Speaking of Idolatry

I am a Christian who has never really liked the 700 club, so I can't say this surprises me.

Hats

I love hats. I wear many of my great-grandmother's hats- in public and on purpose. I am looking for a new one that is just right. Just right for me, that is, and I have, er, quirky tastes.

I like this one. I feel sure it would love me back. But the price tag doesn't love me at all, nor I it.

This is darling.

This one is striking.

My tastes aren't quite this quirky.

This is darling.

I would love one of these in every color.

The Hypochondriac's Theme Song

From our favorite Danny Kaye movie, The Inspector General



Danny Kaye as illiterate gypsy peddling snake oil for his cousin Jacov.

I love his hands- so elegant and expressive.

To Vote or Not To Vote....

And what about a third party vote?

I'm not going to answer that question. I'm going to share some very thought provoking links to writings by people from different sides of the question. I think it might be quite worthwhile for homeschoolers to print these out and read them, think about them, discuss them over the dinner table. These are not short reads, any of them, but they are extremely helpful aids to understanding different aspects of this, and other elections, particularly in pointing out things you might not have thought of before (at least that was true for me).

Carmon's post on why she doesn't believe McCain is pro-life, and why she's voting for a 3rd party. The comments are excellent as well, particularly when those who disagree with her state their case. There are perhaps two comments which emit more heat than light. I'll let you make up your own mind as to which of those I mean.=)

Mock the Vote- Quoting Jesse Ventura and Augustine, David Heleniak explains why the system is flawed and we need a third party, and thinking that a third party can never win is defeatest thinking. I would only add that the Republican party was once a third party, and it came into existence when the established party it replaced waffled on the moral issue of slavery, and I do believe the issues of slavery and abortion are very, very similar. Thanks to David B for the link.

Cindy, who commented articulately and soundly in Carmon's post, has a video post on why she is not voting 3rd party. I also appreciated her reply to another poster in this thread. I will repost it all here:

Obviously this is an emotional election but I do think we should be careful not to vilify the motives of sincere Christians who are voting their conscience by voting for McCain. Nor are they afraid of the future.

There are 2 verses in Proverbs that tell us that the wise man should see the evil ahead and prepare for it, actually hide from it. Prov 22:3, 27;12.

Even when in captivity Israel was told to pray for the prosperity of the country they lived in because when it went well for that country it would go well for the Israelites.

I am having trouble understanding how a man like Chuck Baldwin can live with himself. I personally don’t think there is any spiritual benefit in watching a burning train by cheering it on.

Finally, 3rd party candidates ask a lot of us. They ask us to believe they will be a better choice without any evidence whatsoever. I once knew a 3rd party candidate and he was in the middle of an ugly church split. Somehow I was supposed to suspend belief enough to think he could rule the country?

Do you really know enough about your candidate, things that don’t come out of his own mouth?
Do you know enough to counterbalance the sheer hubris of running for president?

The truth is the real danger of this election isn’t just that Obama may become president but also that the Congress is likely to be fully democrat.
In a matter of weeks, we could be looking at an alien country. Am I afraid of this as if God were not in control? Absolutely not! But I do think I have a moral obligation to do the best I can in this election.

David, when being punished by God for numbering the people, chose to fall into the hand of God rather than man. If God is judging us let us choose the lesser judgment.

Randy Alcorn writes with passion and gentleness about why this is not the time to go third party, and the stark contrast between even the two candidates.He is not mean or ugly, he is not hateful, he is anguished over the deaths of millions of children, and he is deeply moving. IT's an important read. There are 102 comments, and they may be just as informational and thoughtful as the ones on Carmon's post above, but I simply didn't have time.

Randy also wrote about similar issues when Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Guiliani, and that is also a useful post for informing your judgment, as is this post of his on why he's voting for the 98 percent pro-life candidate instead of the 100 percent pro-death candidate, and not a third party.

BadgerMum explains why she IS voting third party, and she is gentle and careful.

My friend Connie pleads with people not to vote for a third party this time, and she speaks as one who has voted third party before.

IN favor of not voting at all, our dear friend David Blackstone, who explains why in the comments to this post.


And because I know you are all just dying of curiosity, and I cannot be responsible for that, I am still inclined to vote third party, and I am probably going to cast my vote for Bob Barr of the Libertarian party, even if I have to write it in. I am not necessarily saying 'go thou and do likewise.' I'm just saying what I'm inclined to do.


And Cindy reminds us that some of us are Hobbit, some are Dwarves, some are Elves, and after the election, no matter who wins, there will still be Goblins.

Reporters from Dissenting Papers Kicked off Obama's Plane

In the coming Age of Obama, only the worshipers will get front-row seats to history.

More at Hot Air

Bit of Hebrew Writing Discovered- 1000 years Older Than Dead SEa Scrolls

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

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

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

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

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

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

Save your Favorite Sweater

Extending the life of a sweater with frayed cuffs or neckline- also my latest post at Frugal Hacks.

Other uses for old men's shirts: My great-grandmother used to do this, and we still have one or two of them (or rather, Granny Tea does): Tutorial parts one and two. This is much prettier than my great-grandmother's version.

What's For Lunch?

unstuffed cabbage

1 1/2 pounds ground round or other very lean ground meat
1 medium onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic or two crushed cloves
1/2 head cabbage, coarsely chopped
8 ounce can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt

Spread ground beef thinly over bottom of very large skillet (faster cooking time this way),. Chop onion and crush garlic, toss in pan with ground meat and stir. Cover and let it continue to cook.

Chop cabbage, stir into beef mixture a bit at a time, stirring continuously. When cabbage begins to wilt, stir in the tomato sauce, lemon juice, pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon and salt. Simmer five more minutes with cover on. Serve.

From 15-minute low-carb recipes by Dana Carpenter

Peter Sellers in The Mouse that Roared

Clip from the beginning of the Peter Sellers movie of The Mouse that Roared.

It's a delightful book, as well.

In Which The Equuschick Needs Therapy

Look, kids.

The Equuschick is getting married in 8 days. Shasta just drove up on Tuesday, they've been unloading his truck and moving things into the house and fighting with returning the U-haul truck. They got the marriage license junk moving yesterday after two trips to the courthouse, only one would have been necessary had they typed The Equuschick's name into the document correctly the first time. (Usually she does specify, but they were looking at her driver's license. The Equuschick assumed they could read it.)

The Common Room has its monthly Singing at our house tonight, and guests will begin arriving for the wedding in less than a week.


So all this is purely background.

The HM calls The Equuschick yesterday and says "I don't have the number to the animal shelter anymore, but there's a stray dog running down 18888 S. and he looks abandoned."

Darn him. The Common Room is all still trying to figure out why he called The Equuschick.*

She promises,really, that her original intention was to drive over and just see if the dog was still there and then she'd call the shelter. Cross her heart.

After heading one direction till she hit the interstate The Equuschick saw no dog and headed back in relief. And saw the dog on the way back. So she stopped the truck just to see if she could possibly pick him up and bring him the shelter herself and...

Well, look. Animal rescue is a hard habit to let go of. The dog was incredibly skittish and didn't Want to Be Caught. And The Equuschick remembers thinking "Okay, AC will never be able to catch this dog. They'll spend an hour of the tax-payer's money and this dog will be worse off than he was before."

(The Equuschick know this after working there for four and a half years. The HM says he hopes The Equuschick never works for a police department. "Wait," he mimics her, "I've got this case. Stand back...")

So she caught...Mickey. That's his name for the moment. Shasta suggests naming him Death Juice or Needle. You might think that The Equuschick would be offended, but for one thing he's not that cruel, it is only his sense of humour. For another, The Equuschick is well aware of how badly she needs a counterpoint to her obsessive compulsive sense of Responsibility for All Creatures Everywhere.

She's writing this post and making it funny because in a way it is, but in another way it is her therapy because this whole mess is reminding her of why she needed to leave the shelter in the first place. She can't do this her whole life. This crushing burden of guilt, this frustration when she has no control but she can't let go. When a dog looks at her and says "Help" and The Equuschick says "Shoot and blast it all, I will help you if it breaks my bank account and my heart."

And she hasn't even told you the worst yet! She can't tell you, though. She can't possibly describe it in words. You'll have to come smell Mickey yourself to believe The Equuschick. She has smelled almost five years of stray dogs. She has smelled dogs that smell of pigs, or cows, or dead things, or feces. She has never before smelled a dog that smells of all of the above rolled into one mud puddle.

As she was catching him, Mickey was still five or six feet away when a guest of wind came in my direction and she said sternly "That had better not be you." It was.


So, here they all are are. The Equuschick has Zeus, Donovan, and Sadie in the back-yard and Mickey in the outside fence. All four of these rather large creautres are currently being fed organic dog and do you think The Equuschick can afford to feed four dogs over 60 lbs. each organic dog food? NO. Mickey cannot be kept. She can't bring him to the shelter in a vehicle until he gets a power bath, she has no time to give him a power bath (but she does have time to write this post, that's different) and the shelter is full anyway and The Equuschick Has Guilt.


*You all want to know what is really funny? Shasta was headed the same direction the HM was and he saw the dog on the road too. He almost called The Equuschick himself and then thought better of it. His words to the DHM on this subject were "Did you hear what your husband did to me?"

Moment by Moment, Day by Day

I wrote the following two years ago. Two and a half years ago, of course, we knew and loved our Shasta, but I don't think any of us, even Shasta, had an inkling yet that he was going to be our son-in-law. Now, of course, we're crazily in the midst of making all the last minute arrangements for a wedding in a week. That is great joy.

---------------------------------------------------

This morning I got up at 6:30 to do what multiple gravida mothers over 40 generally have to do first thing in the morning. I looked out the window and saw a beautiful, perfect morning sky. There was a streak of brilliant pink in the east, and the air was filled with a hazy mist just light enough to cover the world with a sheer silver veil, making it seem more mysterious and more beautiful. The bare trees for a moment seemed Narnian, quivering in the secret light and waiting for the word that would wake them.

I thought to myself, "I have got to take a picture of that." But I had something else more urgent to attend to first. I took care of that, and then I spent a few minutes looking for the camera. I didn't find it right away so I went back to the window to look at the gladsome sky, but the dappled dawn had continued its birth without me. The scene had changed. It was still lovely and a thing of beauty to gladden the heart, but the moment I'd wanted to hold in my hands forever was gone.

Being a mother is like that, too. So many times in my mothering walk I have wanted to grab time with both hands and make it stop forever at this or that perfect moment, but time keep rushing on, dragging me breathless along with it to other perfect moments (and sometimes, yes, less than perfect moments. But we never ask time to stand still for those).

I have wanted to clutch my children to me and shout "Stop growing right now! This is perfect, this is where I want us to be forever." But if I'd had my way, I'd have missed other equally perfect, beautiful, joyous moments, even other children, moments which were also the ethereal gift of time, a gift of growth, a gift that only comes when we appreciate the moments that make up the individual beads on the strand of pearls that is mothering.

Appreciate each moment. Look at it with all your attention and imprint it on your heart and mind. And then move on without regrets. Every stage has its rewards.

----------------------------
Not everything that we have been through in the last two and half years has been a joy. Some of it has been searingly painful, and changed lives forever. But time stops neither for the great joys or for the great sorrows. I am old enough, and heart-scarred enough now that I am deeply grateful that time here does move on.

What's For Breakfast?

Boston Brown Bread Muffins

1/2 cup each: Rye; cornmeal, whole wheat flours
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 egg
1/3 cup molasses
1/3cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk or put 1 tablespoon vinegar in a one cup measure and add milk to make one cup
1 cup golden raisins (of course you can use the regular sort, or omit them altogether)

Preheat oven to 400, grease tins.

Mix dry ingredients (excpet sugar). In a separate bowl mix the sguar and dame ingredients. Stir to belned well. Combine with dry ingredients and mix well. Add raisins, stir to mix.

Fill muffin cups 1/2 to 2/3 cup full. Bake 15 minutes or until a straw inserted in center comes out clean. Don't overbake.

Makes 12-16 (depends on how full you fill the muffin cups)
The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

A Walk

I took Donovan dog on a walk this evening, and we ran into five or six deer. This one just stood there and let me photograph it. The picture looks strange, though.

Sue, Baby, Sue

Background checks on Joe the Plumber were more extensive than first admitted:

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.

Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said.

Jones-Kelley made the maximum donation possible (legally, we don't know who used Obama's security-disabled online donation system) to the Obama campaign this year. This smells.

I am not saying Obama had anything personally to do with it. I am saying it looks to me like Jones-Kelley and several other government employees have violated a public trust and they need to be fired and find work where they cannot do so again.

Links

Head cold, cleaning a garage full of cat hair and I'm allergic to cats, getting read for a wedding, a singing on Friday, a house full of houseguests, and.... here's what I find interesting online just now:


Planned Parenthood admits infanticide happens

Credit-card experts explain the extent of Obama’s deception

New York Democratic Campaign Adviser Fired After Registering to Vote in Ohio

Obama's numbers don't add up- says CBS

Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets' (Jason Horowitz, October 30, 2008, NY Observer)

A week after his last money plea, Obama asks everyone for another $5 (Andrew Malcolm, 10/30/08, LA Times: Top of the Ticket)

An email somebody sent the Anchoress:

An observation about Barack Obama that bothers me enough to write somebody an email.

Barack Obama said during the first debate that he would sit down and talk to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, without preconditions because he did not believe in the notion that by not talking to people we are somehow punishing
them.

Then when a Florida TV reporter asks his VP candidate, Sen. Biden, some questions he didn’t like, their campaign cuts them off and refuses to talk to them or grant any further interviews.

So, Barack Obama is willing to sit down and talk with the regime that gave the order for the bombing of our Marine Barracks in Beirut but not willing to talk to an American TV station because of a few tough questions.

Politicians all make contradictory statements; it’s almost impossible not to considering all the speeches they make. But this is different. This is a case of actions speaking louder than words. His cutting off of that Florida station is a preview of how he will act as President. Will he be this vindictive towards all Americans who don’t agree with him or his administration? Cutting off that station but still being willing to talk to a terror sponsoring regime also reveals a certain naiveté, or worse, an unacceptable level of moral relativism.

This, combined with his going back on his word about public campaign financing, I think, are a true measure of his character.
[All links and italics mine - admin]

Barack's Auntie discovered- living in poverty, and forbidden by Barack to talk to the press until after the election. I guess it's not his OWN wealth he wants to 'spread around.' It never really is.

Former ACORN employee testifies that the Obama Campaign gave ACORN Obama's donor list- something they refused to do even for Hilary.

Scandal and Corruption:

The federal probe into an embattled Massachusetts state senator who was clandestinely videotaped stuffing alleged bribe money into her bra by the FBI has expanded to include three Boston City Council members, the state senate president and several state liquor board officials, ABC News has learned.

On Tuesday, Democratic state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson -- an eight-term incumbent -- was arrested at her Roxbury home and charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes, including 10 $100 bills that she was videotaped secreting into her brassiere during a meeting at a tony Boston restaurant last June.

Hours after her arrest, Boston City Hall was hit with a flurry of subpoenas and FBI agents assigned to the public corruption unit interviewed City Council President Maureen Feeney and Councilor Chuck Turner.

And finally, let's have a taste of something sweet to cleanse the palate.

Shifting Excuses at the LA Times

First they said they just didn't need to release the tape of Obama they reported on previously- one where they:

described a party in 2003 for Khalidi, a renowned scholar on the Palestinians who in the 1970s had acted as a spokesman for Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization.

Some participants at the event spoke sharply against Israel. One young woman accused the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of the Palestinians. Obama “adopted a different tone,” according to the article, “and called for finding common ground.”

Citizens wish to see this tape for themselves and make up their own minds about it, rather than relying on the proven shoddy gatekeepers at the LA Times.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have contact the LA Times asking them to release the tapes. So then they said that, oh, yeah, plus, they also had an agreement with the 'source' not to share the tape.

And now they say, 'oh, yeah, and also..."

The Times has made it clear (last night online and in today’s newspaper) that it will honor that agreement. That is what you’d want, I would think: protection of a source in return for getting the underlying information. To break that agreement might put the source of the tape in jeopardy.
It slipped their minds the first few excuses, or they're lying. Gee, that's a tough one.

Actually, they are not lying. Look at it again. Weitman says only that it 'might' put the source in danger. This also means it might not. And given Weitman's changing reasons, I believe these are simply weasel words because the LATimes does not want to embarrass Obama.

Alternatively, having seen what the Obamabots do to folks like Joe the Plumber, maybe the 'jeopardy' is from the Obama camp.

Here's a New Idea....

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
Marcus Tullius Cicero - 55 BC

Okay, maybe not so new, but it does seem a long time, if ever, since we tried it.

Small Town Thugs With the Force of the Law In Their Hands

In Idaho, Daryl Crandall, a candidate for the sheriff's office is having a snit. He put up one of his campaign signs in somebody else's yard, and that person, offended by observing Crandall's use of on duty police officers for his campaign, altered the sign to make it clear he was no Crandall supporter.

Crandall filed a complaint against the man, accusing him of malicious injury to property.

People who get this puffed up about their small position of power shouldn't be given the authority to play dog-catcher.

Palate Cleansing Political Song

If a school is going to talk politics with kids, this is the way to do it. This is the way to do it:



Thanks to Ace

Chocolate

Kim celebrated National Chocolate Day by posting a very interesting recipe for Chocolate Cake in a Mug- for those moments when you need a quick infusing of Chocolate into your system or somebody is going to die.

Depp's Tribute to Buster Keaton

When we saw this movie a few years ago, we liked this segment well enough to show it to our littlest people the next day.

Heh. I say Heh.

There are times when somebody justifies (or attempts to) something as 'at least better than...' and my husband says, "Right. So should I be addicted to cocaine or heroine? Which is better?'

Similar, though more literary, analogy here.

What's For Lunch?

New-Fangled Farm Fry- or low-carb farmers fry

4 slices bacon
1 cup caulifowerets, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces.
1 cup diced turnip, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces.
1/2 cup diced onion
4 eggs
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
salt and pepper.

Use kitchen shears to snip bacon into tiny pieces- cut it up right over a frying pan. Start it cooking. Combine caulifowerets, turnips, and two tablespoons of water in microwave and nuke for 7 minutes.
Drain vegetables. Drain most of the fat from bacon. Add the vegetables to bacon and grease in pan, saute until onion is translucent.
Scramble the eggs with a fork, pour into skillet. Sprinkle cheese over it all, and stir until eggs are set. Salt and pepper to taste.
From 15-minute low-carb recipes by Dana Carpenter

Blind-Spot

Sometimes the media's double standard is impressively disparate that I can only laugh at it.

Via Hot Air, Kate Snow, at ABC, is nattering on because Palin has not released her medical records. Obama never released his, and I am not aware of Kate Snow or anybody at ABC ever pointing that out.

Obama, a long time smoker, released a 276 word summary of his records, and he hasn't had a check up in over a year. McCain had to relase far more than that, but the media never peeped about the Smoker's laughable 276 word summary.

Furthermore, Palin hasn't been running as long as Obama. When we adopted the Cherub, it took us over a year to get all of her medical records together, and she was just short of six years old. Further, we needed her records because of her many health issues. Palin only needs her records for political reasons, and I can't see her doctors pushing that forward as a top priority.

Writing a letter

During one of the debates, McCain pointed out Obama was the second largest beneficiary of contributions from FAnnie Mae (the largest if we divvy his funding up by years in office)- and Obama responded that he had addressed the issue of Fannie Mae. He wrote a letter.

Aside from the point that I am fairly certain Senators are not elected to write letters, but to actually legislate, I had my doubts that the Senator actually wrote this letter. I was wrong. The Wall STreet Journal has seen it.

Mr. Obama's March 2007 letter included a stirring call to "assess options" and boldly suggested that the two men "facilitate a serious conversation" about housing. He was even brave enough to suggest that "the relevant private sector entities and regulators" might be able to provide "targeted responses." Then in paragraph four, the Harvard-trained lawyer dropped his bombshell: a suggestion that various interest groups get together to "consider" best practices in mortgage lending.

Some may find it hard to believe that Mr. Obama had nothing to show for this herculean effort to shake up Washington. They may be shocked as well that such passionate language didn't move the Fed and Treasury to action. For our part, we note that nowhere in his letter did Mr. Obama suggest that the government should stop subsidizing loans to people who can't repay them.

This is the latest fad among Beltway liberals who spent years encouraging noneconomic mortgage loans. They now proudly announce that at critical moments they issued a press release, or wrote someone, suggesting that somebody do something. Since soured mortgage loans are a root cause of this panic, and since Democrats did so much to encourage mortgage lending, the most politically useful of these archived warnings are the ones blaming something other than housing.

Hat tip HotAir

In related news, banks were in such desperate need of money that they are using the bail out money to buy other banks, and Chrysler and GM are considering merging so that they will then be too big for the government to let them fail.

Here's what I would like to see- every politician voting for the bail-out booted out of office- oh, and without their pensions, as they want to do to the executives of companies who fail. And then let's get term limits. Career politicians lose touch, lose perspective, and apparently lose their moral grounding.

I don't much care who's President, because I'd rather see almost ANY third party candidate than either of the two major party candidates. We desperately need a House and Senate controlled by the opposing party.

Jaw-Droppers

In Ohio voters can list park benches as their address for the purpose of voting. Goody.

Headline at Ace's:

Priorities: Obama Doesn't Want Photo ID to Vote, But He Does Insist on Photo ID to Attend His Would-Be Victory Party
—Ace

Can't have people showing up to a party not entitled to be there, after all.

But voting?

Come one, come all.

"Bipartisan-" I do not think that word means what she thinks it means:

...if the Democrats win, and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan," said Pelosi.

They will brook no dissent. Seriously. A friend of mine recently asked me if I wasn't afraid to say the things I said on this blog about Obama and his campaign. I laughed. But there are times when I do wonder- like reading this from Truth or Fiction:

According to an article written in the The Lufkin Daily News on October 06, 2008, Jessica Hughes got a telephone call on October 1, 2008 from a member of the Obama Volunteers of Texarkana asking for her support of the presidential candidate.

When the volunteer asked her if she was an Obama supporter, Hughes told the volunteer "No, I don't support him. Your guy is a socialist who voted four times in the state Senate to let little babies die in hospital closets; I think you should find something better to do with your time." After that she hung up on the telemarketer. Hughes was referring to The Born Alive Protection Act, Illinois bill that was not supported by Obama and against which he voted 4 times..

The following day, two federal agents arrived at the Hughes home inquiring if she said, "I will never support Obama and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor."

Hughes was surprised to see the two agents at her door but says she was more upset by what she said was the volunteer deliberately twisting what she said and turning it into a death threat against the Democratic candidate. The newspaper attempted to contact Josh Taylor, the communications director for the Texas Obama Campaign but he declined comment and referred the matter to the Secret Service, which he said is conducting an investigation."

Click here for Lufkin Daily News story

The 'Change' Barack Obama & Raila Odinga brought to to Kenya

By Abdul

Marxist Raila Odinga, with the backing of Kenya's Muslim community and help from American Marxist Barack Obama, promised to bring "change" to Kenya and to "redistribute the wealth," and after brainwashing their followers into believing that President Mwai Kibaki was an old man who could die of health reasons, Raila Odinga did indeed bring "change" to Kenya and "redistributed the wealth" - and the people of Kenya have never recovered from it. Sound somewhat familiar?

The AP actually fact checked Obama's infomercial in a decent fashion.

Goose Bumps, Chills, and a Frisson of Pleasure

All while reading this post at The Beehive on the importance of memorization and poetry. Wow.

What's For Breakfast?

Nutmeg Muffins- makes a dozen

These will be so much more flavorful if you can use a real, whole nutmeg you grate yourself instead of using the ground nutmeg in a jar.
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 whole nutmegs, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup heavy cream (they are better with it, but we mostly use milk)
3/4 cup milk (which means we just use 1 1/2 cups milk)
5 tablespoons melted butter

Heat oven to 400 degrees (F). Grease muffins tins. Using a fork, combine dry ingredients. Beat the egg well, then stir in the wet ingredients with the egg and mix well again. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir just until there are no streaks of flour. DO NOT OVERMIX.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 of the way full. Bake for about 20 minutes. Tops should be light gold (darker if you're using whole wheat). Serve warm with melting butter slathered in the middles.

You can cool them and freeze for later use, but reheat when serving. Also good with cream cheese spread.

The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

Virginia Officals Tossing Military Ballots

I'd read this before, but saw that technically, even though they were being kind of jerks about it, there was a reason within state law, some piece of information the state required to be written on the ballot that wasn't (because there's nothing informing out of state voters that they are supposed to include it). But it seems that while this is a technically legal tactic by state law- it's a violation of federal law.

In Virginia’s liberal Fairfax County, officials are illegally discarding absentee ballots cast by members of the military based on a technical requirement that is preempted by federal law. Meanwhile, people who live out-of-state are being allowed to vote (some people have boasted of being registered to vote, and voting, both in Virginia and another state) in Virginia elections, contrary to state law, based on instructions from liberal state voting officials and false claims by liberal advocacy groups.

The Washington Examiner reports on October 24 that “Fairfax County elections officials are rejecting about 200 overseas ballots, many of them from members of the military, saying the voters failed to observe a minor technicality in filling out their absentee forms.” As retiring Congressman Tom Davis notes, that technicality “violates federal law” through its “disparate treatment of overseas voters.”

“The State Board of Elections last week instructed county officials to adhere to the letter of the [state] law,” even though it is preempted by contrary federal law. Officials at the State Board of elections are appointed by liberal Governor Tim Kaine.

By contrast, the same officials are ignoring state law and accepting votes from college students who aren't domiciled in VA.

Our Tax System

Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too.

It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got' 'That's true!!'

shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics

University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Reasons why I lean strongly libertarian

Libertarians are not just all about legal drugs, man, legal drugs. No. For some of us who are socially and fiscally extremely conservative, libertarianism is a principled ordering of priorities.

I see a useful function of government in protecting citizens from one another where necessary. I don't see much justification for government protecting me from myself, and certainly, the cops defending this raid have a warped sense of perspective that would be cleansed and made right by some principled libertarian ideals.

Which Way Will Blow the Breeze

From our favorite Danny Kaye movie, The Inspector General




Start it about 3 minutes in for the best part- three versions of Danny Kaye trying to figure out how to play out the biggest con job of his life. His wife wrote the lyrics for these songs.

Obama funded Radical Racists groups

Here are some of the projects The Annenburg Project and the Woods fund of Chicago funded under Barack Obama's leadership:

ACORN- 75,000

Trinity Church, where Obama attended, pastored by the bigoted firebrand Jeremiah Wright- 6,000. For what purpose?

The reason for the donation to the church is unclear -- it is simply listed as "for special purposes" in the group's IRS tax form.

Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University: 60,000
Bernardine Dohrn is its founder and she was (and may still be) in charge of the center then- she, of course, is a domestic terrorist who insists her only regrets about her violent career is that they didn't do enough. She has spoken admiringly of Manson's 'work' and is, if anything, more outspokenly radical than her husband, Bill Ayers. It was from a political coffee in her home with Ayers that Obama launched his political career.

$50,000 to the Small Schools Network -- which was founded by Ayers and run by Michael Klonsky, a friend of Ayers' and the former chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), an offshoot of the 1960s radical group Students for a Democratic Society -- and $40,000 to the Arab American Action Network, which critics have accused of being anti-Semitic.

That's just for the Woods fund (they refused to answer questions). While Obama was in charge of the Annenburg project, the pattern was similar. In many cases, identical as he funnelled money to the same groups again. Only this time, the Small Schools Network got a million dollars.

the South Shore African Village Collaborative received nearly a million dollars. They won't say much about why or what they do:

Asked to comment, Yvonne Williams-Kinnison, executive director of the collaborative's parent group, the Coalition for Improved Education in South Shore said, "I don't want to put more fuel on the fire. You can call us back after the election.... I don't want to compromise the position."

Late Afrocentrist scholars Jacob Carruthers and Asa Hilliard were both invited to give SSAVC teachers a training session, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge noted in a report, adding that the "consciousness raising session ... received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey session."

But Carruthers has been a controversial figure because of inflammatory statements he made in writing.

"The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy," Carruthers wrote in his 1999 book, "Intellectual Warfare." "Some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our disrupted ancestral culture."

In the book, he compared the process of blacks assimilating into American culture with rape.

"We may not be able to get our virginity back after the rape, but we do not have to marry the rapist," Carruthers said.

Hilliard has come under fire for advocating what many consider an extreme Afrocentric curriculum.

He selected the articles for the "African-American Baseline Essays" published in 1987 and first used in the Portland, Ore., school district. The essays have been criticized for claiming, among other things, that ancient Egyptians were the first to discover manned flight and the theory of evolution.

An Obama spokesman called investigation of these ties "pathetic."

A pathetic attempt to distract voters is actually what the Obama campaign said. I've noted before that 'destraction' is an Obama code word for 'anything that embarrasses me or makes me look bad.'

Both organizations funded less controversial projects as well. But do you supposed the media would ignore it if a Republican candidate had contributed as much as 1 percent to the operations of a white supremacist group?

Cleaning Green and Keeping Some Green in Your Wallet

I've added a new label so it should be easy to find our other posts with recipes for making your own cleaners. See below the sigline of this post, click on "Make Your Own Cleaners" and that should bring up most of them. I've also played around with Amazon's carosel widget (because it's fun) and put the main ingredients you'll need in one place- above. If you can find them in your local store, it's probably cheaper that way, but if you can't...

Questions asked since last time:

Q. Do you have a frugal source for spray bottles and the like?

A. No, and I haven't been happy with most of them- they clog up, break, and disappoint me. I suspect it's worth it to pay more for a sturdier spray bottle, but I still haven't liked most of the ones we've tried.

Discoveries since last post:

Castile soap is a good substitute for the Fels Naptha, and you can get it unscented (see above- Amazon carries Dr. Bronners, currently on sale, and eligible for free shipping). Caveat- Dr. Bronner was an, um, interesting fellow, and reading the labels on his products is sort of like being shouted at by the kindly old New Age Hippie up the street- you know the one, the sixties weren't very good for him, were they?

You can make dry laundry soap instead of liquid- way easier:

1 Bar Fels Naptha or Castile Soap, Grated - we use an old metal cheese grater.

1 1/2 to 2 Cups Washing Soda (Arm and Hammer makes it. You find it in the laundry or cleaning section of your grocer's. This is a GREAT cleaner, and we use it for several things. It's just Sodium Carbonate, which is what the Rendezvous Ph Up pool cleaner pictured above is as well- check out your local pool supply store and read labels)

1 1/2 to two Cups Borax (I've only seen 20 Mule Team brand- this is a mineral, which is why you'll see it in so many 'green' cleaning recipes)

Put this in a glass jar with a lid, shake it well. Write on it with a permanent marker (or use tape to attach a label)- "Laundry Soap, 1 Tablespoon or less!" Put a rubber band around the jar and put a measuring spoon in that rubber band to make sure nobody overuses it.

This does work in front loaders, that's what we have.

WE're cool with unscented, but if you like scent, try sprinkling a few drops of lavender and/orange oil in the jar and then shake it up really well.

Dishwasher:
1 Tablespoon Washing soda; 1 Tablespoon Borax- put these in your soap dispenser. If you use rinses, put white vinegar in the rinse cup.

Toilet bowl cleaner: put 1/4 cup of borax into the toilet bowl and let it sit half an hour. Scrub and rinse. Add a couple drops of pine oil for added disinfectant and to make you feel better about not using a toxic cleaner.=) (not, however, if you're allergic to pine)


Home-made all purpose cleaner

1 tsp. Borax
1/2 tsp. Washing Soda
2 Tbsp. vinegar
1/2 tsp. liquid dish soap (or dissolve a teaspoon of the castile soap)
2 cups really hot water
Mix everything but the water into a jar. Gradually add the water, stirring or shaking gently until everything is thoroughly dissolved (that's why you need the water hot). When you are sure it is completely dissolved add 2-4 drops of essential oils. Pine oil makes it smell like pine-sol or other pine cleaners.
Add a few drops of your favorite essential oils if you like.

I like using these homemade cleaners because they are nontoxic cleaners, presumably safer for children (who do most of the cleaning around here).
It's cheaper than most cleaners and works just as well.
Something else we did when the oldest five Progeny were younger- using the clean and green books above, we put together different cleaners, and then I let them choose their own essential oils so that the cleaning products they used were personalized to make the person using them happy. Jenny really liked a strong, clean scent, so she used tea tree oils, Rosemary, and Pine. I like lavender and orange. Pip liked cinnamon and orange (clean your sink with a mixture of baking soda, salt, enough cinnamon to smell it, and a drop or two of orange oil).
This made cleaning chores just a little bit more pleasant and fun.

And Still More on Obama's Fund-raising Fraud

Mark Steyn cleanses the cobwebs and puts this in perspective:

So two-thirds of Obama's record haul derives from a website that intentionally disabled all the default security checks that prevent basic fraud like fake addresses and no-name matches.
[...]

Which brings us to the case of Mary T Biskup of Manchester, Mo, who discovered there were scores of small online donations made to the Obama campaign in her name, even though she hasn't given him a dime. They added up to $174,800, which is a wee bit over the $2,300 limit. This very generous donation was not billed to her own card, but to someone else's - meaning (as the Post says) "someone appropriated her name".

Ah, but who? And, if just one unwitting front is responsible for 175 grand of the Obama take, how many other Mary T Biskups are there out there?

Here's the bottom line:

Two-thirds of the record-breaking haul Obama raised for the final stretch of the campaign comes from a racket set up to facilitate fake names, phony addresses and untraceable cards. As Bill Dyer asks:

Who ordered the anti-fraud protections turned off?

And as he concludes:

What did the wanna-be president know and when did he know it?

As Victor says below, this is part of a long pattern of behavior by Obama in which the noble ends of the Messiah's triumph justify any means.

The Hanson article is here.

Hotair also covers the funding fraud.

Freddoso points out more politics as usual from The One:

Obama has formally endorsed Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), who made CREW's list last year as one of the 18 most corrupt members of the House of Representatives.

As of June, Scott owed approximately $154,000 in back taxes to the IRS, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has also come under fire for paying family members and their company $643,000 from his campaign funds — a practice which he stopped after Politico wrote a story on his dealings last May.

Campbell Brown points out what Obama's Cash Coffers can do- she notes he's getting there on a broken promise.


Broken promises and illegal donations.

Shifting Sands

A while back Jim noticed that even those outside the Obama campaign seemed to be moving the goal posts:

Paul Krugman, in today's New York Times column:

What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama? Well, Mr. Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets — and the second-highest bracket for a head of household starts at an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year.

Wait, we've been hearing endlessly that Obama will never raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000!

Via the Corner

Click through on this link to see just how much variation the Obama campaign is already giving their 'tax cuts for everybody who earns under 250,000' pledge. For instance:

Obama's position in the past was that he would raise taxes on families making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. But in his new ad, "Defining Moment," he seems to lower it to $200,000 for families. "Here's what I'll do as president," Obama says in the ad. "To deal with our current emergency I'll launch a rescue plan for the middle class That begins with a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans. If you have a job, pay taxes and make less than $200,000 a year, you'll get a tax cut." That seems kind of ambiguous, but the graphic on the screen says clearly: "Famlies making less than $200,000 get tax cut." Now, the McCain campaign is pointing out something that Joe Biden said in a Pennsylvania TV interview yesterday:

What we’re saying is that $87 billion tax break doesn’t need to go to people making an average of 1.4 million, it should go like it used to. It should go to middle class people — people making under $150,000 a year.”

Remind me of Obama's pledge not to accept public financing if McCain wouldn't. McCain agreed, signed up for public financing, and then Obama walked away from his promise as easily as Lucy pulled the ball away from Charlie Brown- and he seems to have suffered zero repercussions for this blatant display of dishonest politics.

I kind of appreciate that, actually. Usually, Politicians start breaking their promises after the election. I guess by change, Obama means he can break his campaign promises and move the goal posts as he's speaking. So we can have no doubt on where we stand.

What's For Lunch?

Quiche and salad

Crust:
2 cups cooked rice
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoon soy sauce or Bragg's Liquid Amino Acids

Combine. Mix well Spread evenly to cover well greased quiche pan or pie plate. Bake rice crust at 350 F for ten minutes. Remove. This is a nice crust because it doesn't really get soggy.

Filling:
1/2 pound leftover veggies, chopped
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup grated cheese
1/8 teaspoon of salt
dash nutmeg or mace

Put chopped vegetable (and bits of meat you have them) in bottom of crust. Combine eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Pour over veggies and meat in pan. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until set. REmove from oven and let set ten minutes before slicing. OR, cool, wrap, label, and freeze. Eat it cold after thawing or heat thawed quich at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

From Frozen Assets

Abuse of Power

Via Hot Air and Ace, Joe the Plumber is considering suing the public officials who broke the law and checked out his personal information using government computers:

People don’t realize, I think, that we’re talking about three separate searches by three different state agencies: Toledo P.D., Cuyahoga County DSS, and an outside contractor with access to the Attorney General’s test account. This isn’t a case of some halfwit clerk somewhere calling up his records on a lark, in other words. It’s a triple play.
[...]
The PD employee’s already been charged with gross misconduct; according to the Dispatch story, she was doing a favor for a reporter who wanted Wurzelbacher’s address.

It should also come as no surprise to anybody that she's an Obama donator-

(Once you've donated the maximum allowed to Obama, as the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services did, you lose the benefit of the doubt in my book.)

Making His Mama Proud

The Boy is breezing his way through the Redwall books, and enjoying them very much. Yesterday he took his latest book in the car as he went with Shasta, the Equuschick, the FYG and me to the thrift shop to buy Shasta a winter coat (poor man- came up from Texas and it's below freezing here).

Long time readers of our blog may remember that when we started blogging the Boy could not read, and he struggled with putting sounds to letters (he still can't remember the name of one or two letters- including one that is in his name so he uses it daily). I tried not to worry, and most of the time I succeeded, but still, there were times where there were twinges of doubt in my soul as I watched him struggle to read things his oldest sisters had mastered two years earlier.

So.... yesterday he read away, hoping to finish his Redwall book before we left town so he could get a new one at the library. While I was in the grocery store getting eggs and cheese, the rest of the family stayed in the warm car and the Boy finished his book.

I got back to the van in time to hear Shasta say admiringly, "Wow, Boy, I am pretty impressed. You got through quite a big chunk of that book in a very short time, and it doesn't even have any pictures."

The Boy looked blankly at him and said, "Pictures? Why would I need pictures?"

I think my heart swelled so much I heard a rib crack.

Catchy, but Blasphemous Little Song

Obama be thy name
the change shall comet
thy will be done

I like the musical fusion here. I like the beat. I like the production values and the international flavor. I get a kick out of this accent. I would like to like this song, but I cannot elevate a man to this position of worship.

You know the really frightening thing about these? I haven't gone looking for them, they just keep turning up, like squirmy things under rocks.

It's frightening. For years we've been hearing about how important the separation of church and state is, and now the left is appointing a Messiah figure as president.

Appointing isn't really the right word, is it? Let's say... annointing.

What's For Breakfast?

Bridge Creek Fresh Ginger Muffins (makes 16)

2 ounce chunk of unpeeled fresh gingerroot- ground ginger just won't be the same.
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tablesppons lemon zest from two lemons with some pith
1 stick of butter, room temp.
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (or a tablespoon of vinegar and then milk to the top of the measuring cup to make 1 cup)
2 cups flour (we use whole wheat)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Heat oven to 375F; Grease muffin tins

cut the unpeeled ginger into tiny chunks (a food processor works, as does a hand chopper)- you want 1/4 a cup or more- not less. Put ginger and 1/4 cup sugar in in a small skillet and cook over medium heat until sugar is melted. Don't do anything else until this is done- this is not a 'multi-tasking' job. Do what you are doing- stirring and cooking sugar and ginger in order to feed your loved ones something marvelous.
Let this cool. You can now pulse the lemon zest and 3 Tablespoons of sugar in the food processor or chop the zest into tiny bits and then mix with sugar. Add the lemon-sugar misture to the ginger-sugar mixture. Stir well, set to one side.

Put the butter in a mixing bowl, give it a whir with the mixer, add 1/2 cup of sugar and beat until smooth. Add eggs, mix weel, add buttermilk, blend, add flour, salt, baking soda, beat smooth. Add the lemon-ginger mixture and mix well. Spoon into muffin cups about 3/4 full- bake 15 to 20 minutes. SErve warm, dripping with butter.

Eat slowly, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. Delectable.
The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

Three Shameful Things

From Bill Whittle regarding Obama's 2001 radio recording where he unabashedly supports redistribution of the wealth and laments that the Civil Rights movement did not break free of the Constitution:

1. It's a shame that we are about to elect a Marxist. It's more shameful that we are about to elect a man to a job where he is supposed to defend and protect the Constitution, and he plans to 'break free' from it instead:

“And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and [the] Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

Here's what wrong with that:

The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population.

Barack Obama sees that limiting of government not as a lynchpin but rather as a fatal flaw: “…One of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.”

There is no room for wiggle or misunderstanding here. This is not edited copy. There is nothing out of context; for the entire thing is context — the context of what Barack Obama believes. You and I do not have to guess at what he believes or try to interpret what he believes. He says what he believes.

We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

If this does not frighten you — regardless of your political affiliation — then you deserve what this man will deliver with both houses of Congress, a filibuster-proof Senate, and, to quote Senator Obama again, “a righteous wind at our backs.”

That a man so clear in his understanding of the Constitution, and so opposed to the basic tenets it provides against tyranny and the abuse of power, can run for president of the United States is shameful enough.

There is another shameful thing about this recording, and has nothing to do with Obama himself, except insofar as his campaign has worked hard to chill speech and freeze out all dissent. It took the press less than 24 hours to break the law in using government computers to access and spread personal information about a private citizen who dared to ask The One an impertinent question. It took a day or two to come up with a dozen different smears against Sarah Palin. They've had a couple years to find out who this Barack Obama is and to do their job and report it. They did not.

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single citizen, on the Internet did.

Whittle objects to 'journalists' who are really 'narcissists and elitists' who select 'which information is passed on to the electorate and which is not' based entirely on their personal biases and agenda, and their end will be a personal torment in " a fiery lake of irrelevance, blinding clouds of obscurity, and burning, everlasting scorn."

There is a third shameful thing:

This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber.

What will be left of my friend, and my friend’s family, I wonder, when the press is finished with them?

Because they are vindictive, the media and the Obama campaign (but that's redundant).

Obama's Illegal Campaign Donations

More here.

What accounts for the Obama campaign's acceptance of these fraudulent donations? Most merchants selling goods and services use the basic Address Verification System that screens credit-card charges for matching names and addresses. (It can also screen cards issued by foreign banks.) The McCain campaign uses AVS and provides a searchable database of all donors, including those who fall below the $200 threshold. The Obama campaign apparently has chosen not to use the AVS system to screen donations.

"Della Ware" contacted The New York Times to report her experience contributing under a fictitious name and address ("12345 No Way") to the Obama campaign, while her contribution was rejected by the McCain campaign. Times reporter Michael Luo verified "Della Ware's" account and reported it online at the Times' campaign blog. But Luo missed the story's point.

"To be fair to the Obama campaign," he wrote, its "officials have said much of their checking for fraud occurs after the transactions have already occurred. When they find something wrong, they then refund the amount."

But the Obama campaign is running a system that complicates the discovery of "something wrong." It has chosen to operate an online contribution system that facilitates illegal falsely sourced contributions, illegal foreign contributions and the evasion of contribution limits.

Obama backers making such contributions may not be worried that "something wrong" will be detected if they have no intention of complaining about it.

According to journalist Kenneth Timmerman, the Obama site did not ask for proof of citizenship until just recently - in contrast not just with McCain but also with Hillary Clinton. Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign required US citizens living abroad to fax copies of their passports before it would accept donations. By contrast, foreign donors to Obama can just use credit cards and false addresses.

Why has the Obama campaign chosen to operate without the basic automated credit-card controls that would prevent or hamper fraud and illegal contributions? Has it made a conscious decision to assist the evasion of federal campaign law or worry about it after it has had the use of the money?

It's hard to see any other motive.

So the Obama campaign and supporters have responded by cleaning it up and refusing to accept donations that don't match up?
Of course not. They want to prosecute the citizen journalists who caught the Obama campaign cheating. That link is to Megan McArdle, who still supports Obama and, perplexingly, has no reason to think that shutting off the default positions on credit card software so that the normal checks are inoperative was deliberate. Right.

She is concerned about the police state mentality Obama and his supporters have displayed:

The Obama campaign screwed up massively; it should not be possible to charge something to a credit card without matching the name to the name on the credit card. Most responsible web processors also require that you provide a fair amount of other information, to ensure that people aren't using stolen cards. And beyond that, last time I looked it was mandatory to get correct names to ensure that people aren't violating the campaign finance laws. I don't support those laws, to be sure. But as long as they are the law, all the campaigns have to abide by them.

Wondering if we can't prosecute the person who exposed the campaign's error smacks of police state tactics. Yes, I still support Obama, and I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate. But that doesn't mean that I think the Obama team has a right to have its errors protected from public exposure.

The comments are kind of amusing, as Obama-bots gasp 'but, but, but' and refuse to believe the evidence or find out certain facts like:
Yep, this has been tried on the McCain campaign, and donations are automatically refused.
Yep, these are charges that actually went through- at no point does the campaign 'catch them' (because the campaign turned off the default settings so they didn't work).
YEs, this is something the campaign itself had to do, not an error on the part of the credit card company.
Yes, this does allow him to accept illegal campaign donations- from people using different names to go over the 200 dollar limit, from foreigners who may not contribute to American campaigns- it is not credit card fraud, it is campaign donation fraud that is the issue.
Yes, this certainly does make his broken promise to accept public financing instead of going to the private collection route very suspicious.
No, there is not a good reason to deliberately disable the settings designed collect the information that would be needed to identify donations as legal or not. There is a bad reason, and that would be so that you do not identify illegal contributions and can keep the funds.
McCain releases the names of ALL donors- even those under the 200 dollar limit. Obama refuses, and he doesn't keep the information that would permit anybody to check.

Verum Serum:

So what kind of shenanigans might be enabled by this basic lapse of fiduciary responsibility on the part of the Obama campaign? How about the possibility that the campaign has received illegal contributions from untold thousands of citizens from all over the world? In fact it’s more than just a possibility, as the campaign has already had to return foreign source contributions brought to light earlier this year.

However, I suspect the problem runs far, far deeper than this. I spent only a few minutes searching international versions of Google and Yahoo and what did I find? For starters, numerous foreign web sites soliciting contributions for the Obama campaign in their native language with a direct link to the campaign web site (e.g. http://www.repubblicadirovigliano.org).

And if this isn’t bad enough, how about a campaign blog site on behalf of “Le France and Le Europe” - hosted directly on the Obama campaign web site itself! (Click here for an English translation of this site.)

Note that not only is someone of French nationality advocating on behalf of Obama, but that according to the Activity Tracker section on the right-hand side of the page, they have raised a total of $38,768.11 (as of 10/25) through all of the members affiliated with this group. Might some of these donors be part of the French-speaking or John Kerry-loving contingent here in the U.S.? Sure…but considering who the intended audience is for membership in this group, it’s a sure bet that some if not most of the contributors are citizens of France or elsewhere in Europe.

Incidentally, those odd numbers are indicative of all donations in foreign currency- the exchange rates result in odd numbers when transferring round sums in foreign currency into American money.

Shasta's Here!

Yippee Ki Ya Yay!

More on Indoctrinating Children

Two new childrens' books, hagiographies, on Obama.

Infants Born Alive Act

Hotair:

While the Illinois AG told the legislature that the existing law could not be enforced, Obama actively blocked efforts to rewrite it so that abortionists could not simply stuff living infants into closets for them to die from neglect.

Scholastic Kids Voted

And they overwhelmingly voted for Obama.

Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama won with 57 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for Republican nominee Senator John McCain.

The poll was open to kids from grades 1 to 12 in Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines. Almost 250,000 (a quarter of a million) kids voted by paper ballot or online at www.scholastic.com/news. The poll closed on October 10.

Since 1940, the results of the student vote have mirrored the outcome of the general election all but twice: In 1948, kids voted for Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman. In 1960, more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than for John F. Kennedy. In 2000, a majority of student voters chose George W. Bush, mirroring the Electoral College result, but not the result of the popular vote.

It was also the highest percentage of write-in votes ever.

Musical Interlude

From our favorite Danny Kaye movie, The Inspector General

Danny Kaye is an illiterate gypsy who has wandered into town and the corrupt town politicians mistook him for the Inspector General, sent by Napoleon to stamp out corruption and graft in the land.
In this clip, is cup is poisoned, and all the men in suits waiting for him to drink it are the corrupt politicians.

What's Uncle Joe Talking About Now?

Hot Air has this for the first part, where Biden whines about his treatment at the hands of a journalist with some journalistic instincts for hard questions, but what caught my ear was this bit at the end- starting at 1.36 (right after deploring the partisan divisiveness of this campaign):

"Let me share a little bit of history with you. The defenders of the status quo, the defenders of the status quo have always tried to tear down those who would change our nation for the better. They said Thomas Jefferson wasn't a real Christian. That was the essence of the campaign against him. Does that sound familiar?"

Um, that would be because it's pretty much true- Jefferson wasn't a Christian. He was a deist.

Trivial observations not worthy of mentioning but I'm mentioning them anyway- the audience behind him is clearly bored and only hold up their signs on cue.

His forehead never moves, and it's kind of creepy.

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

Except maybe the people laughing at this. It really gets funny about a minute into it. Some phrases or words are a bit off-color for some of our more conservative homeschooling readers, but while you're laughing, some really good points will be seeping down into your soul.

I hope I remember this the next time I am frustrated with delayed planes, traffic, slow internet service, or tap water taking too long to heat up.

Homeschooling Carnival

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up- plenty to see and think about. Bi-partisan, too- we have a post on how we know Obama does support homeschooling, and how we know he does not.=)

What's for Lunch?

Lentil-Barley Stew, herbed garlic pita toasts, and fruit

Lentil Barley Stew (serves 6)

Saute together:
3/4 cup each chopped celery and onion in 1/4 cup fat

Add 6 cups water and 3/4 cup lentils

Cook 20 minutes. Add:
1 Qt canned tomatoes (or fresh that you have chopped well)
3/4 cup barley or brown rice**
2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/2 t. rosemary
1/2 t. garlic salt

Simmer 45-60 minutes. Add
1/2 cup shredded carrots

Cook five minutes, serve (you can add meat if you have it).

** if you have leftover cooked rice or barley, or instant, reduce the water and cooking time accordingly.

from The More with Less Cookbook

Herbed garlic pita toast

3/4 cup melted butter
1 tablespoon fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried
tablespoon fresh parsley, minced
1 minced clove garlic
juice of 1/2 a lemon
6 pita breads, separated into two rounds, and then each round cut in two

Combine herbs and lemon juice with butter. Brush inside of each pita piece. Arrange buttered side up on a cookie sheet- no overlapping.
Bake at 400 for about five minutes or until crisp and golden.
From Mary Hunt's Cheapskate Gourmet
If you don't have these herbs and seasonings, be creative. Use what you have in your hand- olive oil and rosemary or oregano? cooking oil, garlic, and snips of green onion or onion powder? Butter and chili powder for a spicy tex-mex version.

If you don't have a pastry brush, you can use the back of a spoon, a knife, or a clean paint brush in a pinch. This is also a good dish for children to make.

And I Hope They Never See the Light of Day

The ATF uncovered a plot by two 'men,' aged 20 and 18, to go on a killing spree in a primarily African American high school and then attempt to assasinate senator Obama. More at HotAir.

Their goal was over a hundred deaths, besides the Senator's (which last they did not actually expect to accomplish but they hoped to die in the attempt). They seem to have been pretty incompetent and would not have succeeded in their goal, but they nonetheless would have left a legacy of tears and heart-ache, sorrow and soul-searing pain, just in the attempt. Horrid, horrid excuses of human beings. Monsters.

What makes such moral amputees? What sort of darkness must be in the slimy miasma that passes for their souls that they could ponder the murder of 100 children as a 'goal.'

FLDS, Oct. 28th

Last week or so we mentioned that CPS' lead attorney on the FLDS case abruptly resigned:
More on the resignations here:

Charles Childress, the Austin attorney who in recent months has been the head of the San Angelo legal team seeking custody of children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Gary Banks, the local attorney who led the team during the months immediately after an April raid on the YFZ Ranch, have tendered their resignations.

"I cannot say a word about it," Childress said when reached at his Austin home Friday. "There is nothing I can say that wouldn't be out of line."

In his letter, Childress told state officials he expects the agency to resolve "all but a handful of the pending cases" against FLDS members, which CPS has accused of forcing young girls to marry much older men at their Schleicher County compound.

The attorneys join a growing list of officials associated with the April raid who have since left their jobs. Cary Cockerell, commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services - of which CPS is a part - retired Aug. 31 for personal reasons, while Texas Ranger Lt. Barry Caver, who commanded the April raid, left law enforcement in June to pursue a better-paying oil-industry job.

The two lead attorneys in the case quit. Maybe when they had time to look at the evidence they were keeping from the FLDS they were so appalled at the horrific job CPS workers had done, and the dishonest claims they had made for that evidence that they were too embarrassed to keep defending CPS actions in court. It need not have been noble. Pure self interest would suffice.

Barry Caver, leader of the Texas Ranger invasion of the YFZ ranch also resigned. Bill Medvecky says that his sources at the ranch say Barry was the best of the rangers, and he actually apologized to them during the raid, and seemed unhappy with what they were doing.

Here's more on BArry Caver.

Cary Cockerell also resigned from CPS. Cockerell testified before the Texas LEgislature and seems to have overstepped the facts:

The presentation from Cockerell included information supporting the CPS allegations that physical abuse has occurred at the ranch and suggestions that the boys might have suffered sexual abuse.

He offered no details in support of the sexual abuse allegations in his presentation to the committee. He went to the lieutenant governor's office immediately after his presentation and later sent out an aide to tell reporters he would not comment further.

At that point, Nelson issued a statement demanding further information.

I am not sure Nelson ever got it.

Kurt, at I Perceive has more insight on the current state of the FLDS case. He notes that the number of FLDS children still on CPS' books is down to fifty:

Taking a child traumatizes child and parents, inflicting irreparable harm on them and their relationship. The trust and intimacy so essential to family relationships is forever upset. Unless justified by law, it is state-perpetrated child and parent abuse and should be prosecuted as a crime.

Even if none of the 50 remaining FLDS cases is non-suited, the final tally will show that Judge Walther (who signed the original, false warrant) and Texas CPS have inflicted severe, irreparable emotional and psychological wounds on 415 children and their parents to achieve marginal (if any) improvement in the lives of 50 kids.

With distressing frequency, children placed in foster care — especially in Texas — end up worse off under state “protection” than they were with their biological parents. And even for those who are somehow better off, the improvement is arguably marginal.

Bottom line: If Walther and CPS are astronomically lucky, they will have severely damaged 8+ FLDS children for every one FLDS child who experiences any improvement as a result of CPS intervention. A corporation with such results goes bankrupt. Sometimes, the officers end up in jail, especially if — as is true of Texas CPS — the officers insist on telling investors that spending $8 to generate every dollar of sales is a profitable activity.

The FLDS case reveals Texas CPS — as never before — to be a monumental fraud on families and taxpayers. The stubbornness of CPS liars in this case has been awe-inspiring. No matter how bad the facts, CPS always insists that it did the right thing and will do it again if given the opportunity. This is an organization that simply refuses to admit when it has made a mistake. Texas CPS, and similar organizations around the country, should be liquidated, just like failed banks.

And here's a comment from the post there:

“Breaking all of the ties to several parental figures and siblings, and taking them to a remote and unfamiliar place raises many red flags about trauma and its effect on children,” Mr. Cohen said

Experts say younger children, who often do not have a sense of the passage of time, can be particularly hard hit by such separations. About 100 of the children removed from the sect were 2 years old or younger.

Shelly Greco, a court-appointed lawyer for a 14-month-old girl removed from the ranch, says the child had been up crying uncontrollably many nights because she was so abruptly weaned.

Numerous studies in recent years show that the effects of removal can be long lasting, often not showing up fully for a decade of more. In one study, Joseph J. Doyle, an economist with the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., found that children removed from their parents and taken into foster care, even for a relatively short period, were three times as likely to grow up to be juvenile offenders or have a teenage pregnancy than were children from similarly troubled homes who had been left with their parents.

Source

CPS itself causes more egregious abuse than it prevents.

Kpb points out:

In the thousands of pages Perry’s office shared in the PIA request, the “Proposed Judicial Resources Budget”, of April 29, showed they already anticipated there would only be 10 civil cases involving the custody suits. Since it also showed 15 criminal trials, my guess is that the estimate of 10 civil cases left room in the budget for error, meaning they really anticipated fewer that 10 cases.

So that tells me the state knew a month before the 3rd Appeals Court told them they couldn’t keep the children that they did not plan on keeping all of them anyway.

They were holding them hostage for other reasons - searching for something to justify that raid.

WRiting about the resignation of CPS two lead attorneys, the GoSanAngelos reporter (and that paper was pretty much the most unquestioning CPS mouthpiece covering the story) says:

The attorneys join a growing list of officials associated with the April raid who have since left their jobs. Cary Cockerell, commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services - of which CPS is a part - retired Aug. 31 for personal reasons, while Texas Ranger Lt. Barry Caver, who commanded the April raid, left law enforcement in June to pursue a better-paying oil-industry job.

None of the officials has cited the FLDS case as a reason for leaving. In Cockerell's case, CPS officials said specifically the case was not a factor in his decision.

Since that's what CPS made a point of saying, I'd say chances are pretty good that the FLDS case was certainly a factor in his decision.

Thomas Sowell

Video interview and discussion on A Conflict of Visions.

Thomas Sowell describes the critical differences between interests and visions. Interests, he says, are articulated by people who know what their interests are and what they want to do about them. Visions, however, are the implicit assumptions by which people operate. This idea elevates to politics, where visions are either “constrained” or “unconstrained.”

Good stuff.

Bill Burton and Megyn Kelly

What's for Breakfast?

Fresh Orange and Cranberry Compote (six servings)- for serving with cornbread muffins or bannocks:

1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
4 juice oranges, peeled, sliced into rounds, and seeded.

Put the cranberries in a small skillet and sprinkle the sugar over them. Add the water and cook over low heat, stirring often. Cook until the sugar has dissolved and the cranberries have popped, about 3 or 4 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and add the orange slices. Gently stir, spooning the cranberry juice over the slices until well saturated. SErve warm or chilled.

Delicious for holiday breakfast. Or combine leftover cranberry sauce with orange slices for breakfast after Thanksgiving.


The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

This n That

Everything you didn't even know to ask about winter squash- recipes, descriptions, lovely pics, nutritional info. Excellent resource (I love this site)

The AGe of Prosperity is Over.

What Cindy and lots of other people do on October 31. We'll be having a singing- and Shasta will be HERE!

Restaurants are hurting- it doesn't help that eating out costs around three times as much as eating at home. For our anniversary recently, my husband's boss told him to take the two of us out to eat in the big city at a fancy restaurant and put it on the company card. Well, the big city is 90 miles away and we're kind of busy, so we didn't take him up on that characteristically generous offer- but we did go to a fancier restaurant closer to home- on the river bank, surrounded by amazing plants and bird feeders (and because it's almost winter, all their hanging baskets of luscious greenery were on sale for ten bucks a basket- and these baskets are HUGE).
I ordered the small coconut shrimp plate for 9 dollars (the regular plate was nearly 20 dollars). The small plate had exactly THREE pieces of shrimp. The rest was fries. I felt guilty putting that on the boss's card, but we would not have eaten there at all without his charming offer.

This is a cute little purse made from a macaroni box of all things- this is the sort of thing one little girl could make for another little girl with some supervision.

Via MerchantShips this link to Anne's beautiful nature table.

REdistributive Change We Can Believe In

Best of the Web has more. In exchange for $600 from Uncle Sam, you agree to give 5 percent of your income to them each year, which they will increase at 3 percent per year. You die, the government gets half. Some deal.

That's from The Corner.

The House Education and Labor Committee considering elements of a plan devised by Teresa Ghilarducci, who admits her plan:

would amount to a tax increase on workers making more than $75,000--considerably less than the $250,000 Barack Obama has said would be his tax-hike cutoff. In addition, workers would be able to pass on only half of their account balances to their heirs; presumably the government would seize the remaining half. (Under current law, 401(k) balances are fully heritable, although they are subject to the income tax.)

Excerpt from a school reading.

Let us then sum up Literature as that which men read and continue to read for pleasure or to obtain that imaginative culture which is necessary for civilizations. Its general characteristic is that it is the product of a poetic, an imaginative, or even merely a quaintly observant mind. Since the days of Confucius, or the earliest Egyptian writers a thousand years before his time, there have been written in stone, on papyrus, wax, vellum, or merely paper, an immense body of matter--innumerable thousands of tons of it. This matter is divisible in to that which is readable and that which is unreadable except by specialists in one or another department of human knowledge. The immediate test for one's self as to what is literature and what is not literature --biblia a-biblia as the Greeks used to call this last--is simply whether one does or doesn't find a book readable. But if a book has found readers in great numbers for two thousand or five hundred or merely eighty or ninety years, you would be rash, even though you could not read it yourself, to declare that it was not literature-not, that is to say, a work of art. You may dislike Homer as much as this writer actually dislikes, say, Milton. But neither of us would be wise if we declared that either the Iliad or Paradise Lost were not literature. We should be unwise because it is foolish to set one's private judgment up against the settled opinions of humanity for generation on generation, and because our tastes may change before the end of our lives. This writer used, for instance, as a boy, very much to despise Ovid, as a poet, mainly,perhaps, because he was forced at school to memorize an immense number of lines from the Metamorphoses. But today one of the chief consolations of his existence is that he has still a great number of those lines by heart and can recite them to himself at night when he is unable to sleep.
But for the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout to you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by time.

"The March of Literature," by Ford Maddox Ford

BAked Beans with Lamb

I'm cataloging my cookbooks, now, and you can see my titles if you look at my librarything (scroll on down and look at the left sidebar).
I came across this recipe in a little cooking magazine- the sort you buy as you're checking out of the grocery store. IT's the November 1977 issue of Women's Circle Home Cooking, published by the National Women's Home Cooking Club.

Baked beans with lamb for a crowd

2 pounds pea beans or navy beans
8-10 pounds breast of lamb, cut up
1 pound darm brown sugar or raw sugar
1 pint dark molasses
1 tbsp dry mustard (about)
sat to taste.

First day- soak beans and boil them until almost tender. Broil lamb until brown and put in brown paper bags to remove excess fat.
Second Day: Put all ingredients together, keeping excess liquid which will be added to beans as needed while baking. Bake all day in slow oven, about 250 degrees. Stir once very few hours.
Delicious, nutritious, and low cost. Freezes very well. Makes an excellent meal when served with a big mixed salad, and, if daring, a plate of thinly sliced onions.

I have no idea how many it serves.

Ted Stevens, Guilty as Charged

Republican, Alaskan SEnator, crooked as a corkscrew- guilty on all seven charges. I'm only sorry it took so long.

At least 13 Illegal Votes Have Already Been Counted in Ohio

Palestra.net- I'm very excited about the work of these college journalists who are dancing rings around the professionals- they uncovered the voter fraud in Ohio, where Obama's roving band of campaign workers registered to vote. Some of them withdrew their votes when Palestra uncovered their illegal activities. But at least 13 did not. They voted in Ohio's early voting, and their votes have already been counted- they cannot be pulled, even though these 13 Obama campaign workers can still be prosecuted for voter fraud.

Another Idolatrous Obama Song

His truth will set you free, I kid you not. I throw up in my mouth a bit, but I am not kidding.

From the comments here.

By Cindii *Obama blue sweetie* Oct 22nd 2008 at 10:41 pm EDT (Updated Oct 22nd 2008 at 10:41 pm EDT)

I just love this song. Link

I wish they would allow this girl (Maddie)to sing it at the inauguration along with some of the other very talented fans who have written something for Barack. Anyway, have fun and sing along. I love the last part. :-)


Man for Me (Ode to Barack)
by maddy wyatt

Mama, I'm in love
I know he's kind of skinny
But I just can't help it
He is preaching something new.

He is calling every night
And asking me to fight the fight with him for freedom,
It's a dreamy point of view.

He believes in honesty and
Tax cuts for the poor
And I don't think I'm gonna
Lack a leader anymore.

CHORUS:
Barack Obama!
His truth just sets you free
Barack Obama! Mama,
He's the man for me.

The senator from Illinois
Was once a little boy in Honolulu
Pomaika i'no, Kamaha' o (How fortunate, remarkable!)

Was it sunlight on the surf
That showed him what he's really worth
And gave him faith in the audacity of hope

His policy on greehouse gas is
Totally the best
His daddy came from Kenya and his
Mom from the Midwest

(CHORUS)

Mr. Lincoln let me curl up on that Monumental lap
Can you hear me, I am callin' up to you
You might think a girl from Texas could Take pride in recognizing
That the country once again is split in two
But I've been in this red state feelin' blue
Ba-ba-ba-ba, bara-bara, Barack

Oh Mama, did you see him
At that podium in Springfield
He's got eyes that give a worried woman Peace.

And we've been stuck inside a lie that Brought the nation to its knees,
Somewhere in those eyes I see a chance for Our release.

You might say we're young and we can't Handle what's in store
Who else but the young are left to battle Through this war?

CHORUS

Barack Obama!
Your truth just sets me free
Barack Obama!
You're the man for me,

Reflect your hope on me,
Project your hope on me.

(Pomaika i'no Kamaha' o!)

Pull a String....

INteresting, how his classmates remember him:

Mr. Obama was realizing the power of his own biography. He proved deft at navigating an institution scorched with ideological battles, many of which revolved around race. He developed a leadership style based more on furthering consensus than on imposing his own ideas. Surrounded by students who enjoyed the sound of their own voices, Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener, sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with all of them at once.

Friends say he did not want anyone to assume they knew his mind — and because of that, even those close to him did not always know exactly where he stood. It is a tendency that could prove perilous on the campaign trail, as voters, rivals and the news media try to fix the positions of a senator with only two years in office.

“He then and now is very hard to pin down,” said Kenneth Mack, a classmate and now a professor at the law school, referring to the senator’s on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand style.

This is still true, however, he's improved in his ability to make his listeners feel like they know what he thinks. What's interesting is that his listeners mostly come away thinking he agrees with them- or at least understands them. That ability was also evident in his Law School days, as is evident further down in the article.
About those law school days- one of the credentials he now touts is his experience as President of Harvard Law, a position he initially wasn't interested in, and then changed his mind in a moment reflective of things to come:

...when other students implored him to run for the presidency, he demurred; he wanted to return to community work in Chicago, he said, and the credential would be no help. Late in the process, he finally agreed, saying he might be uniquely able to heal the review’s partisan divisions.

The election process was grueling, but in the end:

At the last moment, the conservative faction, its initial candidates defeated, threw its support to Mr. Obama. “Whatever his politics, we felt he would give us a fair shake,” said Bradford Berenson, a former associate White House counsel in the Bush administration.

The article never says whether or not this trust was rewarded.

Those who have been in both politics and on the Harvard Law board aren't too sure that his experience there will help him with the Presidency of these United STates:

The law review is “fairly disconnected from the breadth and the rough and tumble of real politics,” said Bruce Spiva, a former review editor who now practices civil rights law in Washington. “It’s an election among a closed group. It’s more like electing a pope.”...Newspapers and magazines swarmed around the first black student to win the most coveted spot at the most vaunted club at one of America’s most prestigious institutions. In interviews, Mr. Obama was modest and careful. (In a rare slip, he told The Associated Press: “I’m not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me.”)

“The things that make law school politics fractious are different from the things that make American politics fractious,” said Ron Klain, who preceded Mr. Obama at the law review and later served as Vice President Al Gore’s chief of staff. Mr. Klain has watched the senator’s rise.

“The interesting caveat,” he said, “is that is a style of leadership more effective running a law review than running a country.”

Klain was also an 'informal advisor' to SEnator Joe Biden at the time he made this remark.

Back to what Barack seems to do best- say smooth and soothing words that convince you he agrees with you, or at least sees your point:

People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Mr. Obama’s words. Earlier, after a long, tortured discussion about whether it was better to be called “black” or “African-American,” Mr. Obama dismissed the question, saying semantics did not matter as much as real-life issues, recalled Cassandra Butts, still a close friend. According to Mr. Ogletree, students on each side of the debate thought he was endorsing their side. “Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me,” he said.

...
Mr. Obama stayed away from the extremes of campus debate, often choosing safe topics for his speeches. At the black law students’ annual conference, he exhorted students to remember the obligations that came with their privileged education. His speeches, delivered in the oratorical manner of a Baptist minister, were more memorable for style than substance, Mr. Mack said. “It’s the inspiration of the speech rather than the specific content,” he said.

...

Another of Mr. Obama’s techniques relied on his seemingly limitless appetite for hearing the opinions of others, no matter how redundant or extreme. That could lead to endless debates — a mouse infestation at the review office provoked a long exchange about rodent rights — as well as some uncertainty about what Mr. Obama himself thought about the issue at hand.

In dozens of interviews, his friends said they could not remember his specific views from that era, beyond a general emphasis on diversity and social and economic justice.

To quote an old hymn, he speaks, and the sound of his voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing. Another song that comes to mind is:



Obama is more than just a panderer. He has a remarkable gift for inspiring his listeners into hearing what he wants them hear as his velvet voice convinces them he's saying what they want to hear, soothing away the jagged edges of fear and disagreement without every actually saying what they think he said.

Obama is the maestro, and his followers dance at the end of his strings,

Marketing Obama to Children

This was pretty disturbing.

If you go Sen. Obama’s official site and click on People you’d see — among others — a recently added category called Kids. Yes, that’s Kids as in “your kids” or “your sister’s or brother’s kids”....

The opening statement sets the stage: “In the words of Senator Barack Obama, the “Obama for America Campaign is a different type of campaign”. For the first time in campaign history, children ages 12 and under, have a place to go and actually vote—through their voice. What a great way to be introduced to politics and to express your support for Senator Obama.” ...

Every set of instructions is worth reading. Kids have “10 Ways Kids for Obama can get involved” at their disposal.

....

I went. I looked. I copied and pasted:
10 Ways Kids for Obama can get involved:

* Create a Kids for Obama Group on My.Barackobama.com. For example, Chicago Kids for Obama or DC Kids for Obama and throw a party!
* Write a letter or editorial to your local news paper, expressing "Why Barack Obama should become the next US President".
* Find a Pen Pal - it could be in your school, city, state, or another state. Write and discuss different ways you can get involved.
* Draw a picture of Senator Barack Obama or "an expression of Democracy". For example, the Senator sitting in the White House or working on Capitol. Hill. You can send your drawing to the Obama for America Campaign Headquarters in Chicago and it will be posted for the Senator to see.
* Implement T-Shirt Thursday. Get friends to wear an official Obama for America T-Shirt to school.
* Take an adult (voting age) to the polls on Election Day and encourage them to vote for you, by voting for Senator Obama.
* Post an official Obama for America Campaign sticker/logo on your school bag.
* Wear an Obama for America Campaign button and/or clothing.
* Host a Senator Barack Obama House Party or sleep-over.
* Contribute to the Kids for Obama Blog .

I clicked through to the Kids for Obama Blog. I found this advice to kids:

"Talk to your grandparents about Obama"

By Christopher Hass - Oct 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 pm EDT

Also listed in: SFBO Blog

Last Friday, Representative Jan Schakowsky wrote an article for the Huffington Post encouraging supporters to reach out to their Grandparent to talk about Barack Obama:

This message is exclusively for Obama supporters who: 1) Have grandparents who are planning to vote for John McCain or are undecided about their choice for President and 2) Know someone whose grandparents are voting for John McCain or are undecided about their choice for President.

...I have been overwhelmed and inspired by the passion and commitment of young Obama volunteers and supporters everywhere I have traveled as one of the national co-chairs of Barack's campaign. Harnessing that energy for the purpose of moving older voters toward Barack Obama seemed like a natural.

Rep. Schakowsky lists a number of reasons why anyone over the age of 65 should support Barack Obama, including his position on Social Security, Medicare and taxes (as well as John McCain's opposing positions on the same). But in the end, she argues, the most effective argument may be an emotional one.

The one thing most grandparents have in common is that they have the most wonderful grandchildren in the world - so clever, so handsome, so pretty, ever so precious. Even if you are still unsure of your path in life, and even if your parents and friends occasionally wonder about you, your grandma and grandpa love you and have faith in you.

That is your weapon! "Precious" needs to get on the phone and say, "Grandpa, Grandma, I am asking you to vote for Barack Obama. This is really important to me. It's about my future. It's about the world I will be living in. It's about the world I want for my future children. (They will love that one!) Please! Do it for me!"

...The really great part of this strategy is that everything you could possibly say to your grandparents about how important Barack's election is for you is one hundred percent true.

When it comes to your family, you are Barack's most effective advocate. There are less than two weeks left in this election. If you haven't already talked to your family, now is the time.

If you've already talked to your parents and grandparents about Barack and what's at stake in this election, let us know how it went, and what advice you would offer fellow supporters who are thinking about having the talk themselves.

Continue reading for more tips, suggestions, and resources . . .

New to the site or still undecided? Learn more about Barack Obama and his position on important issues. If you're already a supporter, find out what you can do to help between now and Election Day, and please consider making a donation to strengthen our field operation and help Get Out The Vote.

Rep. Schakowsky, to give her credit, is not targeting children 12 and under. If you click through, you see that she is addressing her advice to adults- 'young voters'- that is, citizens 18 and over. But the Obama campaign repackages that advice to children 12 and under.

It's one thing for parents themselves to talk to their children about who they are voting for and why and include them in their own campaigning and canvasing efforts. But by their use of Rep. Schakowsky's article on ways that young voters can use emotional blackmail and manipulation to guilt trip their parents and grandparents into voting for Obama when they weren't already planning to indicates that Obama's campaign is targeting children under 12 whose parents are not already Obama supporters.
- I have posted before about how I think marketing to children is unethical and sleazy. This is no different, unless it's slightly more sleazy.

AFter all:

Obama says, "Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."

Are children under 12 really equipped to understand that the 'change' Obama is all about appears to be redistributive change? Too many of their parents don't.

Finding blogposts

Somebody was asking how to find all my FLDS posts. This works for any posts that I have labeled. Click on the label 'FLDS' that you should find at the bottom of this, or any other FLDS post. In the small green print at the bottom of each post, it will say
Posted by (usually me, thanks, family) at (date and time) (# of) comments Links to this post

And then:
Labels:

I add the labels (or not)- and I have tried to be consistent about labeling the FLDS posts. So click on the label and that should bring up all posts with that label.

I have lots of labels- far too many, and am always trying to refine them. Many older posts have not yet been labeled. Some of my labels include cookery, vintage, poetry, The Boy, Cherub, homeschooling Charlotte Mason, frugalities, and I don't remember what all else.

Thanks for asking, and I hope that helps!

Fun for Vigorous Family Discussion

Top 25 innovations in human development- spoken language, fossil fuels, religion, paper, natural selection- what else, and in what order?

For Instance:

Innovation #5: Symbolic communication. Starting with cave painting, human beings began to communicate with each other across time and space, not simply face to face. The idea that one could communicate with people through symbols made externalization of information and language possible. It gave us a storehouse of information that didn’t need to be transmitted just by showing someone how it worked, whether you were drawing on the walls in a cave in Lascaux or coming up with counters in Aswan that indicate that some dates were brought by camel from a far-away place. At the same time, symbolic communication in Sumer developed into cuneiform, pressing reeds into soft clay and baking them. (We know a tremendous amount about cuneiform because it’s really hard to get rid of clay tablets.)

Innovation #4: Lever simple machine. There are a number of classes of simple machines, of which the lever is perhaps one of the oldest. It allows people to amplify their mechanical effort. Hammers and plows mean that instead of the effort of one person digging with hands or tools, now there is mechanical advantage. Farmers can plow deeper and throw farther and with more force. Archimedes is famously said to have stated, “Give me a place to stand with a lever and I will move the whole world.” In fact, the concept of a lever has moved the whole world since its invention.

What's For Lunch?

Cheese biscuits, soup, and apples

The Biscuit recipe comes from The More-With-Less cookbook by Doris Janczen Longacre.

You can omit the powdered milk, but if you add powdered milk to the mix, then you only need to use water for the liquid in the recipes.

10 cups all purpose flour
6 T baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 T teaspoons salt
4 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar (it works without it)
2 cups dry milk powder
2 cups shortening, lard, or fat that does not require refrigeration (ie, not butter or margarine)
Makes 12.5 cups of mix

Biscuits: Place 2 cups Homemade Biscuit Mix in a bowl; make a well in center. Add 1/2 cup milk. Stir with fork just till dough follows fork around bowl. On lightly floured surface, knead dough 10 to 12 strokes. Roll or pat to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut dough with floured 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter. Bake on baking sheet in 450 degree oven 10 to 12 minutes. Makes 10.

Or... add extra liquid and make drop biscuits

OR.... use hands to mix/knead dough, then roll into a roll the size of your wrist and slice- like refrigerated cookie dough.

OR- roll as above, but use a pizza or pastry cutter to cut square biscuits instead of round- you have no scraps to reroll this way.

Scroll down for other suggestions as to what to do with this mix.

As I type this I am nibbling on a batch of cheesy garlic biscuits made using a recipe in Jonni McCoy's Miserly Meals:

2 cups biscuit mix
2/3 cup water or milk
1/2 cup grated cheese (I only had presliced swiss for sandwiches, so I cut that in strips using my indispensable kitchen shears- a must have tool for all of us who find it hurts our hands to cut things using a knife)
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic (or more)

Combine, roll, slice into biscuits and place on baking sheet and bake at 450 for 10 minutes.

We had some leftover sliced onions from sandwiches Sunday afternoon, so I set each biscuit on an onion slice. Mmmmm.

Soup:
Canned tomato or creamy bean- the bean is based on a recipe from the Country Beans cookbook:
Run four cups cooked white beans (navy) or two cans of prepared white beans through the blender- adding enough liquid to puree it and keep it a 'soup' consistency. Pour into saucepan and reheat, adding 2-4 Tablespoons bouillon (or cook the dried beans in chicken stock), salt, pepper, and odds and ends of your choice.
Possibilities:
corn
snipped green onions or leeks
chopped ham or turkey ham
seaweed
tuna (add a splash of lemon juice)
diced carrot


Other uses for biscuit mix:

Muffins: Combine 3 cups Homemade Biscuit Mix and 3 tablespoons sugar. Mix 1 beaten egg and 1 cup milk; add all at once to dry ingredients. Stir till moistened. Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake in 400 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes or till golden. Makes 12 muffins.

Pancakes: Place 2 cups Homemade Biscuit Mix in a bowl. Add 2 beaten eggs and 1 cup milk all at once to biscuit mix, stirring till blended but still slightly lumpy. Pour about 1/4 cup batter onto hot, lightly greased griddle. Cook till golden brown, turning to cook other side. Makes 10.

Coffee Cake: preheat oven to 375
Beat together in a bowl:
1/3 cup milk
1 egg

Add:
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/3 cups biscuit mix

Stir until well mixed. pour into greased 8 inch baking pah.

Combine 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3 Tablespoons margarine, 1/2 t. cinnamon, and an optional 1/4 cups nuts- sprinkle over the top,
Bake 25 minutes

(add raisins or chopped fruit to mix if desired)

New Movie

Jenny and I watched the movie Bella the other night.

Loved it.

It was a little slow in places. It was a little confusing in a couple places because of the flashback sequencing and jumping about in past, present, future. One such cut was so confusing to me I never could tell whether it actually happened or not or was only an imagined outcome.

That's the worst I can say about it. It was charming, sweet, but not sacharine. It was moving, heart-wrenching, agonizing at places, but handled in such a fashion that I would let my youngest children watch it. It was uplifting, positive, and delightful. Most of the main characters are Hispanic, and I loved the authentic depiction of the warm relations and culture of the main family featured in the film. In fact, a generous amount of the dialogue is in Spanish with English subtitles. There is a positive message about adoption. There is a positive theme of love, redemption, and making deeper human connections. A Mexican restaurant is the location for some of the drama, and family cooking at home has more real food sequences- turns out that one of the primary movers and shakers of the film (I forget now if it's the writer/director or the main character) grew up around his family's restaurant.

Keeping in mind that the pace does drag a bit in places, this is a real little gem of a movie. We will be watching it again, and I liked it so well that we will probably buy it sometime.

SPOILER:

There is a main character who is pregnant out of wedlock, and she wants to have an abortion- but knowing my pro-life views, it will not surprise you that she does not choose that route after all. How this is all played out is one of the main features of the film.

More on the Constitution Vs Socialism

Via Hot Air, commenting on the 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview where Obama openly laments that the civil rights movement stopped short of wealth redistribution, talks about how best to continue towards that goal, and complains about the Constitution he's supposedly going to uphold and protect:

The government does not exist to determine the acceptable level of wealth of its individual citizens. For government to assume that role, it would have to end private property rights and assume all property belonged to the State. That is classic Marxism, and as Barbara West of WFTV noted, it runs in Marx’s classic philosophy of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. That economic direction has been an abject failure everywhere it has been tried, and in many cases resulted in famines that killed millions of people.
[...]
Update: One more clarifying thought is in order. Barack Obama complains that the Constitution is a “charter of negative liberties”. That’s because the Constitution was intended as a limiting document, to curtail the power of the federal government vis-a-vis the states and the individual. The founders intended at the time to limit the reach of the federal government, and built the Constitution accordingly.

Barack Obama wants to reverse that entirely.

Some Constitutional Law Scholar, that he seems to completely miss that the reason American is the freest country on earth is because our Constitution is all about limiting the government. He wants to see that change.
It's no wonder that he and his campaign have been unembarrassed at their own efforts to limit free speech and squelch all opposition. I wonder if the press realizes, that in becoming indistinguishable from the public relations arm of Obama's campaign, they are complicit in an effort that may well result in the end of their own 1st amendment rights.

Updates on that interview:

Update III [Vinnie] Here's the entire interview (requires RealPlayer)

Update IV I've converted the video from .flv to Windows Media. Download it here. I've also turned into an MP3 audio.

Click through to Aces's site for a 'Cliff's Notes' version as well.

HillBuzz warns that people need to download this fast:

Republicans reading this: during our primaries Obama’s followers worked like lightning to take down every video that hurt him. They reported all anti-Obama videos as “inappropriate content”, and YouTube, owned wholly by Obama supporters, obliged the ObaMessiah, 86-ing anything that hurt him.

Biden Gets Rough Interview; Lies about Redistributing Wealth

IN a couple instances I think she was a bit unfair to Biden, in other instances she missed some follow up opportunities.

I think it's interesting that Biden said that Bush is spreading the wealth around.
It's disappointing that he resorts to flat lies about Obama's connections with ACORN.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

It's also unfortunate that he either lies, or he just does not know what Obama believes about the Constitution and redistribution of the wealth.
Ace has a bombshell- a recording of an interview Obama gave a Chicago public radio station in 2001.
Here's part of the transcript:

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf...

No wonder only 29 percent of Obama supporters believe the Constitution should inform judges' rulings. Obama doesn't think so, either. He thinks the Supreme Court should 'break free from the essential restraints that were placed by the founding fathers."

Stop the ACLU has more,


Obama says:

I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.

Guess that's why he's running for Prez.

He further says that while any three 'of us sitting here,' I guess that's him and the NPR staff, 'could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts,' essentially, redistribution of the wealth is an administrative task. And an administrative job is just what he's seeking.

I Missed My Chance

Early one morning last week as the HM and I drove the Cherub to a doctor appointment (the new brace is not working well anymore, nobody knows why), we discussed the responsibility our state teachers colleges have for the shoddy education and poor logic skills of our graduates.

One of the stores he supervises is in a tiny, fairly conservative little town (although not for long). One of the questions he always asks prospective employees is what books they've read recently. A lot of his interviewees named the same book, one he'd never heard of. This week he learned that they all named this book- Chinese Handcuffs- because it's required reading in the local high school.

He learned this from one of his outstanding employees, a really hard worker, motivated, responsible, always going the extra mile, and smart. This kid failed the class where this book was required reading because he read parts of it, and then told his teacher he wanted an alternate, he would not read this book. The teacher refused to allow an alternate, and he accepted the subsequent grade.

Here's the Amazon description of the book:

From School Library Journal
Grade 9-12-- There are enough plots here to fuel a soap opera for a year. Dillon Hemingway is a brilliant student and athlete whose older brother, Preston, gets involved with a motorcycle gang, loses his legs in a bike accident, and later blows his head away in full view of his younger brother. Dillon writes long letters to his dead brother to tell him about Stacy, who was Preston's girl and the mother of their child but who may secretly love Dillon, and Jennifer, star basketball player, whose father sexually abused her and whose stepfather, a madman, also abuses her. Dillon's mother walked out on his family some years before. So much for the beginning. Beyond the first chapters there are scenes in which Dillon sprinkles his brother's ashes into the gas tanks of the cyclists who corrupted Preston and in which Stacy uses the school public address system to announce that she is indeed the mother of Preston's child. Dogs are crushed by cars, the Vietnam War is rehashed. Characters keep asking "can we talk" and then prattle on with enormous presence and wisdom about the evils of society, their parents, all adults, their own sorry lot in life, and love ("There are so many crazy things, dangerous things sometimes, that we're taught to call love"). Jesus Christ is at one point called "a heroic dude." Dillon is too much in control of himself and the other characters to be believable. The ending, in which Dillon single-handedly drives Jennifer's crazed step-father out of town, is contrived. There's a place in fiction for teenage problems, but surely not all in one novel. --Robert E. Unsworth, Scarsdale Junior High School, N.Y.

It sounds like one of the 'Gray books.'

When I was in Jr. High I had the sort of teacher who only ever assigned that sort of book. I made her very happy with my creative writing assignments.

My favorite- which I wish I still had, was a depressing, wrist-slitting, mind-numbing saga of a girl somewhere around 13-15 who was abused by her father, left alone by her dead mother, abandoned by her run-away older brother, and worried about her drug-addicted younger brother (who I think was about ten). She runs away from home herself, looking for her older brother to help. She has many adventures along the way- all of them terrible, manages to find a boyfriend somehow in spite of all the tragedy in her life. He, of course, ends up in the hospital for some reason (I forget why, but it was probably drugs. It was 1973 or so, after all), and then, in the climax of the story, as my protagonist is leaving the hospital, blinded by her tears she steps into the street only to be struck down by a truck, which, naturally, is driven by the missing older brother. She does survive, but as a wheelchair bound cripple for the rest of her life, her elder brother plagued by guilt, her younger brother probably brain-damaged forever due to his drug use. I think the boyfriend sticks around, but I'm not sure he was going to forever, and he might have been blind.
I should have tried publishing it. Apparently it would have been assigned reading, which is always nice for an author.

Ayers, Obama's Policies, but Mostly Ayers

Although I am not sure how much daylight there is between Obama's socialism and Ayers'. Betsy shares a link to an article by Alan Reynolds explaining why Obama's math does not add up.

Just how bad was Ayers? REally, really bad. And how well did/does Obama know him?

Was Ayers really just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood"? You can get a sense of where he was coming from (and ask yourself whether it's remotely possible that anyone with a brain, especially a brain like Obama's, could not have known exactly where Ayers was coming from) by having a look at these excerpts from Prairie Fire, the Weatherman manifesto by Ayers, Dohrn and their associates — a website called ZombieTime has made it available, here.

Obama, of course, imbibed Rules for Radicals, the community-organizer/Leftist rabble-rouser manifesto of Saul Alinski. As I recounted in an article earlier this week, Obama taught Alinski-inspired "organizing" and even contributed a chapter to an anthology called After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois. I've been thumbing through the Vintage Books edition of Rules for Radicals published in 1989, 17 years after Alinski's death. Right before the introduction, it provides the reader with this taste of Alinski's wisdom:

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.

Krauthammer:

McCain’s critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What’s astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Thomas Sowell (my favorite columnist):

Take it all together, Sowell believes, and this election will prove decisive.

"There is such a thing as a point of no return," he says. If Obama wins the White House and Democrats expand their majorities in the House and Senate, they will intervene in the economy and redistribute wealth. Yet their economic policies "will pale by comparison to what they will do in permitting countries to acquire nuclear weapons and turn them over to terrorists. Once that happens, we're at the point of no return. The next generation will live under that threat as far out as the eye can see."

"The unconstrained vision is really an elitist vision," Sowell explains. "This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians."

REdstate on why his financial ideas are dangerous:

Barack Obama couches all of his talk in the language of 'fairness;' of trying to make sure that everyone gets 'a slice of the pie.' But in employing the rhetoric of redistribution, class warfare, and yes, socialism, Obama ignores how progressive the tax code already is. It's often said that when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support. In trying to push the fairness needle further, Obama is attempting to lock that rule in as a foundation of tax policy.

As the Tax Foundation points out, the tax code already redistributes $1 trillion from the top 40 percent of earners to the lowest 60 percent. How much is enough for President Obama? And what happens if we discover, as France, Germany, the U.K., and much of Europe did, that you will destroy the economy and ruin government finances if you allow the bottom half of earners to vote themselves whatever benefits they want, at the expense of the minority.

Also quotes from the Economist.

information on a video of Obama toasting an anti-Jew former PLO operative he denies having any ties to at a Jew-bashing dinner, in that toast he talks about meals he's shared in the home of this person he denies having any ties to. The reporter acknowledges he's seen the video, but the LATimes won't release it to the public.

The first minute or two of this video is the best- an immigrant demanding that the media explain to her why, when all Joe the Plumber did was ask a question, the media responds by finding out personal details of his life, his taxes, his home, his divorce, but they can't find anything they want to say about Obama's relationship with Ayers. The media does not care to answer. Instead, David Corn of Mother Jones asks the immigrants in favor of McCain why they're so stupid. That's my paraphrase, but really, Corn was condescending and patronizing.

Iowahawk was taken to task for, well, let me quote:

"I think it's hilarious you wingnuts want to embrace this wifebeating tax cheat non-plumber as your new populist poster boy. Funny I didn't see your concern when the Murdoch media was trying to destroy Bill Ayers' life."

So, in preparation for the coming reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, Iowahawk gives Ayers' equal time. Here's a taste:

I AM BILL. I am the everyday forgotten little guy in your neighborhood, the quiet anarcho-syndicalist family man who gets up early and punches the clock at the local state university, writing the manifestos and polemics and grant proposals that keep America humming. I'm just doing my job, and all I ask in return is a little respect. And tenure. And Chicago Citizen of the Year awards. And two graduate assistants to grade exams for Practicum in Imperialist Racist Hegemony 311, because I'm teaching two sections this semester. Also, a sabbatical to Italy next summer would be nice.[...]

I AM BILL. I work with my hands, grizzled and calloused from years on a non-ergonomic keyboard. Maybe I don't know pipe wrenches, but I know pipe bombs, and I've built them right there in my communal kitchen and I've watched with pride as they've offed a couple of pigs. Sure, maybe I've made a few mistakes with wiring or detonator timing and it ends up killing a couple of comrades. But you know what? I get up, dust myself off, and get right back to the drawing board. Because when it comes to international Maoist revolution, quitters never win and winners never quit.

What's for Breakfast?

The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham is actually the HG's cookbook, but we've used it so often that it's falling apart. The recipes we've used the most are her unusual but still easy muffin recipes and this recipe that fills the tummies of a large family for not much cost:

Custard-filled Cornbread
eight servings
When the cornbread is done, you have a creamy, thin custard inside. Cunningham says this recipe was popular in the 30s, and a sweeter version was published in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' Cross Creek Country.
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons butter, melted
3 Table sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
1 1/2 Tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup heavy cream (I don't use heavy cream- I have used evaporated milk without reconstituting it, and I have used whole milk thickened with powdered milk)

Prehat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 inch square baking dish or pan that is 2 inches deep. Put the buttered dish or pa in the oven and let it get hot while you mix the batter.

Put the eggs in a mixing bowl and add the melted buter. Beat until the mixture is well blended. Add the sugar, salt, milk, and vinegar and beat well. Sift into a bowl or stir together in a bowl the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and baking soda and add to the egg mixture. Mix just until the batter is smooth and no lumps appear.

Pour the batter into the heated dish, then pour the cream into the center of the batter- don't stir. Bake for 1 hour, or until lightly browned. Serve warm.

We double it and then bake it in a 9X13 inch pan.

Obama's First Act as President

Obama has promised, if elected, to make it a major priority to sign the "Freedom of Choice Act." Currently, if you are in the medical profession and are opposed to abortion, you can 'opt out' of performing them or participating in them in any way. The Freedom of Choice Act is "a bill that would effectively strike down every guideline, regulation, restriction, and limit on the multi-billion dollar abortion industry in all 50 states."



more here:
""If FOCA were to become law it would overturn hundreds of state laws that have put limits on abortion," he explains.

Perkins points to a new research paper written by FRC Vice President of Government Affairs Tom McClusky and he said Planned Parenthood, NARAL and other pro-abortion groups agree with This assessment.

The ACLU has said, "This [FOCA] bill prohibits such restrictions as parental notification and consent, as well as the requirement that all abortions be performed in a hospital, spousal consent, waiting periods, etc."

"Recent polls show that most Americans agree there should be more restrictions on abortion and that tax dollars should not go to the life-ending procedure," Perkins says. 'However, the passage of FOCA would guarantee that more taxpayer dollars pay for abortions."

The McClusky paper points out that, while abortion advocates say they want to make abortions rarer, the state of Maryland, after it passed a law like FOCA, saw its abortion rates shoot upward.

That happened as the rest of the country experienced a general decline in the number of abortions over the last decade or more."

here's the text:
"The more recent wording of FOCA, introduced last year, is as follows:

“A government may not (1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose – (A) to bear a child; (B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or (C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or (2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.

This act applies to every Federal, State, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, penalty, practice, or other action enacted, adopted, or implemented before or after the date of enactment of this act.” Text of H.R. 1964 and S. 1173, introduced on April 19, 2007."

The 'health of the mother' has been used to create a semi-truck sized loophole through all abortion restrictions. Her doctor can classify anything as a 'health' issue, and abortion doctors do.

HEre's Rick Santorum on the floor discussing the barbaric and brutal procedure called 'partial birth abortion,' which SEnator Obama, incidentally, could not bring himself to oppose, even though most other democrats were as sickened as any other morally normal human being by the procedure:
"Mr. SANTORUM. I will challenge you to find anyplace in the record over the last 7 years where I said that was never the case. I have never said there are not difficult cases. What I have said repeatedly, because I wanted to be truthful with respect to the factual situations with which we are presented on the issue of late-term abortions and the instances in which partial-birth abortions are used--I refer the Senator to the State of Kansas where they have to report the reason for a partial-birth abortion; 182 were done last year, or the year before, and of those 182, none--zero--were done because of a problem with the child or a physical problem with the mother. They were classified as mental health.

So I suggest to the Senator that those in the abortion industry themselves say this is the typical procedure on the typical baby. There may be--and there are--a small number of cases that are late-term where you find out the child within the womb has a fetal abnormality and may not live. I just suggest--and you used the term--where is the brainless head? Where are the lungs outside the body? I will just say I will be happy to put a child with a disability up there. But, frankly, I don't see the difference in my mind--and I am not too sure the public does--with respect to that being any less of a child.

It is still a child, is it not? Maybe it is a child that is not going to live long, but do we consider----

Mrs. CLINTON. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SANTORUM. In a moment. Do we consider a child that may not live long, or may have an abnormality, to be less of a child? Is this less of a human because it is not perfect? Have we reached the point in our society where because perfection is so required of us, that those who are not perfect don't even deserve the opportunity to live for however long they are ticketed to live in this country?

Are we saying we need these kinds of infanticides to weed out those who are not going to survive or those who are not perfect, and that somehow or another we have to have a method available that we only allow perfect children to be born? If that is the argument, I am willing to stand here and have that debate. If that is what you want us to show, I am willing to stand and show that.

I suggest this is the typical abortion that goes with partial-birth. That is exactly what the industry says is the case. If the Senator would like me to find a child that has a cleft palate, I can do that. That doctor from Ohio performs a lot of abortions. He says he did nine in one year because of that. If she would like me to show a case of spina bifida, I can do that. That may be a reason someone has to have a late-term abortion. "

Emphasis added.

Here's the 'legal' definition of health of the mother:
"In the case of Doe v. Bolton in 1973, the Supreme Court issued their opinion about it. In this companion case to Roe v. Wade, the Court stated that a woman may obtain an abortion after viability, if necessary to protect her "health." The Court defined "health" as:

"Whether, in the words of the Georgia statute, "an abortion is necessary" is a professional judgment that the Georgia physician will be called upon to make routinely. We agree with the District Court, 319 F. Supp., at 1058, that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health."*

In other words, the "woman's health" aspect could cover almost any reason for abortion. A woman could say that her child would cause her stress, or she is not ready to have a family, and that would be sufficient."

The 'health of the mother' is a bucket of water poured out on the floor- it has no boundaries, and it covers everything.
Although, given the subject we are talking about- the brutal murder of the most innocent of all human beings, a crime committed with the full approval of the law, under the sanction and protection of the State perhaps a more accurate description would be that it's a bucket of blood poured out over the hands of every human being who gives aid, approval, or support to those who further this agenda of death.

Sunday Hymn Post

Hear, O Israel

Hear, O Israel.
The Lord thy God is one God.

Chorus:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God
With all of thy heart,
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God
With all of thy soul,
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God
With all of thy strength,
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God
With all of thy mind.

Hear, O Israel.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
(Chorus)

How Biased is the Media?

So biased, the Russians see it:

Stung by international criticism of its presidential and congressional elections, Russia is striking back by sending a team of observers to monitor the U. S. presidential poll on Nov. 4.

[...]

A preliminary report prepared by the group, after studying U. S. media coverage on the NBC, CBS and ABC television networks since September, has concluded Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, has a "hidden advantage."

A preliminary report obtained by the Russian daily online newspaper Kommersant concludes the U. S. television networks devoted more time to Republican candidate John McCain, but "the material that makes up that time difference can be assessed as negative."

The Russian study also said Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential pick, has been subjected to more criticism than her Democratic counterpart, Senator Joe Biden.

It adds that when the presidential candidates' platforms are described, Mr. Obama's is described last, to make it look better, and when platforms are compared, "Obama's is presented preferable."

Basically, they seem to be saying to the International Community that criticized their elections, "Oh, yeah? American does it, too."

It's so bad, this reporter doesn't want to tell people what he does for a living.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth. I’d spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else’s work - not out any native honesty, but out of fear: I’d always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense . . .indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

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

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

But what really shattered my faith - and I know the day and place where it happened - was the War in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia only carried CNN, a network I’d already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse. I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story . . .but it never happened.

But nothing, nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current Presidential campaign. Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass - no, make that shameless support - they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press. I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather - not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake - but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

They savage Sarah Palin, sometimes over misquotes and internet hoaxes, while giving Biden a free pass. And Obama? He is a chameleon, becoming whatever his current audience wants him to be, adn the media aids and abets him in his pandering, as we experience:

the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side - or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for Senators Obama and Biden. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as President of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography. That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: his job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

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

Happiest Anniversary Wishes!

To the Headmaster and the Deputy Headmistress, married 26 years!

FLDS October 25

Regarding my earlier post on the latest FLDS updates I have, the FLDS Truth Will Prevail website linked to that post, and helped me out with a question I had. Childress, lead attorney for CPS, and previously the guy Texas hired to train the ad litums, abruptly resigned, nobody knows why. I asked:

I was trying to find out how many other state employees associated with the raid had resigned or retired, as I believe there have been several, but no luck. Cary Cockerell (who made the unsubstatiated allegation about broken bones) and once the head of Texas CPS is one. Anybody else know of any others?

Answers: Gary Banks, who was the lead counsel when the 439 children were taken into state custody immediately following the raid, resigned Oct. 3 to take a position with a Texas law firm….
Col. Thomas A. Davis, Jr., Director of Texas Department of Public Safety, retired August 31, 2008- the same day as Cary Cockerell

The FLDS crafts website has some new items- I love, love, love, their plain wooden vehicles (especially the plane). Unfortunately, the Boy is not seriously into Legos and no longer plays with his plain wooden toys, so it's hard for me to justify purchasing them. Their aprons are cool, too. A lot of the items are neat (pricey, but very pretty, carved spiral wooden pens. I'm still hoping for a cookbook with recipes for large families using healthy, natural ingredients.

This Constitutional Primer at the FLDS site is good reading- not just for the FLDS situation, but for all citizens.
REmember, I am neither LDS or FLDS, nor any variation thereof, and theologically my views are much different to theirs, and I am in favor of marriage remaining one man, one woman.
Disagreement on these, and many other issues, is not legitimate reason to lose your kids. It is not an excuse for the government to violate basic rights and freedoms. It's not acceptable for the government to violate any citizen's Constitutional rights, no matter how unpopular that citizen may be.

I am glad the FLDS have gotten their precious children back. I pray that they may recover from the horrible nightmare and trauma CPS inflicted on them, and I pray the same for the parents.
Those who engaged in under-aged marriages will, no doubt, pay the legal consequences, but that will never justify the traumatization of over 400 children or the violation of the civil rights of dozens of women wrongfully determined to be adults on the basis of a look-see test, nor the clear violation of the first amendment and the any lies CPS told us all in this case.

WE must never forget- because it could happen to any of us who are out of the mainstream, who dress funny, who homeschool, who go to church more often than CPS deems appropriate, who simply don't grovel enough when a disgruntled employee or co-worker gets revenge by using the CPS anonymous hotline.

It can happen to any of us not just because CPS has far too much power and too little oversight, but because there is a certain lack of common sense in operation. A friend of mine once worked as a volunteer in some capacity with CPS (I forget her title). One of the families that came to CPS' notice were accused of abuse because when a child who was old enough to be toilet trained (and was, in fact, toilet trained) soiled his pants because he was too busy playing to go use the bathroom, his mother rinsed him off with cold water. The Social Worker in charge of that case was childless, and she was talking to my friend about how horrible that mother was- (and let me assure you that rinsing her son off in cold water is ALL she was accused of doing).
"Can you believe it?" she asked my friend. "What kind of mother would wash her kid off in water that cold?"

My friend says she asked what the temperature was, and learned it was warmer than the water that came out of her garden hose. The garden hose she used to spray off her children as a treat in the summer. She said she told the CPS gal, "If she had stripped her kid and taken him out back and let him dance in the spray of the garden hose, that would have been fine. But because she rinsed him off inside in a bathtub ten degrees warmer than the hose and was dumb enough to tell somebody, that's abuse."

"Oh, said the social worker. "I never thought of it that way."

And yet, people like this have the power of life or death over every family in America.

Rozita Swinton, whose hoax phone call probably triggered the raid on the YFZ ranch, pleaded not guilty due to mental impairment in another case about false hotline calls.

Barley bread, Buckwheat bread, Wheat-free

More Recipes for Fifty By Frances Lowe Smith
More Recipes for Fifty By Frances Lowe Smith
More Recipes for Fifty By Frances Lowe Smith

REcipe says 'make as for quick barley bread.'

Are these wheat free to the point somebody with celiac disease could eat them? I am not sure- I don't know about buckwheat. It's not truly a wheat, and it's exceedingly low in carbs, but I don't know how much gluten it has, and gluten is the issue for celiacs.

'Trophy' Wife Smacks Down Colmes

Meanwhile:

Keep this figure in mind when people claim that the $150,000 the RNC spent on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe represents some kind of frivolity. At least she’s going to wear the clothes more than once, and it may raise some decent funds for charity at the end of the campaign. The Democrats spent an additional $5.3 million on the Barackopolis at Invesco Field, after spending over $14 million to outfit the Pepsi Center...

And then Obama is spending more money in an hour than the RNC spent on clothing for Palin:

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Putting the $106 million that Obama spent in the first 15 days of October in perspective...

OBAMA'S OCT 1-15 SPENDING = $105,599,963.76

That's more than $293,000 an hour.

It's also 49% of EVERYTHING McCain has spent the entire time he has been running for president ($216,769,840).

By contrast, McCain's Oct. 1-15 spending was $9,246,618.70 (or $26,000/hr).

The RNC is the money bags here. Its Oct. 1-15 spending: $45,189,239, less than a third of Obama's spending during the same period.

But yeah- Sarah Palin's cute clothes and her photogenic shoes- that's what we need to be talking about.

The Equuschick Will Be Grieved:

Mind-Reader Morano [Edward John Craig]

I was just about to post another National Post item — this one, from Lorne Gunter — when it popped in from Marc Morano. An excerpt below . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Loehle’s work helps end this deception.

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

10/20 11:45 AM

As a small person with no insulating fat, she is constantly cold and she is completely in favor of Global Warming, and would like to see more of it.

Police State

Employees at at least three government agencies rummaged through Joe the Plumber's private files.

For no legitimate purpose, with no legitimate reason for a state investigation, records were illegally accessed in the Toldedo Police Department, the office of the (state) Attorney General, and, for reasons unknown, the Cuyahoga County Child Enforcement Agency (just to let you know how vicious a fishing expedition they were willing to conduct).

(emphasis mine)
Because. He. Asked. A. Pol. A. Question.

More here.

HSBA

YIKES! You only have the rest of tonight to get in your nominations for best homeschool blogs!

P.S. Our love language is words of affirmation. Just saying.

P.P. S. Well, that, and backrubs. Are any of you peeps coming over to rub my aching shoulders? Well then, see above.=)

P.P.P. S. Money is also good.

Have fun!

Who said...

“It seems to me the concept of living a life where one gives to others and shares with others is more worthwhile than living a life where one by himself is concerned primarily with his own needs.”

That's a quote from Gene Chaikin, an attorney. He was explaining why he chose to leave his regular employment in order to join Jim Jones and devote all his legal talent to the service of Jim Jones.

Gene died, probably before the Jonestown Massacre, as he spent the last few days of his life drugged and held captive by Jim Jones and others. His wife and his children also died there.

Barry Isaacson purchased the house where Gene's wife had grown up, and where her parents lived until they moved into an assisted living facility. He found an old briefcase containing letters exchanged between the two families, and, curious, he investigated further. He has written an article about what he found and he plans to write a book.

It is a long, tragic, and at times horrifying, read, but compelling. Certain points stood out to me, but I won't share them just yet as perhaps others will stand out for you.

One of these things is not like the other one...

From the New Editor:

1) 'Joe the Plumber' has a tax lien for about $1,200 filed against him, and his detractors take this as evidence of his status as a 'tax cheat.'

2) Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) for years fails to declare rental income, doesn't pay taxes on the profits from the investment, yet nonetheless somehow manages to keep his job as the head of the powerful tax writing committee.

3) Current chief-of-staff to New York's Democratic Governor David Paterson, Charles O'Byrne, owed about $300,000 in back taxes, interest, and penalties -- and blamed this on a horrible condition known as ... 'non-filer syndrome.'

Which of these three is the media most interested in?

Pointing out the obvious

Who Would Have Guessed? [Ramesh Ponnuru]

It turns out that enacting restrictions on abortion reduces the abortion rate. States that enact these restrictions tend to see sharper declines than states that do not. Which suggests that people who want to reduce the abortion rate should consider voting for candidates who want to enact such restrictions, and not for candidates who, say, want to expand taxpayer subsidies for abortion. I know that these are shocking conclusions: They run counter to a lot of what we have been hearing this year. But just because these points are obvious does not mean that they're not also true.

10/24 11:56 AM

It might also be counterproductive, if you value human life at all, to vote for the guy who thinks it would be an undue burden on doctors and mothers to make sure babies who survive an abortion are not stuffed in linen closets to cry themselves, literally, to death.

And if you are a Christian, yes, I do believe it would be a sin to give your aid, support, and vote for such a man.

MY Bible says to deliver those who are being taken to death- not to vote for those who take them there.

Who Could Have Guessed?

Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4.

The New Editor

Magicking Our Way to Bondage

Kimberly Strassel:

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he "cut" zero? Abracadabra! It's called a "refundable tax credit." It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as "welfare," but please try not to ruin the show.

For his next trick, the Great Obama will jumpstart the economy, and he'll do it by raising taxes on the very businesses that are today adrift in a financial tsunami! That will include all those among the top 1% of taxpayers who are in fact small-business owners, and the nation's biggest employers who currently pay some of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Mr. Obama will, with a flick of his fingers, show them how to create more jobs with less money. It's simple, really. He has a wand.

So currently 40 percent of all Americans pay no federal taxes. We were in that tax bracket of zero for 20 years- all the time my husband served in the military. We also paid no state taxes during those decades because we were not living in our home state.
Cliff May wonders:

What if, not implausibly, in the next administration that number rises to 51% or more? At that point, the majority of Americans not paying taxes would elect leaders who decide how much the minority must fork over to the government — to be redistributed to the majority through government programs and services.

This article from FEE on ending the Welfare State through private action is a good read. Here's an excerpt:

in February the Associated Press (AP) reported that in spite of the 1996 welfare reform, which has reduced the number
of people on the welfare rolls,“Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share [of the population] than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.”

I have little help hope the Welfare State will ever be reduced to manageable proportions let alone ended. As Benjamin Franklin said when he agreed to our current Constitution:

"In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other."

More to the point, he is also widely credited with saying, "When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic," but I suspect that is a paraphrase of this statement:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

The provenance of this statement is in some doubt. It is most commonly attributed to an Alexander Tytler or Tyler, depending on your source. The earliest usage Loren Collins could find is in a 1959 New York Times Book Review Queries and Answers column, where somebody else had written in asking for the source. So clearly, it predates 1959, but how far we don't know.

Whoever said it, I think we can safely say that the people have learned that we can vote ourselves largess from the public treasury, and nearly all of us do it in one fashion or another. Surely we can all see why this does not bode well for the former Republic of America?

Not Just Acorn

Hillbuzz has a letter Hilary's attorneys wrote to the DNC about Obama supporter's fraudulent and illegal voter suppression at the Nevada Caucuses.

ACORN continues to lie- this time about how many new voters they've registered.

Afraid of free speech and opposed to any dissent, Obama supporters are taking down youtube videos that do not reflect well on Obama almost as fast as they go up. It's worth noting these aren't doctored clips, they aren'tedited, they aren't cut and paste jobs, they aren't fraudulent- they are simply clips of Obama's own statements that are so damaging his supporters can't bear the thought of others seeing this information.

Irrevocable Consequences?

Michael Medved is concerned that if Barack Obama is elected it will have dire and irreversable consequences:

... Barack Obama has promised profound systemic changes that will be irreversible—permanent alterations of our economy and government where there is no chance at all that Republican office-holders of the future could in any way repair the damage.

For instance, consider two sweeping new entitlements that Obama plans to offer for all Americans – universal (but, he insists, “voluntary”) federally-funded pre-school for all children starting at age three, and a low-cost, heavily subsidized federal health insurance plan for every low or middle income American who wants it.

A President Obama would no doubt promote such proposals in his first year in office and a compliant, heavily-Democratic Congress would approve them promptly—perhaps making the benefits even more generous. This means that before the next election, tens of millions (probably hundreds of millions) of American families will take advantage of “free” pre-kindergarten education (and day care), as well as cheap, subsidized (to the tune of at least $160 billion per year) health insurance. The chances of ever taking away such goodies are nil—Presidents may come and go, but entitlements are forever. New government give-aways may accomplish nothing constructive but they’re all but impossible to eliminate once they’re up and running.

Consider Jimmy Carter’s horribly misguided establishment of two vast new cabinet level departments—the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. When the indignant public swept out of office the worst president of modern times, Reagan took the White House with talk of eliminating one or both of these two wasteful bureaucracies. Even the Great Gipper failed in this endeavor, and the Departments of Energy and Education continue to soak up hundreds of billions of tax dollars and to employ tens of thousands, despite their abject failure at improving either public education or our energy supplies.

Make Some Extra Money

Writing term papers for hire. Clicking through on the link won't tell you how to do it. The author explains how he did it, and why, and what he thinks about it.

It's a very thought provoking read- I actually laughed out loud, really loud, so loud I was afraid somebody would come in and ask what was so funny, and I was too embarrassed to tell the young Progeny. And by the end, I wasn't laughing anymore.

I have written before about how many of our high school graduates have been defrauded- their education stolen from them. There are some college students who should not be there, and their teachers and advisors must know it. They're being cheated, too.

Manifesto

We believe that Barack Obama is a brilliant orator and a man possessed of more charisma than any politician since JFK.

• But we also believe that his philosophy of "spreading the wealth around" is an ill-disguised form of socialism that undermines everything America holds dear.

• We believe that a "tax cut on 95% of working Americans" when only 63% of Americans pay taxes is nonsensical.

• We believe that the Obama campaign's obfuscated funding for ACORN (originally described as "event planning") undermines the integrity of our elections and calls into question the legality of his tactics[...]
• We believe that anyone -- no matter their position on abortion -- who supports killing an infant that survived a botched abortion is on the wrong side of any moral code.

More here

Regarding that last one, I believe anybody who can support and put his vote to a candidate with an issue like Obama's four votes to allow hospitals to continue killing babies who survived botched abortions, is a person with a moral blindspot of a size capacious enough that it could swallow one of Jupiter's smaller moons.

Scary

Single Issue Voter

This is an older article but it explains my point of view pretty well.

Over time, it will cheapen our society's view of all human life. If an unborn child has no right to live till birth, will people begin to ask why he has a right to food, housing, and education once he's born? Is a society indifferent to the claims of the vulnerable unborn likely to be one that cares much about the vulnerable born?

FLDS October 24

Various odds and ends:

Marci Hamilton the 'Constitutional Law Scholar' so harshly critical of the Texas Supreme Court's ruling that Judge Walthers had to vacate her invalid order, is the sort of Constitutionalist who is:

...decidedly in favor of prosecuting polygamists and taking away their children. Doesn't matter if they are Fundamentalist Mormons or Muslims or whatever. Go get 'em, Hamilton said.

While not every instance of polygamy involves sexual or physical abuse of children, the tendency is enough to make the assumption that no polygamous home is fit for children, she said.

And it is easy to ferret them out, Hamilton said. Just keep watch and see who goes into certain homes.

Marci Hamilton is that warm and wonderful human being who:
said the state's return of the children has left them vulnerable to ongoing abuse (never mind that there's no evidence that 99 percent were abused in the first place, and 4 of the 5 current allegedly underaged mothers will be 18 before the year is out).

At the Philadelphia conference Saturday, Hamilton said placing the children into state custody "put them in really terrible straits."
"They had to eat pizza. They had to learn to ride bicycles," Hamilton said. "They had to live in a universe where abuse is not normal. They saw a window of information they would have otherwise not gotten."

As of October 16th, all but 72 of the 439 (or so) children CPS scooped up had been 'nonsuited.'

And, oh, my- the lead attorney for CPS in the FLDS case has resigned- rather abruptly, and nobody is saying why. He says anybody with questions will have to ask CPS, and CPS says they don't know- he's leaving for his own reasons.
Formerly, he was the attorney who filed to suspend discovery- probably after an illegal ex parte meeting with the Judge- suspended discovery is basically granting CPS the right to hold all the cards and continue investigating while keeping their findings a secret from the subjects of the investigation.
He also previously acknowledged that in a number of cases the grounds CPS was using to file suit against the parents was no abuse, but simply failure to cooperate with CPS.
In April, the Texas Supreme Court hired Childress and two other attorneys to train the volunteer ad litums on how to 'represent' their FLDS clients. He did this by providing anti-FLDS material from highly questionable sources.
After providing this training, he then turned around and became the lead CPS attorney against the ad litums he had trained.

I was trying to find out how many other state employees associated with the raid had resigned or retired, as I believe there have been several, but no luck. Cary Cockerell (who made the unsubstatiated allegation about broken bones) and once the head of Texas CPS is one. Anybody else know of any others?

Democrats Want Your 401K

Via Hotair:

To this day, they accuse Republican candidates of supporting Bush’s partial privatization plan as though it were the equivalent of Teapot Dome.

So why are Democrats now looking to partially nationalize existing 401(k) plans into the exact same kind of private/public pension system?

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.

Hmm …. “a system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.” That sounds very, very familiar, doesn’t it? Don’t we already do this with Social Security?

Tax breaks are not government subsidies.
Spending freezes are not spending cuts.

Quick Oat Bread

More Recipes for Fifty By Frances Lowe Smith: ""

World's Oldest Temple

We mentioned Gobekli Tepe briefly here.

There's a more recent article on this fascinating site here.

It predates Stonehenge by about 7,000 years.

There are two sets of structures- the newer set is about 8,000 years BC (the oldest finds are around 10,000 years BC. The older stone carvings are more 'advance' and elaborate.

Presidential Attitudes Survey

I have been participating in this study for a while- periodically, they email me and ask me to take it again. I continue to score favorably towards Obama, even though there has not been a moment I have considered voting for him since I found out he doesn't have a problem with death by exposure as a common hospital practice for babies who survive abortions. Here's today's score:

Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Barack Obama compared to John McCain.

The first time I took it that was also my score.

Posture and Back Problems

A friend sent me this link. I have not had time to watch it, but the concept is intriguing.