News Busters

Rudy Giuliani Benefits

There is so much I would like to say.. first off that I know that the post from yesterday or early this morning is very long. But I ask you to please read it. You will find the Democrat candidates are spouting the same things they were back in 1964. Only stronger now and they have more support for their ideas.

Next I would ask you to go to:
http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/north_american_union/foreign_privatization_of__u.s._highways_2007052160/

What is this about you may ask... well it is about our states selling/leasing off our infrastructure.. Remember the bridge falling down in St. Louis.. I don't know if that was one of them or not, but it could happen to other bridges.

* The Chicago Skyway, for example, brought $1.83 billion from a Spanish-Australian partnership.

* The 157-mile Indiana tollway, brought $3.85 billion from the same partnership.

* And the state of Texas has recently concluded a deal to sell a Trans-Texas Corridor for $7.2 billion to the same Spanish company who partnered with a Texas construction company.

Actually, these “sales” are long term leases, which is much worse than an outright sale.

* The Chicago Skyway deal is for 99 years.
* The Indiana Tollway is for 75 years.

In what condition will these important roads be when they are returned to government? The folks who celebrate the deals today - and spend the billions - will be pushing up daisies by the time a new crop of government officials will have to explain why the roads have crumbled.

Now you ask where does Rudy Giuliani come in.. well,please go here:
http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/07/0615/art2.html

Pat Choate, has spent the past year studying the NAFTA Superhighway and state and federal governments' desire to privatize America's highways. Choate is known as one of America's foremost economic experts on infrastructure. Twenty-five years ago, he wrote two influential books --"America in Ruins" and "Bad Roads." He alerted America that there was an "infrastructure crisis" coming. It is now squarely upon us.

President Reagan appointed Choate to his task force to develop the policy agenda for his second term. Choate wrote the infrastructure section.

Choate is a native Texan whose family has lived in Ellis County for more than 160 years. He is currently director of the Manufacturing Policy Project. He received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Oklahoma.

In an interview with Manufacturing Technology Choate said:

"Well, I can tell you exactly what they're doing. Macquarie can't put money into a presidential campaign, but Rudy Giuliani can. It's a back-door way to finance the Giuliani campaign for 20-million, 40-million, 50-million bucks. Macquarie wants to own a president who will do tolling all over America. It is phenomenal.
Macquarie is a very shrewd corporation. As the opposition to this highway deal heated up in Texas, Macquarie bought 42 little newspapers, virtually all of which are along the route and most of which opposed the deal editorially. Why not? They can take billions of dollars out of Texas if Gov. Perry gets his way."

A Time for Choosing

As part of a pre-recorded television program titled "Rendezvous with Destiny", broadcast on October 27, 1964. By Ronald Reagan on behalf of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.

.....In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a "greater government activity in the affairs of the people." But they have been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves--and all of the things that I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say "the cold war will end through acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says that the profit motive has become outmoded, it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state; or our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century. Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best. And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government." Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me--the free man and woman of this country--as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"--this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

Now, we have no better example of this than the government's involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85% of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21% increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming is regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we have spent $43 in feed grain program for every bushel of corn we don't grow.

Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater as President would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he will find out that we have had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He will also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress an extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He will find that they have also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn't keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil.

At the same time, there has been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There is now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can't tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore.

Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but who are farmers to know what is best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down.

Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights are so diluted that public interest is almost anything that a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes for the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a "more compatible use of the land." The President tells us he is now going to start building public housing units in the thousands where heretofore we have only built them in the hundreds. But FHA and the Veterans Administration tell us that they have 120,000 housing units they've taken back through mortgage foreclosures. For three decades, we have sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency. They have just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over $30 million on deposit in personal savings in their banks. When the government tells you you're depressed, lie down and be depressed.

We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they are going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer and they've had almost 30 years of it, shouldn't we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?

But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater, the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we are told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year. Welfare spending is 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We are spending $45 billion on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you will find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those 9 million poor families, we would be able to give each family $4,600 a year, and this added to their present income should eliminate poverty! Direct aid to the poor, however, is running only about $600 per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.

So now we declare "war on poverty," or "you, too, can be a Bobby Baker!" Now, do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add $1 billion to the $45 million we are spending...one more program to the 30-odd we have--and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs--do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain that there is one part of the new program that isn't duplicated. This is the youth feature. We are now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps, and we are going to put our young people in camps, but again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we are going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person that we help $4,700 a year! We can send them to Harvard for $2,700! Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.

But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who had come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning $250 a month. She wanted a divorce so that she could get an $80 raise. She is eligible for $330 a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who had already done that very thing.

Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we are denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we are always "against" things, never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so. We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.

But we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those who depend on them for livelihood. They have called it insurance to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified that it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is $298 billion in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble! And they are doing just that.

A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary...his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee $220 a month at age 65. The government promises $127. He could live it up until he is 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now, are we so lacking in business sense that we can't put this program on a sound basis so that people who do require those payments will find that they can get them when they are due...that the cupboard isn't bare? Barry Goldwater thinks we can.

At the same time, can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provisions for the non-earning years? Should we allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under these programs, which we cannot do? I think we are for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program was now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road.

In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate planned inflation so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar's worth, and not 45 cents' worth?

I think we are for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we are against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among the nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we are against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in Soviet colonies in the satellite nation.

I think we are for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We are helping 107. We spent $146 billion. With that money, we bought a $2 million yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenyan government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought $7 billion worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth. Federal employees number 2.5 million, and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force is employed by the government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury, and they can seize and sell his property in auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier overplanted his rice allotment. The government obtained a $17,000 judgment, and a U.S. marshal sold his 950-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work. Last February 19 at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-time candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, "If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States." I think that's exactly what he will do.

As a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration. Back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his party was taking the part of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his party, and he never returned to the day he died, because to this day, the leadership of that party has been taking that party, that honorable party, down the road in the image of the labor socialist party of England. Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men...that we are to choose just between two personalities.

Well, what of this man that they would destroy? And in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear. Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well, I have been privileged to know him "when." I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I have never known a man in my life I believe so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing.

This is a man who in his own business, before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan, before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn't work. He provided nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by floods from the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.

An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas, and he said that there were a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. Then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, "Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such," and they went down there, and there was this fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in the weeks before Christmas, all day long, he would load up the plane, fly to Arizona, fly them to their homes, then fly back over to get another load.

During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, "There aren't many left who care what happens to her. I'd like her to know I care." This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, "There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life upon that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start." This is not a man who could carelessly send other people's sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all of the other problems I have discussed academic, unless we realize that we are in a war that must be won.

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer--not an easy answer--but simple.

If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace--and you can have it in the next second--surrender.

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand--the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead,"[1] or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.

Thank you very much.

More of This and That

We finally had some snow that stuck.. we have had 3 days and nights of snow, none of which did any sticking. This morning we had 3.5 inches of accumulated snow. Looks like a winter wonderland out there. So pretty.

I see old Jimmy Carter is at it again. Trying to insert himself as a peace maker.. The Jewish leaders are no dumb dumbs.. They told him where to put his olive branch. Nicely of course.

“I told him that the Jewish community, [which] has great respect for his work around the world, is extremely hurt, disappointed and frustrated from his views and that he cannot serve as an honest broker,” Rep. Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat, told Forward.

I see Rudy Giuliani is hobnobbing with Sheldon Adelson.. He is the guy with all the casinos and some 28 billion dollars.

Congress...

We do not need a fight between Arabs and Jews in our Congress.. If they continue this then I suggest we bar them from Congress. How? I don't know, but we need to do it anyway, if they continue to fight and bicker. There are many more important things for them to be at odds with each other than because they are Arabs or Jews.

Issa’s letter angered Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, who Issa singled out in his fund raising letter.

Engel “expressed shock” that a fund raising letter would use another member of Congress’ name, according to The Hill.

“This is unusual and I think it is unfortunate,” Engel said. “I understand as colleagues we are going to have differences but it is inappropriate to use anyone else in a fund raising letter.

Florida
Seems one of the house of Representatives from the State of Florida, Rubio, is suing the Governor of Florida..Crist.

Rubio maintains that Crist’s move “blatantly usurps” the power of the legislature, which was not consulted during the governor’s talks with the tribe.

This is not the first time Crist and Rubio have squared off. The Miami Herald reports: “From property taxes to global warming, Rubio has nipped at Crist’s policies on a variety of fronts to establish himself as a hard-line conservative who is upholding [former Gov.] Jeb Bush’s legacy.”

Bush Rescues Hillary

Friday, November 23, 2007 8:29 PM By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

Just when every poll has Hillary Rodham Clinton slipping, she has gotten a shot in the arm from a very unlikely source: President Bush.

In an interview on Tuesday featuring the first couple and Charles Gibson, the president said of Hillary: "No question, there is no question that Clinton understands pressure better than any of the candidates, you know, in the race because she lived in the White House and sees it first — could see it first-hand."

By saying that she “understands the klieg lights,” Bush lent credence to Hillary’s campaign assertion that she could “hit the ground running” if she were elected president.

Would somebody please explain to us what Bush is doing, touting Hillary just as the rest of America is finally catching on to her artificial, evasive and contrived campaigning style?

This is not the first time Bush has rescued the Clintons. After they left the White House, both the former president and the new senator had low ratings in the polls. Beset by scandal — the White House gifts, the pardons-for-sale, the payments to Hillary’s brothers for pardons, the Hasidic vote-for-pardon scandal, and Bill’s nolo contender plea to obstructing justice — Bill and Hillary were sucking wind.

But, Bush swept in for the rescue, picking the former president off the ash heap of history and elevating him to parity with his father in a two-former-president effort to raise funds for the tsunami victims. By giving him a respected place alongside a former president of unquestioned integrity, Bush gave Clinton a tremendous way to climb out of disgrace and into the limelight.

Then, when the tsunami relief effort was winding down, he re-enlisted former President Clinton to work with his father again on helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Not only did Bush help the Clintons in positive ways, but he let his justice department drop the investigations of the pardons, the gifts, the payments to Hillary’s brothers and the Hasidic vote scandal with no prosecution or plea dealings.

Then Bush let Clinton off the hook another time when the former president’s former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was caught smuggling classified documents relating to 9/11 and the war on terror out of the National Archives in his pockets and socks. The Bush Justice Department accepted a plea deal with Berger which did not require him to say what documents he had taken and why he had swiped them. As a result, we never knew what aspect of the Clinton record on terrorism Berger was so anxious to cover up.

All of this kid glove treatment of the former first couple led to jokes about how George W. and Bill are the two children of President George H.W. Bush. Now the president is going easy on his putative sister-in-law, Hillary.

The fact is that Hillary has no idea what it is like to be president. Unlike Bill, she did not have to face the media daily and could keep them at arms length as she toured the world, acting like a tourist, in carefully contrived photo opportunities. When she was really involved in public policy — during the health reform debate — her insistence on the secrecy of the proceedings led to a federal court order and judgment against her.

Is President Bush deliberately helping Hillary to win the nomination because he feels she would be the easiest one of the Democrats to beat? If he is, he’s making a serious mistake. She is the only Democrat who can bring 10 million new single female voters out of the woodwork to sway the election.

Or, is it an ex-president thing? A kind of exclusive club of former chiefs who treat one another with kindness, civility and bend over backwards to show respect? Whether it is through political miscalculation or elitism that Bush caters to Hillary Clinton, he should stop it. Every day, she bashes him full time on the campaign trail. His kind words for her are so out of place, they are jarring.

President George W. Bush has done quite enough to aid the election of Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States already, thank you. Without his generosity to Bill and his refusal to prosecute matters that could embarrass the Clintons, he bears a great deal of responsibility already for Hillary’s rise to front-runner status in the Democratic primary.

*****

"A kind of exclusive club of former chiefs who treat one another with kindness, civility and bend over backwards to show respect?"
HA!
What about former president Jimmy Carter.. he shows no respect for Bush either, as do neither of the Clintons. In fact Jimmy Carter is so bad, I can only say I would like to; Never mind what I would like to do. So, the question is, do you admire Bush for his "turning the other cheek", or do you want to pick him up and shake him until he sees the light of day? He does have some weird thoughts/actions sometimes. Remember Jimmy Carter and the rabbit that jumped into the boat with him... wonder what he was smoking out in the swamps. Probably one of Castro's cigars, do you think?

Senate Votes To Address U.N. Gun Ban Crusade

Friday, September 07, 2007

With the United Nations continuing its efforts to enact draconian, transnational gun control laws in countries around the world, yesterday the U.S. Senate passed the Foreign Operations appropriations bill, which included an amendment by Senator David Vitter (R-LA) that seeks to address the U.N.’s ongoing international gun ban efforts. By an overwhelming 81-10 vote, the Senate passed Sen. Vitter’s amendment to prevent any funding to foreign organizations that infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of lawful American citizens. Any organization that adopts a policy anathema to the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment would no longer be eligible for U.S. financial assistance—including the U.N. The gun ban issue in the U.N. has been percolating for more than a decade, and while NRA has been successful to date in precluding the U.N. from enacting its anti-freedom agenda, the bureaucrats at Turtle Bay remain committed in their zeal to push for additional restrictions on the rights of free gun owners in the United States and around the globe. Global registration and tracking of firearms would inevitably lead to the global disarmament of free citizens everywhere; something that we cannot and will not let happen. NRA will remain vigilant in monitoring the U.N.’s anti-gun actions and speaking out in the international community in support of Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

The Day After

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was very nice. We had cornish game hens and all the "fixins." It was nice and quiet around here. We read and watched TV. My son called and ended when his rooster wanted attention and pecked him on the leg and drew blood. WEG. =wicked evil grin.

Today is what they call Black Friday, not real sure why. I have never looked it up. Anyway, don't spend all your money in one place buying those Christmas presents. There seems to be a lot of really good deals out there today.

I found a great site for my fellow Texans. it is called Texas Public Policy and can be found at TexasPolicy.com
This issue is all mostly about the school system and what to do about it. Remember when everyone was screaming for smaller class sizes? Well, now it seems bigger is better. The pendulum swings.

In my opinion teachers have to learn that all students do not learn alike and they must be ready to implement new or a variety of ways of teaching their subject. One size does not fit all. Some students may do very well in large classes and others need and demand more attention, therefor smaller classes.. just for starters.

Rush Limbaugh on Thanksgiving

"By the way, I was reading a book on Theodore Roosevelt recently -- I mentioned this at the top of the show, but I want to go through this again. How many of you believe that we actually swindled Indians when we bought Manhattan from them? I've always thought that 'til I read this book. It's called Commissioner Roosevelt: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt and the New York City Police, 1895 to 1897, by H. Paul Jeffers. And here is the relevant paragraph: "A persuasive case can be made that the city of New York began with a swindle. For generations school children have been taught that a slick trick was played on unsuspecting Indians by the director of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Minuit. In 1626 he purchased the island of 'Manna-hatin' for sixty gilders worth of trinkets, about twenty-four dollars. What Minuit did not know at the time, however, was that his masterful real estate deal had been struck with the Canarsie tribe, residents of Long Island; they held no title to the land they sold to the Dutch. In due course, the intruders from Amsterdam who thought they had pulled a sharp one on the locals were forced into negotiating a second, more costly deal with the true landlords." So it was the Indians that pulled the real estate scam when they sold Manhattan because the ones that sold it didn't own it. We got taken. I have to straighten all of this out on this type of show on this day.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, the real story of Thanksgiving: "On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible," and this is what's not taught. This is what's left out. "The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work. But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford's own wife – died of either starvation, sickness or exposure. "When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well." They were collectivists! Now, "Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. "He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. ... Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson," every kid gets. "If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future." Here's what he wrote: "'The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,' Bradford wrote. "'For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice.'" That was thought injustice. "Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result?" 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, "for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.' Bradford doesn't sound like much of a Clintonite, does he? Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? ... In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves. ... So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians.

"The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the 'Great Puritan Migration.'" Now, aside from this program, have you heard this before? Is this "being taught to children -- and if not, why not? I mean, is there a more important lesson one could derive from the Pilgrim experience than this?" What if Bill and Hillary Clinton had been exposed to these lessons in school? Do you realize what we face in next year's election is the equivalent of people who want to set up these original collectivists communes that didn't work, with nobody having incentive to do anything except get on the government dole somehow because the people running the government want that kind of power. So the Pilgrims decided to thank God for all of their good fortune. And that's Thanksgiving. And read George Washington's first Thanksgiving address and count the number of times God is mentioned and how many times he's thanked. None of this is taught today. It should be. Have a happy Thanksgiving, folks. You deserve it. Do what you can to be happy, and especially do what you can to be thankful, because in this country you have more reasons than you've ever stopped to consider."

END TRANSCRIPT

17 reasons America needs a recession

Think positive, this 'slow motion train wreck' is good for the U.S.

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

Last Update: 6:53 PM ET Nov 19, 2007

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, America needs a recession. Bernanke and Paulson won't admit it. And investors hate them. We're all trapped in outdated 1990s wishful thinking about a "new economy" and "perpetual growth."

But the truth is, not only is a recession coming, America needs a recession. So think positive: Let's focus on 17 benefits from this recession.

To begin with, recession may be an understatement. Jeremy Grantham's GMO firm manages $150 billion. In his midyear report before the credit crisis hit he predicted: "In 5 years I expect that at least one major 'bank' (broadly defined) will have failed and that up to half the hedge funds and a substantial percentage of the private-equity firms in existence today will have simply ceased to exist."

He was "watching a very slow motion train wreck." By October, it was accelerating: "Train hits end of track at full speed."

Also back in August, The Economist took a hard look at the then emerging subprime/credit crisis: "The policy dilemma facing the Fed may not be a choice of recession or no recession. It may be between a mild recession now, and a nastier one later."

However, the publication did admit that "even if a recession were in America's long-term economic interest, it would be political suicide" for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to suggest it.

Then The Economist posed the big question: Yes, "central banks must stop recessions from turning into deep depressions. But it may be wrong to prevent them altogether."

Wrong to prevent a recession? Why? Because recessions are a natural and necessary part of the business cycle.

Economists love Schumpeter's "creative destruction:" Obsolete firms get destroyed and capital released, making way for new technologies, new businesses, like Google. And yet, nobody's willing to apply Schumpeter's theory to the entire economy ... and admit recessions are a natural part of the business cycle.

Instead, everyone persists in the childlike fairy tale that "all growth is good" and "all recessions are bad," a bad hangover of the '90s "new economy" ideology. So for the folks at the Fed, Treasury and Wall Street, "eternal growth" is still America's mantra.

Unfortunately, the American investors' brain has also developed this blind obsession with "growth-at-all-costs," coupled with a deadly fear of all recessions, as if recessions are a lethal super-bug more powerful than Iran with a bomb.

Our values are distorted: It's OK to be greedy and overshoot the market on the upside -- grab too many assets, take on too much debt, make consumer spending a religion, live beyond our means, ignite hyperinflation along the way. Growth is good, even in excess.

And yet, recessions are a no-no that drives politicians, economists and investors ballistic.

Well, folks, you can block all this from your mind, you can argue that recessions are not a part of Schumpeter's thinking, that they are inconsistent with your political ideology. But the fact is, we let the housing/credit boom become a massive bubble, it popped and a recession is coming. So think positive, consider some of the benefits of a recession:

1. Purge the excesses of the housing boom

No, it's not heartless. Not like wartime calculations of "acceptable collateral damage." Yes, The Economist admits "the economic and social costs of recession are painful: unemployment, lower wages and profits, and bankruptcy." But we can't reverse Greenspan's excessive rate cuts that created the housing/credit crisis. It'll be painful for everyone, especially millions of unlucky, mislead homeowners who must bear the brunt of Wall Street's greed and Washington's policy failures.

2. U.S. dollar wake-up call

Reverse the dollar's free fall and revive our global credibility. Warnings from China, France, Iran, Venezuela and supermodel Gisele haven't fazed Washington. Recession will.

3. Write-offs

Expose Wall Street's shadow-banking system. They're playing with $300 trillion in derivatives and still hiding over $100 billion of toxic off-balance sheet asset-backed securities, plus another $300 billion hidden worldwide. A lack of transparency is killing our international credibility. Write it all off, now!

4. Budgeting

Force fiscal restraint back into government. America has been living way beyond its means for years: A recession will cut back revenues at all levels of government and cutbacks will encourage balanced budgeting.

5. Overconfidence

A recession will wake up short-term investors playing the market. In bull markets traders ride the rising tide, gaining false confidence that they're financial geniuses. Downturns bruise egos but encourage rational long-term strategies.

6. Ratings

Rating agencies have massive conflicts of interest; they aren't doing their job. They're supposed to represent the investors, but favor Corporate America, which pays for the reports. Shake them up.

7. China

Trigger an internal recession in China. Make it realize America's not going into debt forever to finance China's domestic growth and military war machine. A recession will also slow recycling their reserves through sovereign funds to our equities.

8. Oil

Force the energy and auto industries to get serious about emission standards and reducing oil dependency.

9. Inflation

Expose the "core inflation" farce Washington uses to sugarcoat reality.

10. Moral hazard

Slow the Fed from cutting interest rates to bail out speculators.

11. War costs

Force Washington to get honest about how it's going to pay for our wars, other than supplemental bills that are worse than Enron-style debt financing. [My own opinion, that no one listens to, is for the US Gov. to sell 20-25 year "War Bonds" Let us pay for the war as we go. It was good enough for WWII, it is even better now.]

12. CEO pay

Further expose CEO compensation that's now about five hundred times the salaries of workers, compared with about 40 times a generation ago.

13. Privatization

Stop the privatization of our federal government to no-bid contractors and high-priced mercenary armies fighting our wars.

14. Entitlements

Force Congress to get serious about the coming Social Security/Medicare disaster. With boomers now retiring, this problem can only get worse: A recession now could avoid a depression later.

15. Consumers

Yes, we're all living way beyond our means, piling up excessive credit-card debt, encouraged by government leaders who tell us "deficits don't matter." Recessions will pressure individuals to reduce spending and increase savings.

16. Regulation

Lobbyists have replaced regulation. Extreme theories of unrestrained free trade plus zero regulation just don't work; proven by our credit crisis, hedge funds' nondisclosures, private-equity taxation, rating agencies failures, junk home mortgages, and more. Get real, folks.

17. Sacrifice

"We have not seen a nationwide decline in housing like this since the Great Depression, says Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf. As individuals and as a nation Americans have always performed best in crises, like the Depression or WWII, times when we're all asked to make sacrifices. Pampering us with interest-rate cuts and tax cuts during the Iraq and Afghan wars may have stimulated the economy temporarily, but they delayed the real damage of the '90s stock bubble while setting the stage for this new subprime/credit crisis.

Wake up, the train wrecked. Time to think positive, find solutions, demand sacrifices

Money Calculators

I found this this morning.. I thought you might be interested.

Calculators

• How Can I Save a Million Dollars?
  
• How Much Should I Save Each Month?
  
• How Much Do I Need to Fund My Retirement?
  

All Calculators

Whatever Happened to Integration??

A number of journalism organizations are protesting a provision in the pending 2008 farm bill that includes an unusual secrecy provision for information in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

The NAIS is a database that tracks livestock from birth to market to help protect consumers from unsafe food and prevent disease outbreaks. The voluntary system makes it easier for the Feds to track a sick animal from farm to farm and from farm to market. The version of the bill sitting in the Senate could make it a criminal offense to publish information like the location of a feed lot, even if it were already in the public domain.

Of course, the Feds worry that farmers won't sign up for the program if they think their names might be splashed all over the media someday.

Here is the NAIS press office's Web site, which might be a good place to turn to in order to out why the Feds think the information should remain private.

Those groups fighting the legislation include the Society of Environmental Journalists [PDF], the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the National Press Foundation, and UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc.


We have Black and Hispanic Police Associations
We have Black and Hispanic legislatures
We have Black schools.. and the list goes on and on.

It is as if they all have different problems.. aren't they human, don't they need work, sometimes their spouses give them problems, their children misbehave, don't they need a place to live, food on the table, clothes on their backs... like us folks do? Anything else can be worked out so why segregate themselves from the rest of us and wonder why they are treated so differently.

Maybe Mr. Edwards is right, we are a nation divided, but who is doing the dividing? The politicians seem to like it that way, but the people don't, so why not try some real integration and tell the politicians to take a flying leap.

The UN and its sustainable development

II. Land Issues and Property Rights

Freedom 21 illustrates that the United Nations bases its concept of sustainable development on the misguided belief that the state should be the principal agent to both safeguard the environment and reduce poverty by managing property rights and the marketplace.

Tragically, this belief is fatally flawed. Numerous studies in the twenty-first century reveal that wealth creation is dependent on well defined, legal private property rights enforced with minimal corruption.

Property rights of landowners enhance true sustained development while common ownership or excessive regulation diminishes it. There exists a positive correlation between the wealth of a nation’s people and its ability to protect the environment. Likewise, property rights provide landowners an incentive not to harm their land. By doing so, property rights preserve and enhance people’s dignity and standard of living year after year.

Property rights allow landowners to be creative in finding new ways to use limited resources,while simultaneously protecting the environment. The wide diversity of societal goals within a free market, in conjunction with scientifically based natural resource management practices, invariably results in a good cross section of biodiversity and thus sustainability of natural resources as well as human dignity and progress.Protection of private property rights is therefore a sacrosanct duty of government.

United Nations-style sustainable development practices call for vast tracts of wild lands and tightly managed human activity. Yet these drastic actions are necessary only in rare instances and are harmful and counterproductive in most circumstances. There is no basis for creating vast tracts of interconnecting wild lands as most current sustainable development practices recommend.

Biodiversity and habitat health can be optimized using existing scientifically proven management practices. Research clearly shows that time-tested scientific management practices enhance biodiversity and habitat health. Natural resource uses that provide maximum benefits to national economies, local communities, and human dignity/justice, limited only by the historically proven common law principle of harm and nuisance, should be the emphasized goal.

A Thanksgiving Story

My cousin, Larry, from Mobile, AL, that I met during my genealogy research sent me the following story.

First I would like to say that I have sooo much to be grateful for. My family, my health, the fact that I have a decent home, and we are not starving. And for the great friends we have made throughout the years, both in person and on the internet. I wonder at the wonderful women that I have met in person that I found on the internet that were also my cousins..Anna and Marifred. Was I blessed or just lucky?… I say Blessed..That we have our pets, and all the unseen and unrecognized blessings that we have received, I am very Thankful.. I feel that God has truly been good to us.

Now for the Thanksgiving Story

It was very cold and a light snow was falling as young Jimmy Dorche piloted his Ford Escort down the street toward the city park. Snow on Thanksgiving was a rarity in this part of the country and it caused almost as much excitement as the traditional turkey dinner, the traditional afternoon of football, or the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on television. But none of these things were on 17-year-old Jimmy's mind at the moment as he carefully maneuvered his car over the blacktop.

He had his own tradition to tend to and what he was looking for he would probably find in the deserted park. Usually bustling with activity, even on cold days, the park was practically empty now. Everyone was home with friends and family enjoying their Thanksgiving turkey. Jimmy was tempted to have a bit more dinner himself, but his second helping sat on the car seat beside him along with a big hunk of Mom's homemade pumpkin pie and a Thermos bottle of hot coffee. Jimmy wouldn't succumb to temptation and eat more today.

For the past two years, Jimmy had established a tradition for himself. He had never suffered a hungry day in his life. The son of an unwed teenaged mother, he was given up for adoption as an infant and was taken in by a Christian family. When he was fifteen, to honor his Lord as well as his parents, he decided to take his second helping of Thanksgiving dinner to the park to share with a homeless man or woman.

His first year, he had found a man who had been on his own since he was thirteen. In the summer he worked odd jobs, but in winter he lived at the local rescue mission where he earned an occasional dollar by cleaning up the place.

The second year, he shared his Thanksgiving dinner with an elderly man whose wife had died long before and his children had moved to another city. They never contacted their father nor offered to help him in any way. 'I reckon they're ashamed of me,' the rheumy old man had said. Throughout the year, Jimmy often thought about the two men. He had gone to the mission to try to find them, but they were gone without a trace.

Now Jimmy wondered who he would meet this Thanksgiving. As soon as he arrived at the park, he saw a ragged woman sitting hunched over on the bench of one of the heavy concrete picnic tables provided by the city. She wore an old battered red coat and a dark wool cap over her matted, graying hair. Close beside her was the tattered bag that carried all her worldly possessions.

Jimmy pulled the car into a parking place and got out. He took the covered dishes and the Thermos bottle from the front seat and began walking toward the bag lady. When he stood in front of her, she jumped as if she had suddenly been awakened from dozing. She looked up at Jimmy. Suddenly her eyes brightened and she started to speak but, instead, she lowered her head and stared at the frozen ground. 'God bless you, ma'am,' Jimmy said, smiling. 'I have brought you some Thanksgiving dinner. Would you do me the honor of sharing it with me.'

The woman looked at the food. She was very hungry -- she hadn't eaten since last night's dinner at the mission. She nodded and Jimmy served her food, uncovered the plates, put a napkin and silverware on the cold concrete picnic table, and poured her a streaming cup of coffee from the Thermos. Then he watched her as she ate. Although it was very cold in the park, he felt warm inside. The God of love was clearly at work within him.

He loved his tradition and he intended to continue it -- and more -- for the rest of his life. When the woman had finished, he cleared the table and put the dishes into a pile. He poured another cup of coffee into her Styrofoam cup and closed the Thermos. Then he reached into his wallet and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. He thrust the money into her gnarled hand. Then he reached over and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

'May God richly bless you, ma'am,' he said softly. 'And thank you for giving me the honor of sharing my Thanksgiving dinner with you.' With that, Jimmy picked up his dishes and returned to the car.

She had stayed in the city purposely to see him grow, but remained carefully in the background and out of sight so she would not embarrass him or cause him pain. Her own life was a shambles -- time spent in state mental hospitals and, at other times, living on the streets. But she had seen him grow into manhood and was very proud of his many accomplishments. Today, she had longed to tell him who she was, but could not bring herself to do it. Instead she thanked God that He had so richly blessed her today, in spite of her trials.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She had seen her son on Thanksgiving and he had loved his mother.

'The greatest among you will be your servant.' (Matthew 23:11 NIV)

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

A fun quiz for you... I got 10 out of 10.. what did you get.? Leave a comment in the comment box.. just click on "comment" First click on "The It's Its There Their They're Quiz.. it will take you to the website with the quiz. Then come back here and leave your comment. Thank you sooo much.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

One Thing and Another

Last night my son sent me a picture he took. That prompted me to go searching for a picture of the same thing... I found one.. please notice the "expression" on the face. The first one is not a happy camper being held by the tail. The second, the one my son sent, has a smilie face, in anticipation of his frog for dinner.. Well the second picture didn't come out as I had planned. Let me try again, see if I can fix it. Nope, not right now.. will post it anyway and see if I can fix it later. Maybe you can make out the detail when it is posted. Yep, just click on the picture!
















Did you watch the debates last night? Poor Edwards. He let Hillary have it and then she put him back in his corner. She "admonished him for “mud-throwing.” Because you are not allowed to challenge New York’s Junior Senator, her rivals and the press back off, let her have her zone of delicate flower womanhood, while she rolls over all of them. If anybody raises questions about her positions or the fact that she’s flip-flopped or that she’s incapable of standing for anything beyond her own ambitions, they are accused of throwing mud, victimizing a woman, and “swiftboating.”

Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd—the most seasoned guys on the stage—-just shake their heads in disbelief that they’re losing to this hack.
Can't you see it when the we really get down to election time! She is going to be the poor picked on woman, because she is a woman, and the issues will mean nothing. Again, she will play the part of "Victim".. to the hilt.
The Republican opponent is going to have rough going.
Where oh where is John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald or Charles J. Guiteau or Leon F. Czolgosz when we need them? I shouldn't say such things should I? No, guess not. But it might get her out of her misery. Poor lady.

Speaking of the UN... Have you seen this?

United Nations to Approve
Flawed Global Warming Report

CHICAGO, Illinois - November 16, 2007) Earlier today, political delegates to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agreed to a "synthesis" document that summarizes three scientific reports finalized this year on climate change science, impacts, and responses. It is expected the report will be officially adopted by the United Nations on Saturday, November 17.

Experts contacted by The Heartland Institute offered the following background information and comments about the IPCC process and the "synthesis" document. You may quote from this statement or contact the experts directly at the phone numbers and email addresses provided below.

"IPCC is neither an objective nor authoritative panel. IPCC participants are politically selected by participating United Nations members. Many IPCC participants are not even scientists. Lead authors include the staff of far-left activist groups such as Environmental Defense and Greenpeace.

"IPCC's 2,500 participants pale in comparison to the 19,000-plus scientists who have signed their names in agreement with a powerful rebuttal of alarmist global warming theory. This scientific summary, available at http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm, exposes the flawed and biased IPCC conclusions.

"Indeed, IPCC itself is deeply split on the final IPCC report. IPCC reviewers submitted literally tens of thousands of criticisms, dissents, and suggested corrections that the relatively small number of lead authors who control the final report refused to incorporate into the final document.

"This IPCC report is little more than the consensus of a relatively small number of lead authors and government bureaucrats who feel free to ignore the true science."

James M. Taylor
Senior Fellow
The Heartland Institute
taylor@heartland.org
941/776-5690

"It is amazing that any sensible scientists can put mathematical models and selective data ahead of common sense to understand that man has little measurable impact on his climate, and no possibility whatsoever of altering in a controlling manner.

"It sounds silly to say, 'it's the sun, stupid," but when one looks at variations in the sun's intensity, cosmic rays, solar winds, Earth's elliptical orbit, the changing declination of Earth's axis, and similar heating patterns on Mars and the moons of Jupiter, it is difficult to take seriously any group of people who arrogantly believe mankind is a controlling influence.

"It reminds one of Copernicus's difficulty in convincing the church that the Earth revolved around the sun, rather than the reverse."

Jay Lehr, Ph.D.
Science Director
The Heartland Institute
lehr@heartland.org
740/368-9393

News
I am getting fed up with O'Reilly's stuff... he asks a guest a question and the guest says 10 words and O'Reilly says, I know all that, and you are wrong, now I believe blah blah blah and I am right you know. The listener/watcher never hears what the guest has to say. With Hannity and Colmes 4 of them get to talking at once and you can't hear any of them. I told hubby the other day, if I ever go to trial over something be sure you put Colmes on the jury... he is one of the real believers in "Judge not least ye be Judged" Of course we are told we are going to be Judged ... on Judgment Day. Anyway, I found Glenn Beck. He is on Headline News.. At least he lets his guest talk.

I am reading an interesting book.. "Blacklisted by History", by M. Stanton Evans. It is interesting, not a real adventure page turner, but it does have a bit of that too. Maybe we will find out that our "liberal leftist" really are RED. Maybe some really don't even know it.

Over in Deming they are having a big Rally.. sounds very interesting. I wish we would have one here just like it.
The agenda for this rally is threefold:

We are going to speak on the importance of third political party candidates;
* why the false adage of "wasting your vote"
is a political ploy to stop the people from getting involved and keeping the sheep in their pens--you will leave with a new attitude and possibly even get a little irritated by the truth.

* You will also learn what the U.N. through their Agenda 21 program is doing in our schools to not educate, but indoctrinate our children and what we must do to stop these things from happening.

* You will learn what the difference in a democracy and a republic; you will learn the difference between rights and privileges.
Which do you have? after this Freedom Rally, you will know.

Huge sigh..

Blah Day

This has been sort of a Blah day... About 6-8 weeks ago my little cockatiel died. We had him for 28-29 years. His little mate was soooo lonely. She chirped every time I got out of her sight. My grandson #2 knew of a lady that had birds and as a matter of fact took his birds. So, I tried to get in contact with her. She never returned my phone calls. Then I decided I would try a radio program called "Let's Trade Even" Then I thought someone might take her that knew nothing about birds and the desire for a bird might last a month or so and then she would end up being shuttled around to who knows where or how she will be treated. So, I vetoed that. Decided I would keep her. Then yesterday without really thinking about it, I called a vet here in town. Told the lady what I was looking for.. she got excited and said she would take the bird. She has one male cockatiel, that sings the Andy Griffith tune, and an Amazon Gray. So, hubby took her off to the vets office. They trimmed her flight wings and her nails and the lady took her home. She said this morning that she had the thunder bit out of her last night, but that was okay.. time would take care of it. So, that has made me feel better. I am sure she has a good home and will be kindly treated.

A friend sent me this website...http://earmarkwatch.org/
A very interesting site.. you can find out how much pork your Representatives brought home.
What it was for and etc.

We woke up to a very cold morning. I had 30°F. Thank goodness very little wind. Just a slight puff now and then. My chickens were not very active either. It was a bone chilling cold. I got out my new "neck warmer". Boy is that nice. Works well too.. you can pull it up over your ears and nose and mouth and still have your neck nice and warm. Last year with all the snow and ice I never wore more than an old padded flannel shirt jacket out side and the cold didn't bother me.. but this morning it was COLD!!!!

For What it is Worth

Investment Advice From A Chicago Pimp
By Graham Summers

In light of the current market's madness, it's time to revisit our old friend Iceberg Slim.

Iceberg Slim reached infamy as one of Chicago's most successful pimps. By the time he retired at the age of 42, he'd amassed a fortune. According to his publisher, he went on to sell more than 6 million books. He later attributed his success to maintaining his cool in any and all situations. "The best pimps," he wrote, "keep a steel lid on their emotions and I was one of the iciest."

It's advice we could all do well to heed right now…

There's been a fundamental shift in investor sentiment since this summer. This time last year, the market was unstoppable, rallying day after day. Bad news only resulted in a slight hiccup – if it did anything at all.

Today, however, investors have little confidence in the market. In fact, they're more worried than they've been in more than three years. Have a look at the Chicago Board of Options Volatility Index (VIX): the bellwether for investor confidence.

When the VIX spikes, investors are nervous about the market's future, and they bid up the price of "insurance" in the form of options. When the VIX plummets, investors are calm. As you can see from the chart , investors are not "keeping a steel lid on their emotions." Instead, they're spooked, big time.

Corporate insiders, on the other hand, are taking a page right out of Iceberg Slim's book, and calmly buying in the face of these corrections. The sell-to-buy ratio for the last week was a bullish 1:14 - anything below 1:20 is bull territory. In terms of actual insider buyers and sellers, there are 1.5 sellers for every one buyer: again, very bullish.

These guys aren't traders, nor are they looking to make a quick buck.

Because of the short-swing profit rule, insiders are required to hold on to the shares they purchase for a minimum of six months. So the guys who are buying right now aren't short-term traders. They're seeing value no one else is, and they're looking to hold their positions well into next year.

So while everyone else panics, the guys who run these companies are slowly loading up on the two most beaten up sectors: finance and consumer discretionary. Does this mean we'll see a big year-end rally in these sectors? Not necessarily. But insiders are definitely betting that their businesses will do well.

Here is a short list of companies with insider support:

Company Symbol Sector Insider Buying World Acceptance WRLD Credit Services $10.1 million Western Alliance Bancorp WAL Regional Bank $4.2 million American Eagle Outfitters AEO Clothing Retail $24.8 million Peb Boys PBY Auto Parts $10.6 million

What happens with the broader market is anyone's guess... but if you're looking to buy shares when most folks are panicking, this list is a good place to start.

Good trading,