Marriage vs. "shacking up"

This is an interesting essay. Especially for anyone who thinks a marriage license is "just a piece of paper."

Wise mothers used to say in the old days (before the feminists and the sexual revolutionaries of the 1960's and 1970's gave good parents the national smackdown), "why should a man buy the cow when she's giving away free milk?" Despite its crass locution, that argument against cohabitation for self-respecting and self-protecting women made sense.

The truth is, men and women are fundamentally different in how they think and feel and what they want out of life. People have seemed to universally recognize this self-evident fact throughout recorded history, up until the recent dawning of the Age of Aquarius, around 1972. In immutable truth, most women in their hearts of hearts hope for a lifelong loving commitment from one good man, even if they act as if they don't believe it will or can ever be possible for them. Many (i.e. most?) men, on the other hand, evidently might entertain the notion of someday being formally yoked, if they have to, but in the meanwhile for the foreseeable present, they wouldn't mind getting a little "milk" no matter who ends up with a broken heart (or at least, that is the stereotype of most males). Given that everyone would want a loving, fulfilling, lifetime monogamous relationship if they could achieve it, why don't they avoid the behaviors that discourage or jeopardize that and strive to act in ways that will maximize true lasting happiness for themselves?

Well, that's the Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question, I know. The answer to that is the same as the answer to "Why do people turn into alcoholics and drug addicts?" The answer is: because it is easier for most people to follow their "hearts" (or other body parts) that want easy, relatively instant gratification first, rather than their heads. And there is always a lot of company out there telling you "it's fine, don't worry. It's no big deal."

I emphatically agree with Dr. Laura Schlessinger's major reason for scornfully discouraging cohabitation: mess up your own life all you want, but when people cohabitate or have sex outside of marriage, there are usually little innocents who have to pay the steep price for the rest of their lives.

As I was saying

. . . about our continuing national embarrassment, President Barack Hussein Obama--now he's bowing to monarchs--again.

This can't be a mere ignorant gaffe, since he keeps doing it. I thought he, being all about being a black man, believed in the American creed that all men were created equal.

What the hell does this man believe anyway? Besides the Cloward-Priven Strategy, I mean.

He lacks the basic understanding to represent the United States abroad in a fitting and proper manner as an ordinary American (see the Miss Manners link) let alone represent it as President.

But then, he lacks the basic understanding to fittingly represent the U.S. as President at home, too. Lots of people starting to wake up and smell the burn.

UPDATE: Every day a new embarrassment by the little weasle. The world is getting a new eyeful of the completely inadequate doofus the American people just elected. If U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama can't bring himself to admit that dropping atomic bombs on Japanese cities was the right thing to do to end the war and ultimately save lives, he needs to talk to Bill Whittle.

Michelle Malkin: doing the educational job the State Department won't do.

So, it was Barack-Too-Busy Day yesterday

I wonder how you say that in German?

Our continuing national embarrassment, U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama, was too busy to attend the 20th anniversary of the toppling of the Berlin Wall--and the end of the Cold War, and the defeat of the Soviet Union's Evil-Empire deathgrip on approximately half the world. Even the Russian President was there. So were President George H.W. and Barbara Bush and former Secretary of State James Baker.

Oh well. Doesn't really matter.

As an American, I go over the head of my lame President and say congratulations to a reunited Germany. Wish I could be there to join the celebration.

And I once again offer a hearty heartfelt thanks to the memory of U.S. President Ronald Reagan for bringing it all about.

And kudos to the Young Americans for Liberty at Washington University in St. Louis, for trying to educate their fellow students about the horrors of totalitarianism. The University shut them down.

(They Might Be Giants video via American Digest, Iowahawk, and Mr. Moto's Diary)

Free health care and no worries--here's what our overlords have done for us

What's in the Pelosi bill. Thought you might like to see what has just, in the dark of last night, been proposed to be inflicted on all Americans. The House bill now proceeds to the Senate. Ironically, we must thank the House Republicans for once again enabling the Democrats to sell out our country's future.

And all of this is because Democrats want to "make history," and Obama wants a legacy of taking over the nation's healthcare industry. "Consequences be damned." Oh, it will be a historic legacy, all right. We will all remember that era when the U.S. government tried to forcefeed all Americans on the idea of getting "free" healthcare. Back when there still was real healthcare.

I watched a good portion of the debate on C-Span. It seemed startlingly clear it was a mega-debate between stark facts and high-flown rhetoric and platitudes. I'll leave you to decide which side won.

UPDATE: Big Government has the roundup of what the Pelosi bill will bring about--time to protest--

Below is a list of the cuts to Medicare contained within PelosiCare:

• $170 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage (MA) which currently provides benefits to more than 11 million seniors.

o The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts these cuts “could lead many plans to limit the benefits they offer, raise their premiums, or withdraw from the program.”

o CBO also predicts 3 million seniors will lose the plan they currently have and the non-partisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) predicts these cuts will result in 1 in 5 seniors no longer having access to an MA plan;

• $143.6 billion in across-the-board cuts by instituting a new, permanent “productivity adjustment” to reimbursement rates for all hospitals, Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs), skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), hospice, clinical laboratories, and durable medical equipment (DME);

• $56.7 billion in cuts to home health agencies by freezing payment rates in 2010, applying the productivity adjustment, and other reimbursement changes;

• $42.3 billion in cuts to the Medicare prescription drug program (Part D) by imposing government price-controls for drugs. As a result, CBO predicts seniors’ premiums will increase by at least 20%;

• $23.9 billion in additional cuts to SNFs by freezing their payment rates in 2010;

• $14.3 billion in provider reimbursement cuts by reallocating Medicare funding nationally;

• $10.3 billion in additional cuts to hospitals by slashing reimbursements designed to cover uncompensated care;

• $9.3 billion in yet further cuts to hospitals that have a high rate of readmitted patients;

• $8.2 billion in undisclosed cuts determined by the new, unelected “Center for Medicare Innovation;”

• $5.3 billion in cuts to inpatient rehabilitation facilities cuts by freezing payment rates in 2010;

• $3 billion in reimbursement cuts to providers who use imaging equipment (MRI, CT scans, etc);

• $1 billion cut to physician-owned hospitals, effectively legislating these hospitals out of existence. In some communities, physician-owned hospitals are the only hospital in the community.

• $800 million in additional DME cuts (power wheelchairs); and

• Plus, $14.5 billion in additional miscellaneous cuts to the Medicare program.

As Betsy says, "Supporters of the Democrats' plan will point to those people with Type I diabetes who can't get coverage now. Yes. Let's address that problem with a more targeted solution than enact a massive overhaul that will have disastrous unintended consequences." Is anybody listening to facts, or are we all doomed by tyrants wielding power? One thing's for sure: the opposition is bipartisan.

As Minnesota Governor Pawlenty said about Barack Obama leading the cause of the Democrat takeover of socialized healthcare: “On the night that he won the Iowa caucuses, he promised to bring Republicans and Democrats together to pass a health care bill,” he said. “And now he’s decided to ram it down our throats.”

UPDATE: Some more stark facts that only the adults among us seem concerned about.

UPDATE from Drew at Ace of Spades:

Added note: I beat up on the House GOP for their tactics on the Stupak amendment but kudos to them for requesting this study. Not sure why it wasn't available last week, when it might have killed the bill there but it has just blown a huge hole in the Senate's efforts. Well done.

With a little luck, November 15th, 2009 might be the day we look back on as the day health care reform died.

Fort Hood shooter--anti-American hater

A terrible tragedy, still unfolding as the real news trickles out. A couple of things to note:

Patterico notes the differences in news coverage between Hot Air (a responsible journalistic blog, with real details) vs. the Los Angeles Times (a newspaper hiding details for reasons of political correctness). One treats readers as adults, while the other emulates Pravda, without even a government censorship gun in its back. There's your reason for the death of the old (politically correct) media right there. (Via Instapundit and Tim Blair.) People want to know the news as it breaks, and they want to draw their own conclusions. The politically-correct dead media don't trust adults with knowledge.

Thought-question of the day, from a commenter: Will this massacre be prosecuted as a hate crime? More likely it will be minimized due to the usual reasons: his mental state, his upbringing, his problems, blah blah blah, victimizing the perp.

The New York Times claims the suspect was 'mortified' about deployment to war.

Gee, that's sad, if irrelevant to the crime. It's funny that should be brought up as an explanation for a massacre. I, like many Americans, have relatives who could honestly have been described as "mortified" about their own deployment to war. Unlike this shooter, my relatives didn't sign up to join an all-volunteer Army and receive years of medical training benefiting themselves and their future careers.

No, my relatives were the teenage kids of German-American immigrants who were drafted into the Army to fight in two World Wars. They themselves had come through Ellis Island just a few years earlier. They were sent by the U.S. Army at a time of war to Germany to "shoot guns against their own cousins." Pehaps the word "mortified" is not strong enough to convey how awful they felt that situation was. Yet they bravely served their country, as Americans, and did not shirk their duty when called on, let alone turn on their fellow soldiers and Americans. They paid the price in wounds, both physical (St. Mihiel) and mental (lifelong nightmares). They did not feel what their country asked of them was any more than what their fellow soldiers were bravely giving.

This alleged Fort Hood shooter, evidently energized by his devout attachment to Islamist claptrap, is the worst kind of traitor--one who betrays his fellow Americans, betrays the hand that fed him, and has purposely spilled precious American blood. May justice be done, in the name of the families of the fallen. And in the name of all of us who abhor a traitor--and I assume, that includes most Americans of all faiths.

UPDATE: "The Jihadist is Always the Victim" by Phyllis Chesler

The biggest crisis our country faces

It's been clear to me for some time now that the biggest crisis our country faces is a broken legislative process in Washington, D.C. Both parties are complicit. Having them both blame each other (or scratch each other's backs under the table) as they swap power is not a solution. The people we send to Washington have grabbed more power than they are entitled to--more power than is good for our country--and the power corrupts absolutely and almost universally.

The stench, the gridlock, the frivolous irrelevancies and the damage can no longer be ignored by your average American. Washington is run amok and the evidence is all around us, having to be dealt with every day now.

It is high time we the people make it a first priority to really fix that problem, before we let Washington waste any more of our money or time pretending to "fix" things Congress can't rationally or productively or honestly "fix," like our so-called "broken health care system," "the economy," or any of the myriad other things the Constitution gives them no power to meddle with.

They work for us, not for themselves, their favored interests, or for "history." They need to be reminded of that and put on a much shorter leash.

That's all that these people are saying. "They are rights and freedoms these people can not take away unless we allow them."

Good advice for the Iranian dissidents

At Ace, concerning the brave Iranians demanding reform:

My recommendation to the Iranian people would be to sit tight for another 3 years if they'd like any American help. Indeed, fortune does favor the bold, but the Obama administration isn't going to help you or even give you luke warm lip service, and may even actively work to hurt you if you get too bold. Hopes for Change placed on president "present" will go unrewarded.

We're sitting tight here for another three years, too.

Republicans have offered three health care bills

If you haven't heard about this, and you consider yourself to be a fairly informed person, then don't you have to ask yourself: What does this say about my news sources? Why isn't there more debate about the alternate ideas offered for reforming health care?

UPDATE: The CBO scores the Republican bill: "This is at a savings of $1+ trillion, and our freedoms, and the ability of our world-leading health care innovations to not be stifled."

As Bruce Kesler advises, "wait and work for 2010."

Government price and other controls create shortages of vaccines

From John Goodman's Health Policy Blog:

With H1N1 flu vaccine shortages looming, now is a good time to reflect on the health care shortages, lack of innovation, and outflow of capital created when a public option health plan transfers too much power from the private sector to the government.

In 1993, the Clinton Administration created the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program. Its goal was to eliminate out-of-pocket payments for vaccines, much like ObamaCare seeks to eliminate out-of-pocket payments for health care.

Then as now, the President implied that profiteering providers made health care too expensive. According to President Clinton, vaccine manufacturers were “pursuing profits at the expense of our children” He publicly condemned a “shocking” rise in the price of vaccines for children, suggesting, according to a March 15, 1993 New York Times article, that the rise was “in part due to the pharmaceutical industry’s huge promotional budget.” Dr. Alan R. Hinman, then the director of prevention services at CDC, agreed. He reportedly said that “we have very little bargaining power” when there is only one manufacturer.

At the time, vaccine cost was said to be a major reason why children in the United States were not adequately immunized. Even though most of the children who were not immunized were already eligible for free immunizations through already existing public programs, Clinton went ahead and created the VFC as a public option to compete with private providers of immunization services....

Read the whole story, resulting in the current rationing and shortages of the H1N1 vaccine.

This is what we can look forward to under the Democrats' grab for socialized medicine (aka The Worst Bill Ever): scarcity and shortages, rationing, long lines, more death and suffering. It couldn't be any clearer.

Plus this: No medical privacy for individuals under government-controlled health care?

Then there's the cost--doesn't "free health care for all" sound great--to a teenager?

"Wait--free enterprise works?"

"Insurance freedom." There are so many good ideas out there, soon to be outlawed if the Democrat heathcare power grab becomes law. Plus, a lot of self-supporting people will be thrown into unemployment, while a lot more bureaucrats will be supported on the public dole. This can't be good for our country.

UPDATE: Rep. Tom Price, a medical doctor in the House, says we can't afford the Pelosi cramdown. The Republicans in Congress are offering an alternative plan. Check it out. (Via John Goodman's Health Blog)

Ayn Rand news

Instapundit tells us a new DVD of the lost classic movie, "We the Living," made from one of my favorite Ayn Rand novels (and her most autobiographical) is now available on DVD.

Also two new biographies of Ayn Rand have just emerged and Edward Cline reviews the reviewers in "The Mainstream Smearing of Ayn Rand." Good reading. As is Cline's earlier essay, "The Oblique Smearing of Ayn Rand."

By the way, I am reading Edward Cline's Sparrowhawk series right now, and it is tremendous. I highly recommend this historical fiction masterwork of ideas, action, and characters in the period leading up to the American Revolution, starting with Book One.

UPDATE: Rand-O-Rama from Reason TV (via Instapundit)

Tell them no (again) and louder

The antidote to the sickness engendered by the Democrats now trying to enslave American citizens, doctors, and health care is action. Here's what we can do:

NOVEMBER 5TH - Join Michele Bachmann on the steps of the Capital Building in Washington DC to stop the Democrat’s bill to take over the US health care industry. Email your friends. Join the campaign of action to kill the bill.

Sign the petition and email Congress.

Come out for the Tea Party Express II now coming your way. Schedule of stops here.

Women do not want government-run health care. Women are more tuned into doctors and medical care, and in this case, the necessity of choice and quality of care. By a margin of 64%‐27% women would "rather have private health insurance than a government‐run health insurance plan." Tell your friends, neighbors, relatives, doctors, as if your life or your family's lives depended on it--because they do. Let your politicians know their jobs depend on it and you'll be sending out the pink slip.

Remember "KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY!"?

UPDATE: Unhealthy for humans and other living things: "Using government-run health insurance to fix the status quo is like using a brick to improve a window."

UPDATE: Join We Stand Together or contact your local Tea Party patriots group today, and find out how you can help in your area to stop this sickening healthcare power grab.

Socialized medicine makes me sick

When I read things like this dispatch from England, I get literally queasy:

In the United Kingdom, Parliament will take up a proposal to give National Health Service patients the right to seek private health care if they have been kept waiting for an appointment with a specialist for more than four months. Cancer patients, in particular, have evidently been removing themselves from the queue the hard way....

"In the past requirements to make financial savings often resulted in hospitals stopping routine surgery for a couple of months before the end of the financial year."

Socialized medicine makes sick people sicker and keeps them sicker longer, even until they die, and thereby free up valuable "communal" resources. And that's what our Democrat overlords want for all Americans.

What kind of sick, twisted mind would purposely inflict this on human beings?

Lady Liberty, a Russian emigrant, says take a look at what Americans will become under government-run healthcare:

...In my home town there is a practice now for young women as soon as they get pregnant to visit a certain doctor and pay him an advance to make sure that he helps them through the pregnancy and is personally present during the delivery, after which he gets the rest of the money. If you don't want to pay this bribe, blame yourself, your baby will be pulled out by an indifferent nurse. If they tear you apart in the process, it's your problem.

I heard of a case where a future father, when he saw the way his pregnant wife was treated, pulled out a gun and stuck it in the doctor’s mouth and promised that he'd pull the trigger if anything happened to his wife. The doctor did his best, of course, but not many women are lucky to have such protectors.

If you or your relative were in the hospital for any problem you would need to be prepared with bribe and present money. Small tips, chocolates, etc. for the nurses and bigger tips for the doctors. Plus you’d have to roam the drugstores in search of medications they’d tell you to buy, because they won’t have any.

If you were to go to your physical exam you’d have bring your own sterile latex gloves and your own gown if you care about your safety and cleanliness....

If you want to imagine going to a doctor under socialized medicine imagine going to the DMV or a post office. The waiting time and the attitude are exactly the same. The only difference is that a driver’s license or a postage stamp are not the same as your kidneys or your heart or your liver.

Trusting your heart or your brain to a doctor, enslaved in the socialized healthcare system is the same as committing a suicide. They simply don’t care, because they don’t have to compete, because there are very few doctors who want to work under that kind of system.

What kind of animals want to knowingly move our country to this kind of state--and then exempt themselves from having to participate in it?

What breed of Americans let them do it?

I feel sick.

A ticking time bomb...of generational theft

That accurately sums up Nancy Pelosi's "health care reform bill"--a Bernie Madoff scheme:

...shouldn’t people like Nancy Pelosi, who lie to get such things passed into legislation, have to face some kind of real consequences? This is nothing more than theft. Are they not thieves? They are stealing billions of dollars from US taxpayers, both taxpayers of today and tomorrow.

In other words:

Let me get this straight.

We’re going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn’t read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.

What possibly could go wrong?

Sail on, O Ship of State!

I've discovered a renewed interest in the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. First I read "Paul Revere's Ride" to my daughter. Then I discovered this bit was mentioned by Lord Christopher Monckton at the recent Accuracy in Media Conference on October 23rd. Leave it to the Brits to be best educated in English literature and throw our own homespun masterpieces, with eloquent oratory, into our forgetful Yankee faces (thanks, Lord Monckton!):

From "The Building of the Ship" (via Bartleby.com):

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!	380
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat	385
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
’Tis of the wave and not the rock;
’Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!	390
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,	395
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!

It is a wild ride, but I think it is a sound ship.

Not Evil Just Wrong

The documentary answer to Al Gore's misleading film "An Inconvenient Truth" had its worldwide premier last week. It is called "Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria" and you can learn more about it and purchase copies here. (See more on Facebook, and here's a review at Big Hollywood.com.)

Ann McElhinney, Director & Producer of "Not Evil Just Wrong" was featured on a panel (11:00 am Global Warming: Fact or Media Myth?) at the Accuracy in Media 40th Anniversary Conference on October 23rd that was aired on C-Span recently (this panel starts at 115.25; I highly recommend watching the entire panel). Ann's presentation starts at 135.00 -- she is a passionate, skeptical, fact-finding Irish firebrand and I am pleased as punch she is determined to see her film shown in schools everywhere "An Inconsiderate Truth" has been shown. Ann is married to her co-director, journalist Phelim McAleer, who posed a question to Al Gore at the the Society of Environmental Journalism’s 2009 conference in Madison, Wisconsin, and had his microphone cut off by the other "journalists" in the room for his impertinence in asking a legitimate and politely-worded question that Al Gore did not want to answer.

Such is the face of the "science" of global warming--a "hate-filled, green religion."

While visiting my son's university dorm this past weekend, I encountered in the lobby a very large, hand-lettered butcher paper poster advertising an upcoming showing of "An Inconvenient Truth." It seems to me very odd that people are still determined to push Al Gore's misleading documentary since so much has now come forward to debunk it and its premises (and its lying creator). I wonder who is behind such presentations and such grassroots-looking posters. From my own experience as a college student, I would bet good money it is a cadre of anti-capitalist far-leftist idealogues. Still up to their old Marxist/Alinsky tricks. Is America finally getting too smart to be taken in by this one? I hope so.

Links:

http://www.cfact.org/

climatedepot.com

wattsupwiththat.com

"I am no longer going to throw my vote away by voting for the Party!"

"Principles or party?" Not really a tough question in the Doug Hoffman race for true conservatives (Newt, hang up your hat).

Glenn Beck goes on a very persuasive rant. He doesn't have a hard time convincing me. As usual, it seems conservative talk show hosts and I have reached the same conclusion at about the same time. This time, in this election, the tide may be with us. Both parties should be taking notes.

(Via Instapundit)

Paint blogging

I've gotten into the blitz project of painting my kitchen ceiling. I just couldn't abide with looking up at those stains any longer, especially in light of having guests coming for the holidays. I had the faulty kitchen light fixture replaced earlier this week, and plunged into the painting. As it stands now, I have one more coat of Duron Bright White to apply overhead today and the ceiling will be finished. Then I just need to let it dry, and this afternoon I will remove all the blue sticky paper edging. Hoping then for a nice voila moment with no nasty surprises. But I know that perfection in home decor is an elusive sprite. I couldn't have tackled this job at all if I still thought it might turn out as perfectly as I'd hoped.

I am also painting my small kitchen pantry at the same time, with the same paint, which is not a big deal except for the foodstuffs scattered all over my dining room and on the sink counter in the nearby guest bathroom. Thankfully, my family has not complained too much, not even about the paint smell. I am hoping to get that all finished and the food put back into the pantry by dinnertime today. I had to apply two coats of primer to problem areas, and the drying times slowed me down.

It takes about three days to complete a one-woman project like this, including the spackling and counting the unexpected trips back to the store for more paint and supplies. I am proud to realize that I am a neat painter. And I do have to say it was an unexpected satisfaction, having walked into Sherwin Williams, to learn that all my questions were quickly and definitively answered, and all my painting needs fulfilled. They may not be the cheapest venue, but you're in and out fast, and find or are pointed to everyhing you need, including the advice and encouragement to carry on. Of course, for this job I was not picky, and just asked for "ceiling paint" for my kitchen. While there I also found some products I did not know existed, that will come in handy for future upgrades--like wallboard patches and antimicrobial paint for bathroom ceilings.

On both of my visits the store and parking lot were bustling with customers, including contractors, Spanish-speaking guys splattered with paint, and do-it-yourselfer suburban moms like me, wielding paint chips and color samples. It's good to see one business still healthy in this economy--and all this activity with Home Depot just another mile down the road. I shop at both.

Note to the new government internet/blogger police: I may or may not be endorsing any products by your standards; I dunno. I just calls 'em like I sees 'em. And nobody gave me anything or paid me to say any of this. As if that's any of your business if they did. I think the world--and especially we Americans--are better off when interested readers can be trusted to draw their own conclusions and make their own inferences (reader beware and caveat emptor) rather than grow fatheads and become intellectually lazy relying on the nanny government's knowledge entitlement dispensation.

The one problem I foresee in finishing this painting job today is that my shoulders and neck are darn sore from applying the ceiling's first coat yesterday. Eye yi ey! I worked on the project from 9 to 5 yesterday, and wore myself out. I even have two blisters on my fingers from doing the two coats of striping. I am hoping I can make it from one end of the kitchen ceiling to the other this morning with my big long-handled roller, before something in my body gives out.

On the other hand, I have all the adrenaline engendered by listening to talk radio while I work to keep me going. Thanks Bill Bennett, Neal Boortz, Mike Gallagher, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, and Michael Medved!

Thanks also to my dear mother, who taught me how to paint when I was in my 40's. She learned it from her parents, who learned how to not only paint houses, but build houses, during the Depression. They learned it from friends, relatives, and neighbors in the good old American tradition of barn-raising and husking and quilting bees. Now I need to get her over here and show me how to tackle wallpaper.

Today I feel like chaining myself to the White House fence

In the wake of the Baucus bill for so-called "health care reform" being passed yesterday, and after watching all three members of the panel on Fox News Special Report last night opine that now some final leftist-controlled bill on "health care reform" will eventually be passed and signed into law, I feel the kind of outrage and despair for my family and our country that can only be dispelled by thoughts of some last-ditch desperation acts of mass civil disobedience. I wish enough people could make a big enough difference to stop this terrible, unConstitutional thing that the leftists in Washington now want to do to our country, yet again hurting millions of people for decades to come in the name of helping a few--while actually helping themselves to more power and other people's property.

From April to October we attended tea parties, rallies, marches and town hall meetings to express our unwillingness to be exploited by the power-grabbers in the federal government, only to be derided and in the end, ignored. We were the cleanest, most polite, most non-violent "mobs" of protesters ever assembled on the nation's commons--and we have been dissed and dismissed--except for the fact that it is our money that is to be used as fodder for their plans to exploit us. And in the case of the doctors, it is the doctors' lives, skills, and time that are all to be exploited to feed the proposed insane and unworkable health care scheme. And, incidentally, all the employees in the private health insurance industry and associated markets can go take a long walk off a short pier--or, rather, join the ranks of the unemployed and line up for their unemployment checks, food stamps, and "low-cost health benefits" paid for by--whom?

Now perhaps it is time for dissenters to move into the second phase of the tea parties--where the tea actually gets dumped into the drink. Perhaps it is time to make ourselves not be so easily dismissed. Perhaps it is time to become more of a force to be dealt with.

Some are saying they will end withholding on their federal income taxes--creating an immediate drop in tax revenues that, if enough citizens participate in, cannot be ignored. Some are saying it is time to emulate the left's street-theater tactics: becoming a law enforcement (and hence a time- and money-consuming) problem by obstructing roads, being chained to railings, clogging the jails and the courts in Washington D.C., and what not. I am certainly not expert on such things, having never cared to study the methods of civil disruption as Bill Ayers and his ilk have. I have always considered such things to be beneath my notice as a good citizen. But perhaps the time has come to study the principles and tactics of civil disobedience and even adopt them as the last resort of self defense and achieving true justice.

Perhaps some people should break into Acorn buildings. Or spray-paint "Government Theft" on anything the federal government pays for that is clearly an unConstitutional or boondoggling use of taxpayer funds. I know there are a lot of people out there more clever than I am who can do something productive.

After all, it seems that most dissent against the government is about to be outlawed anyway. That is the leftist plan: make so many laws and vague, obscure, poorly-written regulations against regular citizens that they cannot live as law-abiding citizens anymore, even if they wanted to. And so it becomes a civil war to preserve our rights and our country that even little old suburban "soccer moms" like me have to eventually enlist in.

I keep hoping to wake up from this appalling nightmare, but it seems the ghouls in Washington are real. Our fellow Americans, sent to Washington to represent and protect our best interests, really do want to rob, impoverish, and enslave us and bankrupt our country.

Update: Making me feel better (and making me laugh): Bill Whittle's latest Modest Proposal for change.

Hat tips to Instapundit.

UPDATE: From a like mind (via Maggie's Farm):

It seems unimaginable that your life and mine may be offered as human sacrifices to the meddling of these wizards of Oz hiding behind their curtains....

Who are these people? What are they doing? Are they qualified to do it? Is anybody? How do they know the results they will bring? Can they possibly know? What is their track record in previous undertakings? Is anyone keeping track? Are there consequences to them if they fail? What guarantees do we have that if they mess up someone will clean up the mess? With questions like these, it is the height of irresponsibility to trust the fate of a country to this apparatus.

But it is now happening--we lie in the power of unaccountable tyrants we do not even know. The question is, what are we to do about it?

Speaking of awards

here's a man I have long thought should be given a Presidential Medal of Freedom for "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

UPDATE.

Worth noting: a man to remember

Today we celebrate the man of vision, adventure, daring, perseverance and courage who brought the first global awareness of our country into being: Christopher Columbus. His story is worth noting. For even if he is no longer considered by parts of modern society as a hero to look up to, his leadership in heading an expedition beyond the edge of the recognized world to discover a new one is as remarkable as it ever was. This was one man of action who really knew something about hope and change.

Questions: Do schoolchildren still study or even hear about Christopher Columbus in school on his day? If so, what are they being taught? Surely not Walt Whitman's poem . . . ? Not at school, surely, but perhaps at home.

UPDATE: Ha! "Speaking of Columbus, the Associated Press finds that the boldest explorer in world history did not have quite the same sensibilities as a liberal 21st century schoolmarm. This apparently surprises some."

Al Gore caught in two lies

Al Gore the environmentalist addressed the Society of Environmental Journalists' annual conference in Madison, Wisconsin last Friday. Guess he should've stuck to his policy of never taking questions!

The first lie: "Al Gore Proves Himself Wrong"

The second lie, a real whopper, caught on tape.

That's the real face of Al Gore and his minions right there--don't bother actually answering questions or seeking the truth. Instead, stifle all dissent and when you have to, lie.

The man is beneath contempt. Just another leftist tool willing to lie, to use any means necessary, to achieve his policy goals--meaning, more filthy lucre and more personal power for himself and his buddies, no matter who it hurts.

The Obama Presidency: it's as bad as I thought it would be

During the 2008 Presidential election campaign, I had a huge dread of Barack Obama being elected President. And no, it had nothing to do with the color of his skin--and everything to do with his policies, politics, and character, as revealed on the campaign trail, by his voting record and autobiographies, and by his chosen associates. It was all right there in front of everybody. Now that Barack Obama has been elected and granted all the powers of his office, and has been handed a Democrat Congress, things are going to hell almost as badly as I expected. (The one bright spot this year has been the 9/12 tea parties and the renewed interest in upholding the Constitution.)

For any of my readers and friends who are curious, who care about why I dread this Age of Obama, or who care to argue about it, I offer the following posts expressing my thoughts and evidence:

Power Line: "Obama's Agenda" by Paul Rahe

and its link to Charles Krauthammer's essay "Decline is a Choice"

American Thinker: Obama's Intimates and Advisors by Mac Fuller (via Maggie's Farm)

and just some of the results just nine months into his Presidency:

"Britain Tops U.S. in Finance"

Among nations U.S. now ranks 38th in financial stability and 50th in currency stability


It's no mystery and it's no surprise. Anyone who was paying attention during the Presidential campaign, and who has any critical capacity at all--and who didn't rely on the usual mainstream media suspects for all their propaganda kool-aid needs--could've seen this coming. Everyone who gave a vote to Barack Obama is complicit in what is happening to our country today. Do you feel ashamed yet? Are you ready to wake up and help turn the tide?

So what do we do to save our country, if we can, after four damaging Obama years?

This is a discussion to be continued.

UPDATE: "Dollar loses reserve status to yen and euro"

Hollywood petition for sympathy for a pedophile

So Roman Polanski, fugitive rapist of a 13-year-old, has finally been nabbed in Europe, no thanks to the French who have been harboring him. Good work, law men. The most obnoxious result so far has been the petition of Hollywood "moral illiterates" pleading for clemency on the basis of the child abuser's artistic talent.

David Lynch, you're dead to me! Martin Scorsese, shame on you! Woody Allen--who??

The commenters at Big Hollywood have some great points:

"They're choosing to rationalize it away that what he did wasn't that bad. They're not dealing with it. I don't believe all these people are morally corrupt. They know Polanski. They like him. There is an explanation for his behavior. There must be. It just shows what happens when you have more faith in your feelings than in facts."

"How was this same group able to turn on Elia Kazan if they couldn't turn on Polanski? That is something I don't understand."

"Unbelievable. Every one of these brave French artists put their names to a petition to protest the arrest of a director convicted of drugging and sodomizing a 13 year old girl. Where were those same names protesting the death threats of a Danish editor who'd published a cartoon?"

Michelle Malkin has a few choice words as well, as does AllahPundit:

I’m assuming “Chinatown” wasn’t so awesome that Polanski would be excused for shooting a kid in the head at point-blank range, so evidently the film’s “worth” less than that but more than a child-rape. Let’s figure out just how much of a liberal hero you have to be to get away with certain crimes.

Ace, God love him, is all over the story, if you want more details and typical Ace snark.

UPDATE: I'll let the eloquent Bill Bennett have the last word (via Power Line).

UPDATE: Uh, make that this last parody (via American Digest).

The Decline of the English Department

From a great essay by William M. Chace at The American Scholar (via Maggie's Farm):

Studying English taught us how to write and think better, and to make articulate many of the inchoate impulses and confusions of our post-adolescent minds. We began to see, as we had not before, how such books could shape and refine our thinking. We began to understand why generations of people coming before us had kept them in libraries and bookstores and in classes such as ours. There was, we got to know, a tradition, a historical culture, that had been assembled around these books. Shakespeare had indeed made a difference—to people before us, now to us, and forever to the language of English-speaking people.

Finding pleasure in such reading, and indeed in majoring in English, was a declaration at the time that education was not at all about getting a job or securing one’s future. In comparison with the pre-professional ambitions that dominate the lives of American undergraduates today, the psychological condition of students of the time was defined by self-reflection, innocence, and a casual irresponsibility about what was coming next....

But by the end of the 1960s, everything was up for grabs and nothing was safe from negative and reductive analysis. Every form of anti-authoritarian energy—concerning sexual mores, race relations, the war in Vietnam, mind-altering drugs—was felt across the nation (I was at Berkeley, the epicenter of all such energies). Against such ferocious intensities, few elements of the cultural patterns of the preceding decades could stand. The long-term consequences of such a spilling-out of the old contents of what college meant reverberate today.

Read the whole thing, about the rise, the Golden Age, and the disintegration of the study and teaching of the humanities, especially English, in American higher education. The essay proposes that a large part of the fall is due to government intervention in higher education, an interesting theory.

As an English major (evidently a rare and dying breed) who started out life loving books, literature and language, this essay rings true, sadly. In my case, majoring in English at college was in no way a casual choice for me--but it was a selfish and purposely impractical one, based on my earning a California State scholarship to study whatever and wherever I liked in California--it was winning the lottery to spend a fantastical hiatus of four years doing whatever I liked before the rest of my real life and having to support myself set in. I thought I'd never get another chance to live the life of the mind for its own sake, for my own education, which to me was represented by the study of English (and Philosophy, in my ignorance of academia back then). I was one of those entering college freshmen for whom nothing was more important in life than “developing a meaningful philosophy of life.” For my career I wanted to someday write books, and back in 1972 I thought studying the canon of great literature and majoring in English was the way to go about that.

Though the book-writing career has not yet materialized, I was correct in believing that the study of English was worthwhile in its own right, and I have never regretted doing it, although I have my doubts that California would agree that its investment in me has paid off, as I live my life as a Phi Beta Kappa conservative homemaker far from the Left Coast. Am I, a now-marginalized, mostly anonymous, intellectual white elephant (otherwise known as a well-educated American individual in successful pursuit of happiness), evidence that government intrusion into higher education is a good idea or a bad idea? I have wondered that ever since accepting my meal ticket to college from the taxpayers, and I still don't know.

What I do know is that these days there seems to be, in my children's high school, little canon of Great Books and cultural traditions left to study (Shakespeare himself is now marginalized in favor of a politically correct clutch of "issues" writers like Maya Angelou and Amy Tan). As Chace writes:

to teach English today is to do, intellectually, what one pleases. No sense of duty remains toward works of English or American literature; amateur sociology or anthropology or philosophy or comic books or studies of trauma among soldiers or survivors of the Holocaust will do. You need not even believe that works of literature have intelligible meaning; you can announce that they bear no relationship at all to the world beyond the text. Nor do you need to believe that literary history is helpful in understanding the books you teach; history itself can be shucked aside as misleading, irrelevant, or even unknowable. In short, there are few, if any, fixed rules or operating principles to which those teaching English and American literature are obliged to conform.

And not surprisingly, the result of this change in the goals and methods of teaching English is that for almost all the kids I know (except, seemingly, for the innumerable Asian girls who are embracing an older American tradition of being voracious bookworms, as well as classical music players) the study of literature and history are now anathema, i.e. a "boring" and irrelevant chore.

That's a crying shame for all of us, and probably a development that will come to no good. As Chace writes, without a common canon of recognized excellence for all to study and understand: "There will be no common destination." And thus a civilization and a culture cracks.

What does "political correctness" mean and where did it come from?

Watch this great video narrated by Bill Whittle at PJTV. Awesomely succinct, and he even quotes "Serenity." I never knew about the Frankfurt School, let alone its proximity to Columbia University. It is one more piece of information falling into place to explain for me the unrecognized intellectual puzzle of our modern life, where now even beauty itself is criticized as bourgeois, while millions of average citizens who have never had a consciously philosophical thought in their lives acquiesce (to that and much more) as they swim in our culture.

Ayn Rand had it all pegged right over 50 years ago. Why aren't they studying her in colleges and universities? Oh, right: it isn't politically correct!

Interesting sidebar: Ayn Rand vs. Karl Marx geographic territory in Google searches.

We've got our work cut out for us. The signal will get through. Because the truth shall set you free.

What I'm reading

"A Virtuous and Moral People," pp. 54-56 of The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen, a study of the principles that founded our nation (with citations in the original text removed by me below):

As James Madison said:

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend upon their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them....

Of course, as Jefferson said, "Virtue is not hereditary."...

Virtue has to be earned and it has to be learned. Neither is virtue a permanent quality in human nature. It has to be cultivated continually and exercised from hour to hour and from day to day. The Founders looked to the home, the school, and the churches to fuel the fires of virtue from generation to generation.

In his Farewell Address, George Washington declared:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.... Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. ...

Benjamin Franklin stressed the same point and added how precious good teachers are:

...I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms....

I think also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the education of youth, than from the exhortations of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented [in youth] than cured [in adults]. I think, moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as strongly called as if he heard a voice from heaven....

A Warning from the Founders

At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Samuel Adams, who is sometimes called the "father of the revolution," wrote to Richard Henry Lee:

I thank God that I have lived to see my country independent and free. She may long enjoy her independence and freedom if she will. It depends on her virtue....

John Adams pointed out why the future of the United States depended upon the level of virtue and morality maintained among the people. He said:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other....

Samuel Adams knew the price of American survival under a Constitutional form of government when he wrote:

The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While, on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves....

Today is Sunday, a day of rest, reflection, and study. Are you doing your part, as an individual and as a teacher, to make sure our nation is a virtuous one, deserving of the blessings our Founders made possible for us?

Democrats willing to lie to and kill American citizens to achieve their policies

Alas, this is not hyperbole, and it is not some science fiction fantasy. I never thought I'd see the day when Democrats, as a party (or more accurately, as some ghoulish cabal), would so boldly display their malicious avarice for power. But sadly we are seeing these days now before us. Democrats in Congress, along with the President, are so eager to intrude government into the free market that they are willing to kill American citizens, as will happen in the latest health care scheme being hatched in Washington. They expect American doctors to succumb to their scheme and become complicit in turning their backs on their professional ethics and their Hippocratic oath.

It's not bad enough that Democrats are willing to lie about and hide what they are doing from the American people. What they seek to hide are the effects their policies will have. They seek to hide this because they know damn well what the effects will be. They think we, their fellow Americans, have no right to protest the policies, the methods, or the would-be murderers themselves trying to do this to us and our families.

I used to feel it took a pretty ignorant or stupid or even sometimes a clearly venal person to want to be a Democrat, given how much their everflowing wellspring of tired old foolishly conceived policies end up hurting people in the long run--and how corruption seems not only to dog the party, but seems endemic in the party. Now I'm beginning to think the majority of Democrats have more in common philosophically with the KGB than they do as a simple alternative political party seeking to persuade thinking Americans who deserve common respect. Clearly, to Democrats, respecting their fellow Americans is no longer a part of their equation.

They pretend to be doing it all for the public good, while they end up lying to Americans, killing Americans and prolonging suffering. Just as President Obama does, they talk a good game while they play an entirely different one under the table.

UPDATE: As I said, the Democrats know damn well what the effects of their policies will be. What they are counting on is for the rest of us not to know--until it's too late to reverse course.

UPDATE: Why most Americans think Obamacare is a BAD idea. Via Neal Boortz

UPDATE: Failed policies: "Are We Witnessing the Collapse of Liberalism?"

"Social justice" means no real justice

"Social justice" is a buzz-phrase used by progressives, communists, socialists, and other collectivists to mean redistribution of wealth or political power to affect outcomes, in the name of "equality" (although in truth, "social justice" seeks to elevate favored groups over unfavored groups of special interests). This is diametrically opposed to the kind of justice our Founding Fathers sought to encourage in our land, according to the definition of justice as described in the Old Testament--the kind of justice personified by the figure of a blindfolded judge, impartially weighing the case of rich and poor, man and woman, stranger and citizen, with equal respect, in order to protect the rights of all under the rule of law. Anyone seeking to further "social justice" is either an ignorant do-gooder who doesn't understand the ramifications, or is purposefully seeking to undermine true justice. And there are such people.

They are at work in the Tuscon Unified School Distict, according to Neal Boortz, which has set up "a two-tiered system for student discipline. One tier will be for blacks and Hispanics ... and the other tier will be for everyone else." (If I were a parent with a child in this district, no matter what my race, I would call it quits and start homeschooling.)

No, it's not a joke. The movement to undermine true justice is serious and it is on the move in our country in many more places than just the public schools. This kind of effective reverse discrimination, in the name of correcting past discrimination, only makes race relations much, much worse.

Don't be fooled by good intentions. Think through the ramifications. Two wrongs never make things right. They just compound the harm. The movement for "social justice" is a harmful one, that will only make the world worse.

ACORN: the news scoop of the year

Just as the internet website Drudge Report in 1998 broke the seminal (excuse me) news story that Newsweek refused to run, of Monica Lewinski's little blue dress, which opened the floodgates of media reporting on Bill Clinton's peccadillos, now two conservative activists (what an amazing phrase, that) have gone undercover in a flamboyant and pointed fashion (guerrilla theater, man!--or filmmaking history, man!) to break the story of ACORN's essential criminality--and all that that entails.

Read the roundup here at Power Line. This couple, O'Keefe and Giles, are my heroes, too. And the boycott of the news by the mainstream media as also summarized here--as was also done last week in the case of Van Jones--is nothing short of jawdropping.

O'Keefe and Giles are working in the tradition of Nellie Bly, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, and Woodward and Bernstein in uncovering criminal actions that in the case of ACORN may extend all the way to the highest places in Washington, D.C. One may say they are doing the job the American news media won't do. I wonder when these righteously upstart kids will be inducted into the Newseum or have an admiring movie made about them?

I wonder less about the demise of the so-called former mainstream media including the Washington Post, the New York Times, the three former "major" news networks. They are obviously no longer in the business of reporting current news (somehow the Senate last night knew what the mainstream media declined to publish when they passed an amendment to defund ACORN). People in the know now get their real news from other outlets: FoxNews, talk radio's Glenn Beck, and the internet. The formerly mainstream media have now rendered themselves obsolete as vehicles reporting real news. They are perhaps now "mainstream" commentary, but no longer reliable news outlets. And that means that in time they will no longer be mainstream anything.

Whoa man, the times they are a-changin'.

UPDATE: We are the mainstream media: "The American people are the Fourth Estate." That was always true, as long as the newspapers remained the voice of the people.