all talk openly about how "stupid" and "unqualified" she is. It's pretty much a hostile work environment for the few conservatives who work here.

I've pretty much been keeping my head down and concentrating on my work, but yesterday was the final straw for me when some snot-nosed, twenty-something liberal producer responded to a request to take a phone call from a viewer complaining about lack of election fraud coverage by saying, "Tell him it's because we hate Republicans."

I want you to post this story on your blog to get the word out. The average person doesn't understand how obnoxiously left wing, the average local newsroom staffer is. The nightly newscasts they're watching every night are being put together by producers who have nothing but disdain for the people watching.

The irony is that these people are for the most part, some of the most ignorant, unimpressive individuals that you'll ever meet. They know next to nothing. They have no expertise in any area. They just repeat shit they read on the wires. Most of them aren't even from the communities where they work. They migrate from station to station, climbing the ladder as they go.

But they do think they're both smarter than and superior to you. Especially those of you who live in rural areas.

It's time people register their dissatisfaction about these clowns. It won't change the coverage, but contacting them in the right way can be hugely disruptive to their operations.

Here's how to do it. First, have a specific complaint in mind before you call. Make sure it's a local issue so they can't duck it. Be prepared, succinct, and polite. Study up on the topic before hand. Your goal is to put them on the spot and make them answer specific questions.

Local television newsrooms are extremely busy just before their newscasts air, so time your calls accordingly for maximum disruption. Most local stations don't have a dedicated call taker, so you're likely to get routed to whomever is available. It might be a producer, an intern, or even an anchor. No matter who you get, they'll be busy and stressed out and looking to get rid of you as quickly as possible. Keep them on the line for as long as you can.

Newsroom personnel hate to be questioned on anything. They're notoriously thin-skinned about their work. What you'll find beneath the surface if you're persistent is an almost unfathomable ignorance about the stories they cover. Expose this ignorance by asking them basic information about whatever story (or lack of coverage) you're complaining about. If the issue is voter fraud, ask them to explain to you their understanding of your state's election laws. In almost all cases, they will not be able to. Follow up by politely asking them how they can accurately cover stories that they don't understand. You'll probably get a nasty, defensive reaction. Congratulations, it's working.

If they try to blow you off, ask to be routed to someone in charge like the news director, assistant news director, an executive producer, or the general manager. If they lose their cool and hang up on you, call back and try to get the GM or news director. Ask them why their newsroom staff is rude to callers and appears to feel unaccountable. Follow up with emails.

I can't stress enough to your readers how important it is to be polite and informed. If you do your homework, you'll have these people spinning in circles. You may not be able to change their coverage, but it should knock a little of the arrogance out of them and make life more difficult.
This is good advice, and I would only add one thing - make sure you get the name of the person you spoke with - the request will tick them off and you might even get them to give you a fake name. Accountability is to journalists as kryptonite is to Superman. Why do you think so many of them hate blogs with such intensity?
I decided to put this email here instead of my own blog because let's face it - I wanted more people to read it than just my parents and the few co-workers who know I blog.

I've seen many of the same things in newsrooms. One of my first assignments as a student reporter was to cover a visit to our town by Marilyn Quayle. She was giving a speech. As I waited around with the other reporters, I listened to their conversations. Many of them made fun of the decor in the building, openly mocked the supporters who showed up and generally gave off the vibe that they were too good to cover this event, if it was even worth coverage at all. When I covered a Hillary speech, many of the same reporters were there and shockingly - their demeanor was different.

I'm going to attend a rally with Sarah Palin later this week. While there, I'm going to try to spend some time watching and listening to the journalists who cover the event as well as to Palin's speech.
http://www.ace.mu.nu/#275601

Monday, October 13, 2008

PROTEST THE MEDIA







http://www.protestthemedia.com/


Welcome to Protest the Media

It all began on Thursday, October 9th, in Waukesha, Wisconson with the words "I'm mad, I'm really mad." I think this lone man spoke for us all. We are seeing our country being taken over by socialists and feel frustrated that we are not being heard. We all feel the media is at the root cause. They do not report the news, they report their agenda. They hide what doesn't fit into that agenda and we as Americans are suffering for it. And we are MAD!

Well, now is our time to be heard. Join us as we plan a nation-wide protest of all media outlets across the country to let them know that we understand what they are doing and that we will not be silent anymore.

We have seen the liberal side of this country protest and be heard. Well, it is time for our side to be heard and with this protest we will show this country that we do have a voice and it will no longer be silenced to the liberal media and government taking over our lives.

All who can, will go to a local media outlet in your city on October, 21st at 3:00 pm. We will stand with our signs and hand out our flyers until 7:00 pm. If it is not possible for you to go out, then you are asked to phone and send emails to all National and Local newspapers, tv and radio stations, including their advertisers.

On this site you will find your state and local media outlets in your city (if you don't see your, please post it). Let's try to get as many people at each site as possible. There will also be flyers, sign slogans and emails to help you in your protest.

We will be peaceful, we will not riot. We are dignified human beings that will not stoop to the liberal way of doing things. That is why we are great, that is why we are standing up, and that is why we are Americans who love this country with all of our hearts.

So, let's rise and TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!

LIBERALISM: BARONE: The coming liberal thugocracy

BARONE: The coming liberal thugocracy
Michael Barone
COMMENTARY:

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.

That's what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign e-mails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Mr. Kurtz had been researching Mr. Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago - papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.

Obama fans jammed WGN's phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest e-mails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Mr. Rosenberg's example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One.

Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Mr. Obama that were "false." I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-'02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Mr. Obama's ties to Mr. Ayers.

These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the "fairness doctrine" on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view. The motive was plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can't abide having citizens hear contrary views.

To their credit, some liberal old-timers - like House Appropriations Chairman David Obey - voted against the "fairness doctrine," in line with their longstanding support of free speech. But you can expect the "fairness doctrine" to get another vote if Barack Obama wins and Democrats increase their congressional majorities.

Corporate liberals have done their share in shutting down anti-liberal speech, too. "Saturday Night Live" ran a spoof of the financial crisis that skewered Democrats like House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and liberal contributors Herbert and Marion Sandler, who sold toxic-waste-filled Golden West to Wachovia Bank for $24 billion. Kind of surprising, but not for long. The tape of the broadcast disappeared from NBC's Web site and was replaced with another that omitted the references to Mr. Frank and the Sandlers. Evidently NBC and its parent, General Electric, don't want people to hear speech that attacks liberals.

Then there's the Democrats' "card check" legislation that would abolish secret ballot elections in determining whether employees are represented by unions. The unions' strategy is obvious: Send a few thugs over to employees' homes - we know where you live - and get them to sign cards that will trigger a union victory without giving employers a chance to be heard.

Once upon a time, liberals prided themselves, with considerable reason, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Union organizers in the 1930s and 1940s made the case that they should have access to employees to speak freely to them, and union leaders like George Meany and Walter Reuther were ardent defenders of the First Amendment.

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that once prided themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Mr. Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/13/the-coming-thugocracy/print/