Open Education lacking in the US

The United States is often reputed to be one of the most advanced nations when it comes to education. While this can easily be argued when compared to the achievements of the people from many "underprivileged" nations, there is a trend that is becoming more noticeable as each new year passes.

Education standards have fallen to a level that would terrify some of our grandparents and great-grandparents. News feeds are more and more frequently reporting that schools are lowering test requirements to benefit those who won't learn, and school boards are focusing their attention toward frivolous side matters, rather than the core skills of reading, writing, and general mathematics.

Among the differences noted when comparing the United States with several other countries is that most of these nations that pose such an academic challenge have gone the extra mile in making higher education available to the masses. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, the Czech Republic, China, Japan, and many other countries have either a central institution or a collection of state-level colleges that participate in an Open University concept.

With the use of the Internet these countries have taken the step into the 21st century by digitizing textbooks, even taking 2 or 3 year old textbooks that are no longer used in the classrooms, digitizing them and making them available to the public. Some also employ videos of lectures no longer used, and posting them on their websites, or open sites such as YouTube. Students register, some might pay a small fee to use the material, then they would either read the digitized material or watch the lecture. To earn credit, they would log in to the website, download a test for each video of lesson, take the test, and upload it back to the site where the computer would grade it. There is no need for instructor/student communication. The only staff is there to monitor the online sites. The United States stands alone in its refusal to offer open education on a public level.

The fact is that there are a lot of students who could earn a college degree this way, but they could never afford to attend college through traditional means. Fiance, family concerns, jobs, and health are only a few reasons why hundreds, if not thousands, of people can never make use of the traditional college setting.

If there isn't a score of professorial instructors jealously guarding the information used by a college who would insist upon being paid 6-figure overtime or royalties when their lectures are uploaded rather than personally attended, they don't consider that education. Both the institutions and the professors guard their lectures as if they were fully copyrighted.

These schools have even lobbied Congress to pass laws which would allow them to restrict and, or prevent, a US student from using a degree earned from one of these Open Universities. There are now several small colleges capable of granting degrees to students at very low cost, and in a relatively short time, but through these lobbying efforts, these schools are labeled “degree mills.”

Not only are there some fine schools in the country that would not only be enriched by an Open University experience, but it would certainly enrich the minds of countless students. And for the richest country in the world to be so selfish is a sad commentary, indeed.

Is this progress?

Can You Pass This Final 8th-Grade Exam from 1895?

This is the final exam you had to pass to graduate from the 8th grade in 1895.

I remember a time when many grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education. I used to think how sad it was that these elderly people were so educationally deprived in their youth. Educationally deprived? Perhaps not. I wonder how many college graduates today could pass an eighth-grade final exam from 1895?

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas , USA. These questions were taken from the original examination on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , Kansas.

Take the test and see if you would have graduated with the eighth grade class in 1895.

GRAMMAR (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,' 'play,' and 'run'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation..
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

ARITHMETIC (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet Long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs, what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs for tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7percent per annum.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft long at $20 per metre?
8... Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. HISTORY (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus .
3.. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States ...
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

ORTHOGRAPHY (Time, one hour) * Do you even know what this is?

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7 Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

GEOGRAPHY (Time, one hour)
1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America .
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St.. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco .
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each..
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

How did you do? This is a telling example of how education has evolved over the years.

Don't blame the Super Committee

Don't blame the Super Committee for not being able to cut spending. They cut $2 Trillion over 10 years six months ago, and now they can't cut $1 Trillion over 10 years now.
A few important facts should be remembered:
FDR created the Welfare State in 1933. Today we call it the Nanny State. 8 years later, in 1941 the program was broke.
Lyndon Johnson created the Great Society, which sealed the welfare state. It also failed.
Richard Nixon's wage and price freezes were supposed to help balance the economy. Without a tax freeze, the government could still swindle the American people. Another epic failure.
Jimmy Carter had his "stagflation," and his Community Revitalization Act which opened Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans to people who couldn't afford them. During his 4 years we had a 20% prime rate, the highest in American history, and the deepest recession since WWII.
Ronald Reagan had an 8 year battle with the ghosts of the past, and an uphill fight against politicians on both sides of the aisle. When he left office there was a plan in place to pay off the national debt within 35 years, and reverse the trends of the past 40 years. Unemployment was at a 20th century low of 5%, inflation dropped to 4.7%, 17 million jobs had been created, and fewer companies moved overseas. Reaganomics had a simple 3-tier plan. Cut taxes, reduce spending, and stop borrowing.
Bill Clinton gave us one of the biggest tax increases, and one of the biggest single administration foreign debts in American history.
G. W. Bush made a weak attempt at cutting taxes. He tried his hand at Reaganomics, but he forgot to cut spending. Until '06 he at least kept his failures somewhat in control, but in the 2 years after the '06 elections, all bets were off with a tax and spend congress.
Today we have Barack Obama. What can I say. America has moved closer to Leninist Socialism and seen more money spent in such a short time than any administration in history. He is fond of saying "I inherited a $1.3 Trillion deficit from my predecessor." Unfortunately, like every other tax and spend progressive, he only tells one side of the story. He doesn't tell you of his record setting spending spree. Mr. Obama grouses about $1.3 Trillion in January, 2009. Let's look at this a little more closely:
$787 Billion Stimulus: Failed.
$525 Billion Bank & Corporation Bailout: Failed.
$410 Billion Omnibus Spending: Failed.
 $60 Billion GM, Chrysler Bailout: Failed.
  $8 Billion S-Chip Program: Failed.
  $3 Billion Cash for Clunkers: Failed.
$1.793 Billion Total. He complains about inheriting $1.3 Trillion from an 8 year administration, and ignores the fact that his administration spent nearly $1.8 Trillion in just 2 years. On top of that, new unemployment is up more than 4%.
Don't blame the Super Committee for not being able to cut spending. The Super Committee is made up of members of Congress. The very same people who gave us the crisis we are in now.
Republicans want to cut spending and taxes.
Democrats want to raise taxes and entitlement spending.
If nothing is cut, nothing is saved.

Not Democracy, Inverted Totalitarianism

Inverted totalitarianism is a term coined by political philosopher Sheldon Wolin to describe an "ideal type" government. Wolin uses the term to describe the government of the United States as it has evolved since World War II. Wolin contrasts the inverted totalitarianism of the United States with the totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union.#1, #2

Totalitarianism and superpowers

Since Aristotle, three archetypal political forms were broadly discussed: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. A particular state could be a hybrid of these forms, and each form had an associated "pathological" form: tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy, respectively. "Liberal democracy" came into widespread use during the twentieth century, signifying a hybrid of the democratic and aristocratic forms: democracy tempered by a constitution which de facto delegated political power to the elites.#3

By the middle of the twentieth century, it was recognized that two new political forms had appeared. Hannah Arendt – among others – argued that the governments of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with their ability to control every aspect of society, could not be understood in terms of the old typology; the name of this new form would be totalitarianism.#4 With the emergence of a bipolar world with two powers dominating their own sphere of influence, the term "superpower" came into wide use. Superpowers were something new, because they possessed power that was qualitatively different from that of other states. In addition to their possessing vast nuclear arsenals, their being involved in an ideological struggle with each other led to each being in a state of permanent military mobilization, something that was new for countries in a time of peace (hence the term "Cold War"). Each superpower possessed extraterritorial power to influence countries within its sphere of influence: The Soviet Union mostly through military occupation, and the United States through its domination of multilateral institutions that were set up at the end of World War II.#5 With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world's sole Superpower (or hyperpower). Wolin capitalizes the word "Superpower" to mark the United States' uniqueness as being an actual form of government and not an ideal type.

Inverted totalitarianism and managed democracy

Given the transformations that the United States has undergone during the military mobilization required to fight the Axis powers, and during the subsequent campaign of containing the Soviet Union during the Cold War, does the United States continue to resemble a liberal democracy domestically, or is it itself taking on totalitarian tendencies? Wolin suggests that the latter possibility is closer to the truth:

    While the versions of totalitarianism represented by Nazism and Fascism consolidated power by suppressing liberal political practices that had sunk only shallow cultural roots, the United States represents a drive towards totality that draws from the setting where liberalism and democracy have been established for more than two centuries. It is Nazism turned upside-down, “inverted totalitarianism.” While it is a system that aspires to totality, it is driven by an ideology of the cost-effective rather than of a “master race” (Herrenvolk), by the material rather than the “ideal.”#6
There are three main ways in which inverted totalitarianism is the inverted form of classical totalitarianism. First, whereas in Nazi Germany the state dominated economic actors, in inverted totalitarianism corporations and their lobbying dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This isn't considered corruption, but "normal".#7
Second, while the Nazi regime aimed at the constant political mobilization of the population, with its Nuremberg rallies, Hitler Youth, and so on, inverted totalitarianism aims for the mass of the population to be in a persistent state of political apathy. The only type of political activity expected or desired from the citizenry is voting. Low electoral turnouts are favorably received as an indication that the bulk of the population has given up hope that the government will ever help them.#8 

Third, while the Nazis openly mocked democracy, the United States maintains the conceit that it is the model of democracy for the whole world:#9 Wolin writes:

Inverted totalitarianism reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but a politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash.#10

Managed democracy

Wolin calls this form of democracy, which is sanitized of the political, managed democracy. Managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control".#11 Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state through the continuous employment of public relations techniques.#12

This brings us to one major respect in which the United States resembles Nazi Germany without an inversion: the essential role that propaganda plays in the system. Whereas the production of propaganda was crudely centralized in Nazi Germany, in the United States it is left to highly concentrated media corporations, thus maintaining the illusion of a "free press". Dissent is allowed, although the corporate media serves as a filter, allowing most people, with limited time available to keep themselves apprised of current events, only to hear points of view which the corporate media deems to be "serious".#13

The United States has two main totalizing dynamics. The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the Global War on Terror and in its doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist its domination.#14 The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the population to economic "rationalization", with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society.#15 (Thus, neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism.) The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, thus making it less likely that they will become politically active, and thus helping to maintain the first dynamic.#16

References
1.   ^ Chris Hedges, "Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction"
2.   ^ Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
3.   ^ Wolin 2004, pp. 557–558.
4.   ^ Villa 2000, pp. 2–3.
5.   ^ Wolin 2004, pp. 558–560.
6.   ^ Wolin 2004, p. 591.
7.   ^ Wolin 2008, pp. 51,140.
8.   ^ Wolin 2008, p. 64.
9.   ^ Wolin 2008, p. 52.
10.  ^ Wolin 2008, p. 66.
11.  ^ Wolin 2008, p. 47.
12.  ^ Wolin 2008, p. 60.
13.  ^ Wolin 2004, p. 594.
14.  ^ Wolin 2008, pp. 82–88.
15.  ^ Wolin 2008, pp. 27,64–65.
16.  ^ Wolin 2008, p. 195.

Bibliography
    Villa, Dana Richard, ed (2000). The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt. ISBN 0521645719.

    Wolin, Sheldon S. (2004). Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (expanded ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691126275.

    Wolin, Sheldon S. (2008). Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691135665.

External links
    Inverted Totalitarianism - Article by Sheldon Wolin published in The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030519/wolin

    Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled - Review by Chalmers Johnson of Democracy Incorporated.http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9031
    
    http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/02/16/chris-hedges-the-us-government-is-inverted-totalitarianism-2/

Is Barack Obama the Antichrist? Proof ???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcbloBA2Lek
The author of this video intends that in Luke 10:18, which reads "And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." actually means "And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall like baraq from bamah."

This video is wrong on so many levels, and I think it is intentionally false and misleading.
First and foremost, there is no such thing as Strong's Numbers Online Bible Dictionary, as is indicated in the screenshots in the video.
Second, the narrator has his languages confused.
CLAIM: Aramaic is the most ancient form of Hebrew.
FACT: Aramaic is not an ancient form of Hebrew. It's an Afro-Asian language that is Canaanite in origin, and is 3,000 years old. This puts the origin of the language in the time frame of the captivity of Israel and Judah in Babylon. Most of the minor prophets of the Old Testament from that point onward are written in Aramaic. In the New Testament, Aramaic is commonly known as Greek. Jesus used Hebrew in the Temple, but spoke in Aramaic, as did most people of his time.

In the verse in question, Jesus said to His disciples "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."
CLAIM: Lightning = Strongs Hebrew 1299 = baraq: To Lighten; Lightning, as in 'Cast forth light' Lightning flash.
FACT: The claim is essentially true, except that the language is wrong. Luke was written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. The word is actually, Strongs Greek 796: Lightning = astrapa = of the gleam of a lamp, which means 'to show light from, as light from a flame'.
The Aramaic 1299 is diatasso, meaning to arrange, appoint, ordain, prescribe, give order, and 1300 means diateleo: to bring thoroughly to an end, accomplish. Neither one has anything to do with this verse.
Baraq, Hebrew 1299 & 1300 is an Old Testament word meaning "a flash" & "lightning" respectively. 1299 occurs only once in the Bible: Psalms 144:6 - "Cast forth lightning and scatter." 1300 occurs 21 times. Astrapa can not be translated to mean baraq.

Isaiah 14:12-19
CLAIM: Heights = Strong's Hebrew 1116 = bamah: high place.
FACT: Bamah can be used to describe a high place of worship, such as for an idol's altar. It is not a name for Heaven.

The conjunctive "U" or "O" (Waw), assuming waw actually is a conjunction, cannot be used between the Hebrew baraq and the Aramaic bamah. Not only that, the phrase "lightning fall from Heaven is not a conjunctive statement. There needs to be two words connected by 'and'. Lightning, a noun and heights, an adjective can not be joined with the Greek conjunctive unless one describes the other. Not only that, but "waw", as a conjunction, may be expressed as "U" or "O", but the "U" or "O" expressions have different meanings, and are not interchangeable.

Let's keep some important facts in focus. Anti-Crist, as a concept, is here, already. It was discussed in the letters of the New Testament by Paul, Timothy, James, John, and Peter. Anything that opposes, directly or indirectly, by ommission or commission, is anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ, as a person, has been described in detail, and understanding the appearance of him relative to the Tribulation and the end times, with very few exceptions, Christians won't have to worry about ever seeing him.
The Anti-Christ is just that, Anti Christ. He will be the opposite of Christ. Using that definition, the vast majority of politicians throughout history qualify.
In principle and politics, Obama is opposite of scriptural, Biblical, and Christian values and principles. He may not be Muslim, but he certainly is not Christian. He does not believe in God beyond a nodding acceptance. His father was an atheist, and his step-father was Muslim, as he was for several years. He has often said that he follows his mother's example. She was agnostic, leaning toward atheistic. Obama is anti-Christ, but he is not the Anti-Christ.

Why President Obama Will Probably Be Re-Elected in 2012

COMMENTARY By Donald Pennington | In spite of the current protests over everything from dissatisfaction over the economy to any efforts at restoring the economy and putting people back to work, it's still all-too-easy to imagine President Barack Obama will be re-elected in 2012. Why? It's nothing other than religious extremism within the rank-and-file and the leadership of the GOP.

Not everyone flying the Republican flag is a religious extremist, but then again, not everyone within the GOP is running for office. While we as a country could use some people in office who follow better financial policies, the issues that keep getting addressed are abortion rights, gay marriage rights and teaching creationism in schools. All of these non-issues are religious extremists pushing "God" in the public square as well as the private bedrooms of grown-ups. We have enough real-world problems. "God" can take care of himself.

On abortion, why would religious extremists be concerned? Aren't all those lost lives going to heaven? Besides, the Bible is filled with stories of the Almighty ordering the deaths of babies -- without mercy. This point is not simply a matter of opinion. Those stories are really there.

When it comes to the rights of anyone wanting to marry someone of the same sex, who are these politicians to even have a say? Are we really going to try and tell others how to live because of the demands of a collection of stories from ancient times?

And as for insisting that creationism be taught as a theory in public schools -- really? With what we know about the cosmos (and still have yet to learn) no publicly funded school should be teaching as science anything other than what humanity has been able to verify with evidence. Or perhaps our Republican candidates "firmly believe in their hearts" we should also turn to Bronze Age legends for advice on computer repair and auto mechanics too.

The Socialist leanings of President Obama are not the answer to America's problems. We cannot save a free market by choking it to death. But when opponents to this administration espouse religious extremism as the solution, they sound to us non-Christians about like how a Taliban leader might sound to devout Christians. No single religion should dictate public policy -- ever. We all deserve our own choices in life. We cannot afford to trust extremists with the button.

Government must be "Hands Off" Religion. That includes the courts.

The first part of the First Amendment to the Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
The establishment clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." has generally been interpreted to prohibit
1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, [Also Known As the "separation" or "no aid" interpretation, and for the purposes of this article shall be known as the Free Exercise Clause] or
2) the preference by the U.S. government of one religion over another [Also Known As the "non-preferential" or "accommodation" interpretation, and for the purposes of this article shall be known as the Prohibition Clause]. But it has not been interpreted to prohibit the preference by the U.S. government of all other religions over any one.
Essentially, both clauses do the same thing. The Free Exercise Clause prohibits the government from selecting, aiding, or promoting one religion over another, while the accommodation clause prohibits the government from preferring or making the existence of one more favorable than another.
However, under this interpretation, the Prohibition Clause prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but it does not prohibit the government's entry into the religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause. In other words, Congress can not prefer any one religion over any other, but under the guise of making an accommodation for any one religion government may, overtly or covertly, suppress another religion because in order to accommodate the Free Exercise Clause, the government may interfere in the establishment of one religion to accommodate the establishment of another.
There can only be one answer. The "Prohibition Clause" interpretation is flawed. There are 2 clauses at work here. The Establishment Clause, and the Prohibition Clause. The interpretations above only address the Establishment Clause. When the Prohibition Clause is included the second interpretation falls apart for the following reason:
When following a policy where Clause A and Clause B are equal, which they are, there can be no situation where there can be an situation where either clause can be allowed to interfere with the other. One can not say "I must obey Clause A and Clause B of a law, rule, or policy, when the interpretation of Clause B interferes with Clause A."
When one or more religions are established, under the second clause of not "Prohibiting the free exercise thereof (any religion)," the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause is prohibited because it would create a preference by commission, or omission, whether or not it is directly intended. The government's position must be hands off.

President Obama defends attorney general regarding ATF tactics.

For the first time in history, a sitting president openly disavows a branch of the Treasury Department, pushing the blame for Fast and Furious down-the-line.
President Obama insists neither he nor Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. knew federal ATF agents were permitting illegal gun purchases on the Southwest border, even as Republican lawmakers released new documents showing the attorney general was given general briefings on the Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation.
Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. confronted a week of allegations that he had misled Congress about his knowledge of the failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking program, lashing out at his Republican critics and contending that he knew nothing about secret tactics to allow illegal arms sales on the Southwest border. This dispite the fact that several emails and messages to Holder have been uncovered dating to June, 2010.
Obama is so fond of 1) Blaming Republicans, 2) Blaming the GOP, and 3) Spouting and bragging about his precious "values" while he loses control of one situation after another.
George Bush was no saint, we can all agree on that. But when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke, Bush's first remark was: "I'm responsible. I'm the Commander-in-Chief, and when something happens that is so far outside the accountability of the Chain of Command, it is the Commander-in-Chief who must step up and take responsibility." This is a truth that dates back to the Art of War, by General Sun Tzu as far back to the 6th century B.C. (Est, 490 BC). This is also a truth that Barack Obama does not understand. It doesn't matter that he has the power to make that choice. What matters is that a commander is honor-bound to step up and take the responsiblity when those under him fail. They fail because he has not taught properly.

Bending Obamacare’s honesty curve downward

The Obamacare house of cards is crumbling before our eyes. The Obama administration’s signature piece of legislation brings a sixth of the U.S. economy under federal control, and the writing is on the wall: Obamacare will collapse under the weight of its own false promises. The only mystery left is whether we will allow America to go down with it.
Remember when President Obama claimed over and over again that his health care plan would “bend the cost curve downward”? He even declared resolutely that he would not otherwise sign the bill. Well, add that to the growing list of Obamacare lies.
This is going to be a bumpy flight.
The nonprofit and nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation recently released the results of a survey that shakes the president’s health care law right down to its core. Health insurance premiums rose in 2011 to more than $15,000 per family for the first time in American history. Not surprisingly, Obamacare itself is to blame for much of the increase. The forced requirement to include adult “children” on their parents’ insurance up to the age of 26, as just one example, contributed to 20 percent of the increase.
Before Obamacare, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) projected annual health care spending would increase an average of 6.1 percent per year over the next decade. Despite the promises, after Obamacare passed, CMS recalculated its projections upward to 6.3 percent. Huh? Now the Kaiser survey shows that the actual results for the first year amounted to a 9 percent increase. Mr. Obama bent the cost curve all right - upward.
Are the increased costs justified, even if it does break the president’s cost-curve promise because, after all, Obamacare finally was going to provide insurance for 46 million uninsured people? Brace yourself. According to Gallup, the percentage of adults in America without health insurance has increased since Mr. Obama took office and since he signed Obamacare into law.
Please return your seat backs and tray tables to their full upright position. We are hitting some major turbulence now.
OK, so health care costs are going up because of Obamacare, and more adults are uninsured since it began - mostly because of Obamanomics (that’s another story) - but at least Mr. Obama promised it would reduce the deficit, right? Well, that was then, and this is now. Administration officials are quietly abandoning the so-called CLASS Act portion of Obamacare, supposedly meant to provide long-term elderly care. In reality, this was the mother of all accounting gimmicks, which counted 10 years of tax revenues but just five years of expenditures to give a false sense of fiscal sanity. Democratic senator and Obamacare supporter Kent Conrad of North Dakota called this “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.” Absent the accounting gimmicks, the Congressional Budget Office now acknowledges that Obamacare actually increases the national deficit by $540 billion over the next 10 years.
We have just lost cabin pressure.
Of course, while each of these three lies is damning in its own right, they barely scratch the surface of the Obamacare duplicity. And let me be clear: These are lies. There’s normally something generous about our human nature that seeks to avoid that word - lies - but we are in an existential crisis in America, and it demands blunt and precise language. We did not get here because of simple distortions or exaggerations or even misrepresentations. Obamacare is the product of statements known by their makers to be untrue and meant to deceive - lies.
Mr. Obama promised on at least eight occasions that he would open his health care hearings to the public. Invite the C-SPAN cameras in, he said, so Americans would know who’s on their side. C-SPAN Chief Executive Brian Lamb said the network certainly would have covered the meetings, but the president “never asked us.”
The Obamacare lies are mounting: You could keep your current insurance. You could keep your doctor. The plan would cost less than a trillion dollars. Medicare would be protected. There would be no health care rationing. No one earning less than $250,000 per year would see an increase in his taxes. Tax credits would alleviate the burdens placed on small businesses. The plan would create 4 million new jobs, 400,000 almost immediately. Americans would love Obamacare once they saw what was in it.
The crumbling of Obamacare is now so unmistakable that its supporters have become the dog that didn’t bark. It’s difficult to find anyone outside the administration who is still willing to defend it publicly.
Calling a lie a lie is difficult for some people, but I cannot apologize for being blunt when America’s future is at stake on such a serious matter. At best, the only alternative is what “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno recently said of the president: “I can’t figure out if he’s the kind of guy who makes infomercials or the kind of guy who falls for infomercials.”
Dr. Milton R. Wolf, a Washington Times columnist, is President Obama’s cousin. He blogs at MiltonWolf.com.

Yes, "We Noticed."

Dear President Obama:

Today I read of your administrations' plan to re-define September 11 as a National Service Day. Sir, it's time we had a talk.........

During your campaign, Americans watched as you made mockery of our tradition of standing and crossing your heart when the Pledge of Allegiance was spoken. You, out of four people on the stage, were the only one not honoring our tradition. YES, "WE NOTICED."

During one of your many speeches, Americans heard you say that you intended to visit all 57 states. We all know that Islam, not America has 57 states. YES, "WE NOTICED."

When President Bush leaned over at Ground Zero and gently placed a flower on the memorial, while you nonchalantly tossed your flower onto the pile without leaning over. YES, "WE NOTICED."

Every time you apologized to other countries for America's position on an issue we have wondered why you don't share our pride in this great country. When you have heard foreign leaders berate our country and our beliefs, you have not defended us. In fact, you insulted the British Crown beyond belief. YES, "WE NOTICED."

Your pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright screamed "God-damn America" and said that 9/11 was "America's chickens coming home to roost." You later denied having heard recriminations of that nature. We wondered how any man with ears and a brain could say that. You later disassociated yourself from that church and Pastor Wright because it was politically expedient to do so. YES, "WE NOTICED."

When you announced that you would transform America, we wondered why. With all her faults, America is the greatest country on earth. Sir, keep this in mind, "if not for America and the people who built her, you wouldn't be sitting in the White House now." Prior to your election to the highest office in this Country, you were a senator from Illinois and from what we can glean from the records available, not a very remarkable one. YES, "WE NOTICED."

All through your campaign and even now, you have surrounded yourself with individuals who are basically unqualified for the positions for which you appointed them. Worse than that, the majority of them are people who, like you, bear no special allegiance, respect, or affection for this country and her traditions. In addition, a large number of your mentors and appointees have criminal convictions ranging from terrorism to treason. YES, "WE NOTICED."

You are seven months into your term and every morning millions of Americans wake up to a new horror heaped on us by you. You seek to saddle working Americans with a health care/insurance reform package that, along with cap and trade, will bankrupt this nation. Every legislation you enacted to “help” America has failed. Your money saving projects have cost in excess of $10.5 Trillion. Please, stop helping. YES, "WE NOTICED."

We seek, by protesting, to let our representatives know that we are not in favor of these crippling expenditures and we are labeled "un-American", "racist", "mob". We wonder how we are supposed to let you know how frustrated we are. You have attempted to make our protests seem isolated and insignificant. Until your appointment, Americans had the right to speak out. YES, "WE NOTICED."

On September 11, 2001 there were no Republicans or Democrats, only Americans. And we all grieved together and helped each other in whatever way we could. The attack on 9/11 was carried out because we are Americans. YES, "WE NOTICED."

There were many of us who prayed that as a black president you could help unite this nation. In only Thirty-one months you have done more to destroy this nation than the attack on 9/11. You have failed us. YES, "WE NOTICED."

September 11 is a day of remembrance for all Americans. You propose to make 9/11 a "National Service Day". While we know that you don't share our reverence for 9/11, we pray that history will report your proposal as what it is - a disgrace. YES, "WE NOTICED."

You have made a mockery of our Constitution and the office that you hold. You have embarrassed and slighted us in foreign visits and policy. YES, "WE NOTICED."

We have noticed all these things. We will deal with you. When Americans come together again, it will be to remove you from office. TAKE NOTICE.

The Truth About Bottled Water

Imagine you’ve just been given a choice: You have to drink from one of two containers. One container is a cup from your own kitchen, and it contains a product that has passed strict state, federal and local guidelines for cleanliness and quality. Oh, and it’s free. The second container comes from a manufacturing plant somewhere, and its contents—while seemingly identical to your first choice—have not been subjected to the same strict national and local standards. It costs approximately four times more than gasoline. These products both look and taste nearly identical.

Which do you choose?

If you chose beverage A, congratulations: You just saved yourself a whole lot of money, and, perhaps, even contaminants, too. But if you picked beverage B, then you’ll be spending hundreds of unnecessary dollars on bottled water this year. Sure, bottled water is convenient, trendy, and may well be just as pure as what comes out of your tap. But it’s hardly a smart investment for your pocketbook, your body or our planet. Eat This, Not That! decided to take a closer look at what’s behind the pristine images and elegant-sounding names printed on those bottles.

You may actually be drinking tap water

Case in point: Dasani, a Coca-Cola product. Despite its exotic-sounding name, Dasani is simply purified tap water that’s had minerals added back in. For example, if your Dasani water was bottled at the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Philadelphia, you’re drinking Philly tap water. But it’s not the only brand of water that relies on city pipes to provide its product. About 25 percent of all bottled water is taken from municipal water sources, including Pepsi’s Aquafina.

Bottled water isn’t always pure

Scan the labels of the leading brands and you see variations on the words “pure” and “natural” and “pristine” over and over again. And when a Cornell University marketing class studied consumer perceptions of bottled water, they found that people thought it was cleaner, with less bacteria. But that may not actually be true. For example, in a 4-year review that included the testing of 1,000 bottles of water, the Natural Resources Defense Council—one the country’s most ardent environmental crusaders—found that “about 22 percent of the brands we tested contained, in at least one sample, chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits.”

It’s not clear where the plastic container ends and the drink begins

Turns out, when certain plastics are heated at a high temperature, chemicals from the plastics may leach into container’s contents. So there’s been a flurry of speculation recently as to whether the amounts of these chemicals are actually harmful, and whether this is even a concern when it comes to water bottles—which aren’t likely to be placed in boiling water or even a microwave. While the jury is still out on realistic health ramifications, it seems that, yes, small amounts of chemicals from PET water bottles such as antimony—a semi-metal that’s thought to be toxic in large doses—can accumulate the longer bottled water is stored in a hot environment. Which, of course, is probably a good reason to avoid storing bottled water in your garage for six months—or better yet, to just reach for tap instead.

Our country’s high demand for oil isn’t just due to long commutes

Most water bottles are composed of a plastic called polyethylene terepthalate (PET). Now, to make PET, you need crude oil. Specifically, 17 million barrels of oil are used in the production of PET water bottles ever year, estimate University of Louisville scientists. No wonder the per ounce cost of bottled water rivals that of gasoline. What’s more, 86 percent of 30 billion PET water bottles sold annually are tossed in the trash, instead of being recycled, according to data from the Container Recycling Institute. That’s a lot of waste—waste that will outlive you, your children, and your children’s children. You see, PET bottles take 400 to 1000 years to degrade. Which begs the question: If our current rate of consumption continues, where will we put all of this discarded plastic?

Eat This Not That, Mens Health News
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

The Way I See It

In answer to the Democrat, Socialist, Marxist, Communist, Progressive, Liberal, ad nauseum answers and accusations that I've been hearing for the past 2 weeks I have this to say from the "The Way I See It, For What It's Worth" file:
POINT: "The Democrats put nearly 3 trillion in cuts on the table as well as an offer to reform entitlements."
Answer: "No, the Democrats did not put $3T in cuts on the table. As they have done throughout the past 30-odd years the Democrats redefine all their terms. They say they want one thing and when the Republicans say the same thing they say "That's not good enough. That's not what we asked for." That's because they don't use the same definitions. Remember back in the '70s and '80s when 'The War of the Words' was going on between Washington and Moscow? Both sides said they wanted peace, but they could never reach an agreement. Why? Because when we said 'peace' we meant absence of conflict. When Moscow said 'peace' they meant lack of resistance to their demands. The Democrats do the same thing. They ask for compromise, but when the House Republicans make a responsible counter-offer, 3 of them in fact (absence of conflict), the Senate refuses to even read it, they simply vote it down. They don't get their way, therefore, as they see it, there is resistance to their demands. The Democrat's idea of math is $1.2T in cuts + $800B in funding cuts for current programs (That's money NOT from this budget) + $1.3T in tax increases = $3T in cuts. This is the apples and oranges your third grade teacher told you about.

POINT: Democrats saved or created 2.4M jobs. What have the Republicans done?:
ANSWER: Jobs saved is not jobs created. It's simply jobs not lost. That a firm does not downsize is no credit to any administration. 2.4M jobs saved/created is a meaningless sound bite. It's the same with the debt limit.

POINT: 90% of this debt derived from their last republican president Mr. George W:
ANSWER: For you to blame George W. for the programs that Jimmy Carter signed into law, a law that has been worsened by both Clinton and Obama, is not only irresponsible and immature, but is actually delusional. It took the 8 Bush years for our debt to grow $2.3T, but in Obama's 30 months our debt has grown $4.6T. That bears repeating. The Democrat's debt is twice in 30 months what the Republican debt was in 96 months. Republicans: $2.3T in 96 months. That's $23.95B per month. Democrats: $4.6T in 30 months. That's $143B per month. Plus the Obamacare socialized medicine that hasn't hit yet, for a projected $5T over the next 8 years. That's outside of the normal budgetary deficits, borrowing, and interest. He's blaming the Republicans for cutting Medicare after he cut benefits for 500,000 elderly and low-income Americans. MISMANAGEMENT, DENIAL, AND DECEPTION.
EXAMPLE: As part of the deal to get Obamacare passed, he offered Medicare benefits for single, childless adults. Last month, after that was funded, he cut that by 40%. Where did that money go?
EXAMPLE: In 2006 the price of oil was what, $76/bbl? Within 12 months of the Democrats taking over congress that rose to over $100/bbl.
EXAMPLE: Even after the mortgage industry crashed, Obama signed legislation to make the situation worse. He expanded the program that would allow people who can only afford $1,000 per month for a mortgage to buy a $700,000 home, then he signed a program that would forgive $12,000 per year ($432,000 over the life of the loan). That turns a $729,000 mortgage into a $297,000 mortgage. We taxpayers pick up the $432K, and people still foreclose.
EXAMPLE: Obama said "I can't guarantee the Social Security checks will go out." That's a scare tactic. He thinks we're all stupid. Obama has no control over the Social Security checks. They aren't funded by the budget. The treasury has been dipping into the Social Security Trust to the tune of $4T, which must be guaranteed. If the government defaults after they have depleted the Trust fund, they still have to pay out the checks by obligation.
EXAMPLE: The Democrats ask for compromise with the Republicans. The Republicans make 3 solid bi-partisan bills in offer to do so. The Democrat's response is: "The Only Compromise There Is, Is Mine." Then they blame the Republicans for not trying to compromise.

The Republicans spent 3 weeks negotiating with the President trying to reach a compromise. At one point the President rudely got up and walked out. This rude, immature, and selfish action only earned a mention in the MSM, but when the talks deadlocked 2 weeks later and the Republicans took the negotiations to Congress, every news outlet in the country went bats blaming the Republicans for stonewalling the talks. Another one-sided political media strategy to cast blame.

The Republicans actually gave in to everything the Democrats wanted with the exception of tax increases, and the Democrats killed it in less than 2 hours, meaning they didn't bother to actually read it. The Democrats demand compromise. The Republicans offered responsible counter-offers in effort to make the best compromise at the lowest cost to the American taxpayer. In other words, the Republicans offered an olive branch and were promptly thrashed with it.

I don't like the idea of raising the debt limit. It's irresponsible. But when we are the only free market system participating in a controlled market world, there will be unpleasant consequences. We have a free market system, but we have a government that likes to emulate the socialist world system. The two are incompatible. We have legalized organized crime syndicates called unions, we have an out of control tort system, we have a dysfunctional insurance industry, we have a totally convoluted tax system, we have a spoiled & selfish populace, we have a dysfunctional, corrupt government that wants things the way they are, and as a result expenses and taxes are so high that corporations can't afford to do business in the US. We have been hemorrhaging jobs to China, Mexico, India, and other third world countries as part of the administrations mis-directed and mis-managed trade deals for too long. People like to complain about it and blame 'the other party' but they won't get off their collective fat asses to fix the problem. They are yellow sheep who need to be shorn, castrated, and sent to pasture where they can't do any more harm.

Obama is right.

The American people are fed up. Not with Boehner and the Republicans, either. Admittedly, Congress has had some epic fails in recent history. A Republican Congress under a Republican President couldn't pass a line-item veto. That's a no-brainer. Epic Fail. But most of the misdirection of focus pales extraordinarily in comparison to the Democrats holding America hostage over raising the debt ceiling and cutting the run-away economy they created.
Obama said no to the Republican proposal of $1 Trillion tax increases so he could blame them for not accepting his $1.2 Trillion tax increase. He's insisted on a tax increase from the start, and he's willing to hold back his support so he could blame the Republicans for not getting it. Earlier this week he claimed that "80% of Republicans want a tax increase." That's like saying 'They won't agree with me, so they must want my alternative.' As if his choices are the only ones. All because he refuses to cut his ballooned welfare programs. Epic Fail
$450 Billion wasted in "Cash for Clunkers." Epic Fail
$432,000 rebate credit on a $729,000 mortgage. Who needs a $12,000 annual rebate on a mortgage when they can afford a $729,000 home? Epic Fail
The Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac disaster was enacted by Jimmy Carter, inflated by Bill Clinton, and after both fell into federal receivership Barack Obama inflated it yet again. No wonder people who can only afford a $1,000 mortgage are allowed to buy a 3/4 of a million dollar home. Epic Fail.
Osama bin Laden is killed in Pakistan and then it is confirmed that not only did Pakistan know where bin Laden was for the past 5 years, but their army actively protected him. As a reward for harboring terrorists, Obama asks Congress for *another* $4.5 Billion in foreigh aid for the terrorist haven for 2010, 2011, and 2012. Epic Fail.
We came into this administration with a $4 Trillion national debt. 2 1/2 years later we are pushing $14 Trillion, and his liberal Congress pushed through an additional $5 Trillion in unsustainable socialized medicine. Epic Fail.
We now have the highest unemployment level that America has ever seen, with the exception of the depression. Including those who are unemployed beyond their benefits, the unemployment rate is close to 21%. Epic Fail
Yes, we have run out of time. Thanks to your stonewalling, Mr. President. If it hadn't been for your misdirected spending we wouldn't be in this fix. Thanks a lot. This is not the "change" that we voted for.

Obama's team is involved with the Wisconsin RECALL campaigns

A new report out from the Chicago Tribune* confirms what we've been telling you:  "President Barack Obama's political arm at the Democratic National Committee is getting involved in the Wisconsin state Senate recall elections", effectively organizing what they have termed the "ground game" for the recall effort.

We have uncovered countless evidence of Obama's involvement in these recalls and have been trying to get their activities exposed.  You see, these recalls are all part of a master plan.

If Democrats win just 3 of the 6 recalls being waged against Republicans, here's what they will gain:

*They will take control of the State Legislature away from Republicans and be able to block Gov. Scott Walker's entire legislative agenda.

*They will then proceed with the already announced recall campaign to unseat Gov. Scott Walker.

*They will then have the political power in place to grab Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes in next year's presidential election.

Obama's Organizing for America is pulling together volunteers in Madison this weekend to knock on doors and make phone calls in support of Democrats in eight recall elections.

The group sent an email Thursday night to supporters soliciting volunteers.

The group's Wisconsin field director says Organizing for America will be providing support to volunteers working on the recall elections. Six Republicans and two Democrats face recall elections next month.

Obama's group was also involved with helping to organize protests in Madison in February over Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining proposal, which spurred the recalls.

*= http://tinyurl.com/3aspyca

Liberal Stonewalling- Again

Dear Colleague,

Our economy is not creating enough jobs, and the policies coming out of Washington are a big reason why. Because of Washington, we have a tax code that is stifling job creation. Because of Washington, we have a debt crisis that is sowing uncertainty and sapping the confidence of small businesses. Because of Washington, our children are financing a government spending binge that is jeopardizing their future.

Since the moment I became Speaker, I’ve urged President Obama to lock arms with me and seize this moment to do something significant to address these challenges. I’ve urged him to partner with congressional Republicans to do something dramatic to change the fiscal trajectory of our country ... something that will boost confidence in our economy, renew a measure of faith in our institutions of government, and help small businesses get back to creating jobs.

The House this week passed such a plan ... the Cut, Cap & Balance Act, which passed the House with bipartisan support.

Along with Majority Leader Cantor, I have also engaged the president in a dialogue in recent days. The purpose of this dialogue was to see if we could identify a path forward that would implement the principles of Cut, Cap, & Balance in a manner that could secure bipartisan support and be signed into law.

During these discussions — as in my earlier discussions — it became evident that the White House is simply not serious about ending the spending binge that is destroying jobs and endangering our children’s future.

A deal was never reached, and was never really close.

In the end, we couldn’t connect. Not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country.

The president is emphatic that taxes have to be raised. As a former small businessman, I know tax increases destroy jobs.

The president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won’t be there for their generation unless significant action is taken now.

For these reasons, I have decided to end discussions with the White House and begin conversations with the leaders of the Senate in an effort to find a path forward.

The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate have not been participants in the conversations I and Leader Cantor have had with the White House; nor have the Republican leaders of the Senate. But I believe there is a shared commitment on both sides of the aisle to producing legislation that will serve the best interests of our country in the days ahead — legislation that reflects the will of the American people, consistent with the principles of the Cut, Cap, & Balance Act that passed the House with bipartisan support this week.

I wanted to alert you to these developments as soon as possible. Further information will be coming as soon as it is available. It is an honor to serve with you. Together, we will do everything in our power to end the spending binge in Washington and help our economy get back to creating jobs.

Sincerely

John Boehner

Rules of Email Etiquette

Do you receive emails that have < symbols or a continuous | down the left side? This is because the sender has the email settings set wrong. However, there are email clients that force these symbols. It's up to the sender to clean up the message.
When you open the email do you see a large block of email addresses? This is because the sender didn't clean up the message.
The commission of this major email faux pas is far too common. Well meaning senders pretend they are computer illiterate when, in fact, they are merely lazy.
One minute you hit Forward on some easily non-offensive, cute, humorous email to your personal e-list one minute, and you're getting "the look" and catty comments at the office the next. Your friends sent on your message without cleaning it up, and your header is on the top of every one, and even if you did obey all the rules of netiquette, everyone who received the message will know it originated from you. Cyberspace as a casual arena where anything can be said and done for laughs, but as email becomes the more popular communication form 'in lieu of' the written word, it’s important to choose your words, and recipients, wisely. So before you hit the send, make sure you pay attention to what you are doing.

1. Don't use the 'Reply All' unless you really intend that every person on that list is to read the message personally. Be also aware that there will be people receiving the email that you don't intend for them to receive it, and you won't know they have received it until their fire is breathing down your neck. This is because when you click on "Reply All" it will also reply to the BCC list that was originally sent. These are addresses you can't see, they are hidden, but the sending will get to them.

2. The BCC means 'Blind Carbon Copy' and is exactly what it means. If you BCC to a list of people who don't see the other addresses and forward it to their addresses only to find that the content is such that one of their BCC lists shouldn't have seen it, you might be in dutch.

3. When you hit any of the Reply, Reply All, or Forward buttons you will see all the headers of every person who forwarded or replied to it before you. It's trash. It's ugly. It tells your recipients that you are lazy and that you don't care to take the time to show them due respect.

4. Avoid the use of casual symbols. Whether you are hiding your cursing with %*@* this or $&@#, or using @ instead of 'at', # instead of 'number', or $ instead of 'dollars', it shows you are just being lazy and careless. No kind of cursing is ever excusable. It shows you as lazy, uneducated, or unintelligent. The same rule applies for emoticons. The cutzy :) smileys and acronyms (LOL, BTW, TTYL) are unnecessary and show that you disrespect your recipients by not taking the communication seriously.

5. Don't use all caps. You can emphasize in almost any email client with italics, bold or underline. You can encase in *asterics* in all other cases. Even the >reversed< pointed brackets is preferable to shouting.

6. If you receive a forward about some sort of news story or some other type of story, take the time to check it. Snopes.com is not perfect, but it is one of the better resources to prove stories. Snopes usually gets the story before anyone else, and they have the resources to get the responses necessary to relate the facts. Better yet, when the definite 'yes' or 'no' isn't available, they will say so, and tell you why.

7. Watch your grammar. No one is perfect in English, and English is not perfect in grammar, but that's no excuse to be sloppy. Even whey your boss plays fast and loose with grammar, it will be in your better benefit to be your best. If you write often in your work, take the initiative to take Community College English, Literature, and Grammar courses. The same rule applies to spelling. Take the time to type on an editor that uses a spell checker, and use it. They still publish dictionaries and there are several dictionaries online.

8. Respond properly. The rule of thumb is to respond within 24 hours. Even if you say "I received your email. Please understand that I have numerous correspondence to address. I will have an answer for you as soon as possible." Then make it a point to respond with a good answer within 48 hours. Another part of being professional is to respond properly. It is true that many people are lazy with correspondence. Many emails from your inbox should reply with a phone call, a card, or a visit to the person's office.

9. The same rule applies for punctuation. Lacking or errant punctuation is as lazy as unnecessary shorthand. The English language is rife with exceptions to its rules. Even so, there are basic standards. When in doubt, stick to the rules. One of the most violated rules is the exclamation point. Unless there is significant emotion, a period will suffice. The exclamation point has been abused to the point that when one needs that point, multiple points are used to get the intended effect.

10. Limit attachments to one or two. The cute photos of your playful puppy or your cute grandson are sharable to all those interested, but loading down, slowing down, or crashing someone's computer with 8 large attachments is more than unwelcome.

11. Keep it brief. Email is all about quick correspondence. If you're all about writing a nice, long letter, write a nice, long letter. Email is not about a 1,000 word opus.

12. If you need to send a Thank You for a job well done, a gift, or a special favor, send a Thank You Card.  No email would reflect your sincere gratitude as much as taking the time to purchase the card, write your note, address the envelope, lick the stamp and send it off.

13. Respect. Answer letters with letters, and phone calls with phone calls. Limit how many emails you send to your friends. How many friends do you have in your list? Imagine all those friends sending emails to everyone on that list, and everyone on that list sending the same to everyone on their lists. If they have common friends, they all will get multiple copies of the same email. And you can multiply all that by the number of friends who forward emails frequently.

Beth Levine of Woman's Day writes:
Five Non-negotiables: Never…

1. Check email when you’re with other people. Or text, IM or check your PDA . Unless it’s your kid letting you know something is wrong, when you choose technology over your companions, you’re telling them they aren’t important to you. And that’s just plain rude.
2. Email a condolence note or a group thank-you note. Some things will always call for individual, heartfelt attention that shows some effort.
3. Forward political or religious rants. Unless it’s the focus of the conversation at hand or you are sure the recipient is interested, don’t send it. No one was ever converted by forwarded proselytizing. In fact, it’s a great way to lose friends and not influence them.
4. Snoop through your loved one’s email. “Reading your husband’s or kids’ emails without their permission is a major breach of trust,” says Chris Brogan. “If you have trust issues, sit down and talk with them— don’t sneak around behind their backs.” The only time you can check out your kid’s correspondence is if you believe she’s in imminent danger of some sort, such as communicating with someone she doesn’t know.
5. Send anything racy on your business account. Off-color messages can be construed as creating a hostile work environment, and open you to dismissal. (You may want to think twice about sending “adult content” through your personal account, too. You just never know.)

Green Ecology Still a Failure

n all Republican Red and Democrat Blue states, Green Politics seems to be the Midas Touch. "[C]andidates running for office can gain votes by taking green positions and might lose votes by expressing skepticism about climate change." - "The Impact of Candidates' Statements about Climate Change on Electoral Success in 2010: Experimental Evidences, Stamford University 2010." Taking a "green" position on global warming attracts votes from Democrats and Independents, while skepticism about the warmist theory alienates those same voters. On the Republican side there was no significant impact either way, so the logical conclusion for vote-hungry pols is to pander to the greens.

But it is getting harder and harder to stay on that conspiracy with a straight face. The fact about the so-called "Inconvenient Truth" is that the world stopped warming in 1998, but that fact has somehow intensified green alarmism. Warmists have no shame. Science has proven that the magnetic poles change, the solar poles change as do the solar seasons, weather and atmospheric conditions change in cycles, all of which have moderate effects on the atmospheric pressure, temperature, and weather patterns. Warming alarmists exploited the tragedy when a tornado devastated Joplin, Missouri last May, even though there is no scientific evidence that global warming is making weather more violent. Warmists made the same opportunistic claim after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans in 2005, darkly warning of worse to come. But Katrina was followed by some of the mildest hurricane seasons on record. A recent study of fossil records from North Carolina's coast reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences yielded scary headlines that global ocean levels are rising at their fastest rate in 2000 years. But in practical terms, despite repeated predictions of coastal inundations and sinking islands, sea levels have not even posed a nuisance let alone a threat. Some warming alarmists have even claimed that atmospheric pressures have been effected enough to allow tectonic pressures to fluctuate and cause earthquakes and volcanoes.

These are a remake of the same people who clamored for ecology in the 1970s and are the ones in power, today. Anyone old enough to remember the ecology generation will recall that the efforts to "Go Green" then were a dismal failure, and they are no less a dismal failure, now. Not one good green ecological science came out of that generation. Hydrogen fuels, used vegetable oils, and corn oils as fuels were proven alternative fuels; solar panels and wind turbines were proven electricity alternatives; pollution projections were half of what they are today. What was done? Nothing. The only difference between then and now, is the people clamoring are the very same, only this time they can make a personal profit out of it. The government is holding back on exploration and development of new technologies, as it did then, in an effort to choke the last possible penny out of the highest possible price.

Oh, and have you noticed what color congress has been during both times? Makes one stop and go, "Hmm."

The Internet is Killing Polar Bears and other myths

The Internet is Killing Polar Bears

Is the internet the new enemy of the environment? There is increasing concern in environmental circle over the energy demands of the internet. Mohamed Cheriet of Montreal's Ecole de Technologie Superieure was quoted in the June 3 Vancouver Sun saying that "the Internet pollutes, but people don't understand why it pollutes. It's very, very power-hungry, and we have to reduce its carbon footprint."

Green activists point to the growing number of massive and secretive "server farms" that store and transmit data across the system. Each one can have energy demands equal to a small city.

But before we start shutting down the internet to save the planet, check out a May 16 report from the United Nations Human Rights Council that declares internet access a fundamental human right. "Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress," writes Special Rapporteur Frank LaRue, "ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all States."

Meanwhile the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change recommends a target average global carbon footprint that is one-quarter the burden placed on Mother Earth by a homeless American, according to a 2008 MIT study. It will take a long time for the environmentalists to sort all this out, just don't Google it too much or polar bears will start dying and it will be your fault.

Mr. Obama Tries to Hide the Decline

Last November during his trip to India, President Obama admitted that on his watch the United States was a declining economic power.

"For most of my lifetime," he said, "the U.S. was such an enormously dominant economic power … that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms." But those days were over because of the rise of new international competitors such as China and India. But it was a positive development, he said, because "this will keep America on its toes. America is going to have to compete."

Then, during his recent trip to Britain, Mr. Obama abruptly denied the decline. "It's become fashionable in some quarters to question whether the rise of these nations will accompany the decline of American and European influence," he said. "That argument is wrong." Maybe so, but he was the one who made it.

Nothing dramatic has happened on the economic front since last fall that would justify this 180 degree shift in the president's thinking; in fact there have been several developments that argue to the contrary, such as rising energy prices, expanding U.S. debt and declining rates of U.S. GDP growth. But with the 2012 election pending the White House probably figured out that saying "America's decline is good for you" won't resonate with the electorate.

The new line is good but it would be even better if it was true.

A Half-Hearted Salute to the Commander in Chief

A new Gallup survey shows that former and active duty members of the military give much lower marks to President Obama than the non-military population.

The May 30 report says that "Thirty-seven percent of all active-duty military personnel and veterans surveyed approved of the job Obama is doing during the January 2010 to April 2011 time frame. That compares with 48% of nonveterans interviewed during the same period."

These data bring to mind the "civil-military gap" thesis of the 1990s, in which academics fretted that divergent ideological and social views between the military and civilians could ultimately translate into serious political divisions, and potentially a military coup. To no-one's surprise that nutty talk died down when Bill Clinton left office. Yet the perceived "gap" was never between the military and the American people, but rather between Middle America (from which most members of the military come) and liberal academicians and politicians who have few connections to and little understanding of military culture.

But the poll does shed light on why Democrats are less eager to make sure that troops overseas get their absentee ballots in on time. A 37% Obama approval rating is not going to translate into a second term as Commander in Chief.

Questions for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient

If U.S. involvement in the civil war in Libya does not constitute a war as defined by the War Powers Act, why are the troops conducting operations there receiving imminent danger pay? And now that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has gunned down more of his own people than Moammar Gadhafi had when intervening in Libya was declared a moral imperative, has the United States abandoned the fashionable "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) principle? And are you just making all this up as you go along?

James S. Robbins senior editorial writer for foreign affairs at the Washington Times

Republicans Aiming to Take Away Voting Rights in 36 States

"More evidence that Republicans are determined to grab as much power as they can at the expense of everyone but the rich. Not satisfied with attacking the rights of workers, Republicans in 36 states are going after the most sacred American right-the right to vote. The We Party reports that through a myriad of proposals, they are trying to suppress the votes of traditionally Democratic voters, including minorities, the poor, people who live in rural areas, seniors and students." - Republicans Aiming to Take Away Voting Rights in 36 States; Notitas de Noticias, Hispanically Speaking News, Sat 5/28/11

First, who is this "We Party?" The We Party are a far left-wing, generally Hispanic minority group of conspiracy theorists who believe that the 'rights' of citizenship should be extended to non-citizens, especially illegal criminal immigrants who would steal the rights offered and reserved to citizens. When they wrote this article, they used the words "Democratic minorities, students, and seniors." Aren't there any Republican minorities, students, and seniors? Sure there are, but like all liberals, they don't care about the truth. They are not interested in legal minorities, students, and seniors voting. They rephrased the words to sound good, but when they said ...the most sacred American right-the right to vote, they don't say whose rights, but it's pretty plain. Do they mean Americans? Republicans? Independents? No. They report that through a myriad of unspecified, if real, proposals, the big bad Republicans are trying to suppress the votes of traditionally Democratic voters, including minorities. They lump the poor, people who live in rural areas, seniors and students into their list for political correctness, but they don't care about them. Their vote is a bonus. They control the book publishers so they can lie to students and convince them of their social justice an  they give seniors and the poor welfare, so they get the loyalty vote. Why do they never define their terms? What minorities? When they say minorities, etc., they mean illegal criminal immigrants. They have never mentioned Asians, Africans, Indians, Natives, etc. This is all about Hispanics, specifically illegal Mexicans, the criminal immigrants.

The We Party claims the Supreme Court decision allowing employers to obey the law and protect themselves by not hiring illegals equals "Arizona must penalize businesses that hire illegal immigrants. Businesses don't penalize illegal (criminal) immigrants, they don't have judicial power. The law penalizes criminal immigrants.

The We Party claims that gun manufacturers are responsible for the right to work in New Hampshire. They even oppose the right to work in a foreign-owned company such as Sturm-Ruger. They support the union campaign to make union membership mandatory to hold a job in America. Every American has the right to work. Remember "Pursuit of Happiness?" What do they think that means? It means the right to earn a living, own property, build a lively-hood, build a future, have a family, etc. That does not include government intervention or union membership.

The We Party believes that the government that destroys jobs, raises unemployment to record levels (near 18%) and artificially creates inflation and recession is the same government capable of creating jobs When The Private Market Refuses To. How? Simple. Artificially create a record unemployment by destroying free market jobs, then create New Deal and Great Society-type socialist government sponsored highway, railway, train, bridge, and other infrastructure jobs that are 100% union that forces manufacturing and marketing jobs to be lost or sent overseas and replaced by a construction industry where you have to be union or you are locked out of a job. In other words, either directly or indirectly, they would be government jobs. This is exactly the structure that destroyed the Soviet Union. The precepts of The We Party are very closely aligned with the socialist beliefs of the Communist Party USA, so the We Party is socialist/communist/Marxist. In fact, it would seem that The We Party is the political arm of La Raza.

According to their article, this We Party opposes voter ID. They think anyone should be able to vote. Citizens, non-citizens, criminals, illegal criminal immigrants, it doesn't matter. They are protesting the voter ID bills in Wisconsin and South Carolina, and the registration grace period in Florida which is designed to stop voter fraud. There are loopholes that allow voters to change their name and address at the polls, which means that a voter can go to several different precincts, give new names and addresses at each one, and will be able to vote several times. The bill would close this loophole. The We opposes this closure. Is that what they mean by "attacking the rights of voters?" First of all, there isn't anything to attack. The so-called rights to which they refer are not rights. They are not even privileges. Non-citizens do not have citizen's rights. This includes the privilege to vote. Even citizens do not have the right to vote. Rights can not be denied, but voting, like owning firearms, can be revoked for criminal convitions. If it can be revoked, it's not a right. The We Party takes facts out of context, then rewrites them from their own view.

Will it ever end?

Some people are now claiming that the first short-form Certificate of Live Birth was forged, as in, someone else's document was scrubbed and re-typed. The particular accusation is that it was his half-sister's Certificate of Live Birth that was used. That accusation is more than a little ridiculous, and so terribly hard to prove that it's barely worth mentioning. However, it's not that Obama, or someone else, used his half-sister's Certificate of Live Birth as a model for his own that's important. The important consideration is that it is a known fact that Maya was born in Jakarta, Indonesia as indicated on her long-form birth certificate, she has the same Hawaii state-issued short-form Certificate of Live Birth that Obama has. That has yet to be explained.

I did a search on www.birth-records.com for Maya Soetoro. There is one record for Maya Kassandra Soetoro, born August 15, 1970 in Jakarta, Indonesia, age 40, to Lolo Soetoro and Ann Dunham, Honolulu, Hawaii. Obama's half-sister. So, why does she have a Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth when she was born in Jakarta?

There is one thing there that points to other records raises another question, in the long form certificate of live birth Ann signed her name as Stanley Ann Dunham Obama. According to her bio she never took Obama's name, because her parents were opposed to the marriage because Barack Obama, Sr. was already married. Dunhan was called Stanley Ann Dunham, later known as Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, and finally Ann Dunham Sutoro.

This is a birth certificate issue, so this is probably an aside issue. His parents were never legally married. First, Ann was only 17 when she became pregnant and was 18 when they were "married." (Having sex with a 17 year-old girl in 1961 in Hawaii was statutory rape.) Although she had recently turned 18, the right of a person under the age of 21 could not legally enter into a contract until 1971. They could have gotten parental permission, but both families opposed the marriage, so no permission was given, which means there was no marriage license, a misdemeanor in Hawaii; Second, Barack Obama Sr. was already married to a woman, Kezia Aoko, and had a child, in the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo in Kenya. Although this is legal in Kenya, it is not legal in America, so the marriage contract was invalid. Therefore, Barack Obama Sr. was guilty of statutory rape and bigamy.

{-Dunham and Obama Sr. were married on the Hawaiian island of Maui on February 2, 1961, despite parental opposition from both families. [Jones, Tim (2007-03-27). "Barack Obama: mother not just a girl from Kansas; Stanley Ann Dunham shaped a future senator". Chicago Tribune: p. 1 (Tempo). Retrieved 2009-02-16. Also, Meacham, Jon (2008-09-01). "On his own". Newsweek 152 (9): 26–36. ("Special Democratic Convention issue") (print)]-}

Jarett Objected, Obama Hesitated – Panetta Issued Order to Kill Osama Bin Laden

White House Insider: Obama Hesitated - Again.  Panetta Issued Plan to Kill Osama Bin Laden

"What Valerie Jarrett, and the president, did not know is that Leon Panetta had already initiated a program that reported to him –and only him, involving a covert on the ground attack against the compound."

President Obama was “overruled” by military/intelligence officials regarding the decision to send in military specialists into the Osama Bin Laden compound.  Was that accurate?

A: "...'we overruled him.' (Obama)  I have since followed up and received further details on exactly what that meant, as well as the specifics of how Leon Panetta worked around the president’s “persistent hesitation to act.”  There appears NOT to have been an outright overruling of any specific position by President Obama, simply because there was no specific position from the president to do so.  President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.

"...there had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper.  The primary opposition to this plan originated from Valerie Jarrett, and it was her opposition that was enough to create uncertainty within President Obama.

This update comes some 24 hours after our longtime Washington D.C. Insider first outlined shocking details of an Obama administration having been “overruled” by senior military and intelligence officials leading up to the successful attack against terrorist Osama Bin Laden.  What follows is further clarification of Insider’s insights surrounding that event.

Read more: http://socyberty.com/issues/white-house-insider-obama-hesitated-panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

Arctic melt accelerating

Arctic melt accelerating! Glaciers breaking up! Polar bears are losing ground! Although there are some reports about the Southern Hemisphere, they are sketchy at best. What about the Antarctic? Polar bears have lived on land before, they will again. Glaciers flow out into the open ocean. They have nothing under them for support. They will break up. Sometimes they will break up in mass floes. It's natural.

 Have you ever read "Chicken Little?" The little chicken runs around telling everyone "The sky is falling!" after being hit on the head with an acorn. There is a recognized psychological malady known as "Chicken Little Syndrome" where a person is convinced of an impending catastrophe based upon faulty information. Conversely, there is also a personality quirk known as the "Foxy Loxy Effect" where someone will build the popular fear of the impending catastrophe, then take advantage of the popular fear for his own gain. Al Gore (Chicken Little) ran around telling everyone "The World is warming!" after noticing a few natural changes. He took the natural warming of the weather in some places, and called it Global Warming, which is simply a redefinition of something else, then he made an industry out of it. He then used the Foxy Loxy effect for his own gain. The fear opened the door for an entire industry of fearmongers to capitalize on Global Warming. If he is so worried about global warming why does he own four mansions that each have a carbon footprint of a small town?

Weather changes. Big deal. The magnetic poles shift, ice ages warm, solar storms rage, atmospheric consistencies change, the earth itself changes, polar glaciers flow out over the ocean and without support will eventually break off, and these all take time to make an effect. When they are felt, no one knows just which one, or which combination was the cause. None of these things point to a specific cause, but why let a good crisis go to waste. Blame it all on man and make a political agenda out of it to control people.

Fresh water freezes below 32°f and salt water freezes below 28.6°f. There is little evidence that temps will rise to anything like that any time soon.

Permafrost is melting? Take a look at what the permafrost layer is made of. It's rotten vegetation. Vegetation doesn't rot when it's frozen. If it's rotten vegetation, or a form of peat, it means that it has melted and refrozen time and again through time. Most of it melts to a certain degree every year.

There are 14.6 million aircraft in the air in any given year over America. They put out more hydro-carbon emmissions than all the cars combined. Should we stop flying?

The best carbon scrubbers are old-growth forests, but the same government that wants to control people and industry to halt global warming is the same government that encourages the stripping of these old-growth stands of trees. They'd be better off using new, fast-growing trees, but they can't see that. Better yet, use stone for buildings that would last a hundred years as opposed to a wood structure that would last 20.
This inefficient government is made of the very people who demanded green power during the 1970's, but they did nothing about it through the past 40 years. Now that they are in power, they want to force someone else to do what they failed to do, and they want to profit from it. Who says capitalism is dead?

The cleanest renewable electricity is hydro-electric power. There are more than 150,000 power-capable dams in America alone, but less than 10% are built for water power. Nuclear power is clean, safe, renewable power as long as it is used in a responsible manner. Don't be so stupid as to build a plant near a techtonic fault. Hydrogen power is not a thing of the future. It is here, now. There are so many ways of making hydrogen, all one has to do it to pick one. There are whole species of algae that release hydrogen as a natural by-product. They can be grown in silo-sized greenhouses where they release hydrogen by the ton. Landfills are being turned into methane generators. They can power large industries or small towns. We just need more. The landfills are there, they just need to be converted.

Plant trees everywhere they will grow. Stop polluting the oceans with chemicals and waste. Develop more efficient air scrubbers to break down carbon dioxide for industries so that no more industrial exhaust is released.

The bottom line is that global warming is an agenda to control people and industry. Otherwise, the focus would be on allowing free invention and development of ways to resolve the issue rather than on blame. The government has no business mandating what is to work. Let people develop their best ways to make things work and leave that alone. Government and politicians should just stay out of it.

We can solve the energy problem, the welfare state, and the unemployment problems all at the same time, and the government won't have to control it all. Planting trees, converting landfills, cleaning up the oceans and the land, developing new efficient technologies opens jobs. There are jobs for all levels, from pushing a broom to designing, manufacturing, and building.

Unlimited Obamacare slush fund.

Just when we thought there were no more brazen audacities left to report about in Obamacare, here comes a doozy.  

House Republicans have uncovered, tucked away in Section 1311(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), an UNLIMITED Obamacare implementation slush fund.

That's right.  Unlimited.  

An open tap on the US Treasury, this little gem -- discovered by Representative Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee -- can be used for anything the President wants to spend taxpayer money on, under the guise of "actitivites related to establishing" Obamacare health benefit exchanges.

Here's the relevant legal language from 1311(a):

(1) PLANNING AND ESTABLISHMENT GRANTS.—There shall be appropriated to the Secretary, out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, an amount necessary to enable the Secretary to make awards, not later than 1 year after enactment of this Act, to States in amounts specified in paragraph (2) for the uses described in paragraph (3).

(2) AMOUNT SPECIFIED.—For each fiscal year, the Secretary shall determine the total amount that the Secretary will make available to each State for grants under this subsection.

(3) USE OF FUNDS.—A State shall use amounts awarded under this subsection for activities (including planning activities) related to establishing an American Health Benefit Exchange, as described in subsection (b).

. . . 

(4)(B).-- “No grant shall be awarded under this subsection after January 1, 2015.”

While this language thankfully shuts down the slush fund in 2015, it provides absolutely no limit on how much can be spent before then, and only the vaguest guidance on how it's spent. It's so vague, in fact, that any determined socialist could sail an ocean liner through it.  

And he is. 

Under Mr. Obama's approving eye, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kathleen Sebelius, is already busy using this uncapped fund to seduce states into collaborating in the implementation of Obamacare. She's issued nearly $50 million in grants to help states "plan and evaluate" how they'll set up exchanges by 2014 as the law requires them to do.

That's just the appetizer.  Dr. Donald Berwick, the chief administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, has hinted at even more ambitious plans to tap the slush fund to bail out state governments, which are currently groaning under out-of-control Medicaid spending.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has confirmed that the "state-based exchange grants" fund is an "indefinite appropriation," meaning it's open-ended and requires no further action by Congress to be tapped by the President. 

If he wants to, Mr. Obama could increase the cost of his health care law by not just billions, but hundreds of billions, of dollars, unilaterally.    

As you might guess, some in Congress are not sitting still for this.  

Next week, the House of Representatives will vote on a bill drafted by Mr. Upton, H.R. 1213, to shut off this particular tap and weld it shut.  

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates Chairman Upton's bill would save taxpayers about $14 billion over the next 10 years; but this is only a guess on the agency's part.  The savings could be much greater, because, as we've said, the slush fund is not subject to any controls or meaningful limits. 

Under our Constitution, only Congress has the power of the purse.  To formally delegate to the President the power to appropriate funds from the Treasury without stint or limit breaches the separation of powers in fact, if not in form.  

In short, Section 1311(a) of PPACA is a dangerous, irresponsible, and arguably unconstitutional delegation of money and power to the Executive Branch.

Regardless of one's opinions about government-run health care, surely all Americans can agree that this slush fund gives the President -- any President -- too much power.