A black morning after

Another Borg Conspiracy Grand Slam Homer!

Today is the much awaited and much ballyhooed 'Black Friday.' The one day of the year that is supposed to be permissible shopping insanity. But as with everything else in American culture, if you can do it tomorrow, you can probably do it today. So may retailers began their black Friday shop fest the night before.

Much was the same nationally it appears as it was here in west Georgia last night and today. Crowds of up to a thousand reported at area stores awaiting the kickoff to seasonal sales for this holiday season. Luckily, we haven't had any reported confrontations or assaults like are being reported elsewhere around the nation this morning.

I waited until well after daylight this morning and then proceeded to make my one outing to obtain a few things for my fur kids at our location PetSmart. Thinking that most of the insanity would be focused elsewhere, it turned out that my read was correct and I easily got in and out of the store with the things that I was interested in buying. Apparently, the run on cat litter and dog food ended well before I got there this morning, so i was able to get what I wanted and be gone in short order.

While driving home from my outing this morning it struck me, that I would not have weathered a frigid night in a parking lot for all the tea in China, or for some flat screen TV or ipad for that matter. But I will weather a cold hundred mile ride in winter to honor a fallen soldier, or sailor or airman or Marine.

I guess that is where the real deal exists for me. I cannot see standing in a line on a freezing morning just to get my hands on some toy or gizmo, but I can stand in a flag line for hours to honor the life of someone who's service affords me the ability to live my life in peace and freedom.

So the next time you hear all the bupkus about holiday shopping and racing around to get deals, try to remember what the real deal is or should be. I only wish as many people as have turned out for the morning after shopping frenzy, would one day find it in their heart to turn out to honor our heroes and their families when they come home.

Semper Fi.....

Semper Fi indeed Marine!

xtnyoda, shalomed

Returned Census

Received this today from Phillip ... lot of truth ...

They sent my Census form back! AGAIN!!! In response to the question: "Do you have any dependents?" I replied - "12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads; 42 million unemployable people, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico; and 535 more in the U.S. House and Senate. Apparently, this was NOT an acceptable answer.

I can't decide though whether I should laugh or cry!
.....
OK .... I'll laugh!

xtnyoda, shalom

Letter From An Agnostic

Received this from Brian of Brian's Blast. Lot of patriotic wisdom here. Go read the whole article from Dr. Baldwin.

Chuck Baldwin Live

I couldn’t count how many times I’ve heard a sincere Christian say to me, “Chuck, all we have to do is elect more Christians to public office.” I wish it was only that easy! The fact is we have been electing “Christians” to public office for decades. In fact, when is the last time you voted for someone who did NOT proclaim to be a Christian? Most everyone in public office claims to be a Christian. In my whole life, I never remember a candidate for public office saying, “Vote for me; I’m an atheist.” Do you?

Richard Nixon claimed to be a Christian; Gerald Ford claimed to be a Christian; Jimmy Carter claimed to be a Christian (he even taught Sunday School and took alcohol out of the White House); Ronald Reagan claimed to be a Christian; Bill Clinton claimed to be a Christian (how many times did we see Clinton on his way to church with his giant-print Bible under his arm?); George Bush I and II claimed to be a Christian. Bush II held prayer meetings in the White House we are told. Even Barack Obama claims to be a Christian. Ditto for virtually every congressman and senator ever elected. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, men and women, whites and blacks: they all claim to be Christians. If electing “Christians” was all we needed to do, we should be in the Millennial Kingdom by now!

Of course, I can hear many Christians now saying under their breath, “But we need REAL Christians in public office.” And, of course, the people saying this are the ones who are qualified to know which ones are REAL Christians and which ones aren’t. Right?

In speeches all over America, I have surprised many Christian people when I say, I would rather vote for an unbeliever who would preserve, protect, and defend the US Constitution, than vote for a believer who would NOT preserve, protect, and defend the US Constitution.

When a civil magistrate assumes public office, he or she does not swear an oath to be a “good Christian,” or to be a “good conservative,” or to read their Bible and pray everyday. What they do swear to, however, is to “preserve, protect, and defend” the US Constitution.....

xtnyoda, shalomed

H/T Brian's Blast

Tips for effective cheating!

8 Tips to Becoming an Effective Cheater

Take my word for it ... you've got to go see them.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Describing VICTORY

My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.For the LORD gives wisdom,and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless.
(Proverbs 2:1-7)

H/T Jeremy!

There is some pretty good discussion going on regarding the below video that is posted over at Brutally Honest. I thought some pretty salient points are being made that we would and should consider on the call for repealing obamacare.



Here are a few of the responses to the gentle-woman's statement that obamacare is mandated by the constitution.

.... “This bill as been vetted, this bill is constitutional…”

Yea, it was vetted so much that the then Speaker of the House, Pelosi, said “We had to pass the (healthcare) bill so we can know what’s in it”.

As far as being constitutional, that will be decided, but as of today there are 26 state attorney generals who think otherwise.

“…and it protects the constitutional rights of those who ask the question - ‘Must I die, must my child die, because now I am disallowed from getting insurance?’

Disallowed? Who’s “disallowed” from getting insurance?

I missed the part where the constitution says - “Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and healthcare”. Maybe Rep. Lee has a different copy than mine. Never mind that it’s in the Declaration of Independence.

Posted by: tim akak The Godless Heathen | Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 03:15 PM

It is interesting when Healthcare is proposed as a "right". If it is a right, it is unique amongst the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights. You know, that curious portion of the Constitution that is actually in the Constitution.
What I mean by unique amongst all other rights is that while:

You have a Right to Freedom of Religion, the government doesn't provide Bibles.
You have a Right to Assembly but the government doesn't provide halls in which to do it.
You have a Right to bear arms, but the government doesn't buy you a firearm and ammunition.
You have a Right to freedom of the press but the government doesn't buy you a printing press and ink.

You get the picture, by putting forth the notion that healthcare is a right, those who do so are also putting forth the notion that, at the point of a gun, the government has an obligation to take your children's money (you see yours is all gone) and give it to you neighbor to treat their erectile disfunction, pay for their abortion or otherwise pay for services that they cannot afford.....

Posted by: Tom Flake | Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 04:19 PM

Those who put forth the notion that "health care" is a "right" are positing that one person has the "right" to another persons time and treasure. How does this jibe with the notion that one of the inalienable rights is the right to liberty? If you claim, as your "right", the fruits of MY labor (be they money paid in taxes, OR my professional skills, if I am in the medical field), does that not make me, at least in part, your slave?

Posted by: Shifty1

Interesting comments, insightful comments, and interesting days ahead.

We'll see how long the 'progressives' stay 'civil' as the debate heats up... and obamacare is either voted down or stripped on any financial resource.

Thanks for the discussion men.

xtnyoda, shalomed

I Accuse

This today from Brutally Honest.

What follows is written by Hani Shukrallah, presumably a Muslim. May there be more who think like this amongst Islam:

We are to join in a chorus of condemnation. Jointly, Muslims and Christians, government and opposition, Church and Mosque, clerics and laypeople – all of us are going to stand up and with a single voice declare unequivocal denunciation of al-Qaeda, Islamist militants, and Muslim fanatics of every shade, hue and color; some of us will even go the extra mile to denounce salafi Islam, Islamic fundamentalism as a whole, and the Wahabi Islam which, presumably, is a Saudi import wholly alien to our Egyptian national culture.

...

I am no Zola, but I too can accuse. And it’s not the blood thirsty criminals of al-Qaeda or whatever other gang of hoodlums involved in the horror of Alexandria that I am concerned with.

I accuse a government that seems to think that by outbidding the Islamists it will also outflank them.

I accuse the host of MPs and government officials who cannot help but take their own personal bigotries along to the parliament, or to the multitude of government bodies, national and local, from which they exercise unchecked, brutal yet at the same time hopelessly inept authority.

I accuse those state bodies who believe that by bolstering the Salafi trend they are undermining the Muslim Brotherhood, and who like to occasionally play to bigoted anti-Coptic sentiments, presumably as an excellent distraction from other more serious issues of government.

But most of all, I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us; those who’ve been growing more and more prejudiced, inclusive and narrow minded with every passing year.

I accuse those among us who would rise up in fury over a decision to halt construction of a Muslim Center near ground zero in New York, but applaud the Egyptian police when they halt the construction of a staircase in a Coptic church in the Omranya district of Greater Cairo.

I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in your offices, in your clubs, at your dinner parties: “The Copts must be taught a lesson,” “the Copts are growing more arrogant,” “the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims”, and in the same breath, “the Copts are preventing Christian women from converting to Islam, kidnapping them, and locking them up in monasteries.”

I accuse you all, because in your bigoted blindness you cannot even see the violence to logic and sheer common sense that you commit; that you dare accuse the whole world of using a double standard against us, and are, at the same time, wholly incapable of showing a minimum awareness of your own blatant double standard.

And finally, I accuse the liberal intellectuals, both Muslim and Christian who, whether complicit, afraid, or simply unwilling to do or say anything that may displease “the masses”, have stood aside, finding it sufficient to join in one futile chorus of denunciation following another, even as the massacres spread wider, and grow more horrifying.

This is good and necessary stuff. Most good and most necessary.
Do read it all. Do pass it on.

I agree with Rick... we need more of the same from about 1 billion Muslims... and about 5 billion other humans.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Contrasting today's rant about the current president belittling Americans as nincompoops... it is refreshing to hear from former President Bush that the photo op over New Orleans after Katrina was a big mistake.

Yahoo news

Former President George W. Bush says it was a "huge mistake" to let himself be photographed looking from Air Force One down at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Bush reflected on the iconic photograph during an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer to promote his forthcoming memoir, "Decision Points." The photo was published widely and only reinforced the view that the Bush administration didn't act quickly enough or fully grasp the severity of the problems on the ground in New Orleans after the levees broke.

"Let's get to the picture that we may have seen more of you in the last couple years of your presidency than any other picture," Lauer said. "You're sitting in Air Force One, flying back toward Washington. You fly right over New Orleans and you look out the window."

"Yes," Bush responded. "Huge mistake."

LAUER: Yeah. And in comes the press and they take that picture. And it made you look so out of touch.

BUSH: Detached and uncaring. No question about it.

LAUER: Whose fault was it?

BUSH: It's always my fault. I mean I was the one who should have said, A, don't take my picture, B, let's land in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, C, let's don't even come close to the area. Let's -- the next place to be seen is in Washington at a command center. I mean, it was my fault.

xtnyoda, shalomed

This article has been up on Drudge for the past couple of days.



For those that wish to defend the use of consumption alcohol... they need to take a close look at this study.

The Washington Post article

Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine

LONDON -- Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.

British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.

Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.

Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.

The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and was published online Monday in the medical journal, Lancet.

Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around them....

When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin....

Truth be told... consumption alcohol is the most abused drug in the world. It has destroyed more lives, families, and health than any other drug... by far.

Another facet that the study doesn't even touch is the vast amount of lost work that alcohol causes... and the lost productivity that results because of the same. The FBI did their own study 50 years ago that reported the same as well as all the lost work and damage to American business because of alcohol abuse.

And this study doesn't even mention that 1/2 of all traffic deaths each year are caused by drunk drivers.

Not to mention the stupid decisions that people make under the influence of alcohol.

Something to think about.

xtnyoda, shalomed

There is a great wisdom in the follwing article By SHELBY STEELE in the Wall Street Journal.

A Referendum on the Redeemer

Barack Obama put the Democrats in the position of forever redeeming a fallen nation rather than leading a great one....

... His coming of age paralleled exactly the unfolding of a new "counterculture" American identity. And this new American identity—and the post-1960s liberalism it spawned—is grounded in a remarkable irony: bad faith in America as virtue itself...

...Bad faith in America became virtuous in the '60s.... the crowning idea of the '60s: that America was characterologically evil. Thus the only way back to decency and moral authority was through bad faith in America and its institutions, through the presumption that evil was America's natural default position.

Among today's liberal elite, bad faith in America is a sophistication, a kind of hipness. More importantly, it is the perfect formula for political and governmental power. It rationalizes power in the name of intervening against evil—I will use the government to intervene against the evil tendencies of American life (economic inequality, structural racism and sexism, corporate greed, neglect of the environment and so on), so I need your vote.

"Hope and Change" positioned Mr. Obama as a conduit between an old America worn down by its evil inclinations and a new America redeemed of those inclinations. There was no vision of the future in "Hope and Change." It is an expression of bad faith in America, but its great ingenuity was to turn that bad faith into political motivation, into votes.

...The great weakness of bad faith is that it disallows American exceptionalism as a rationale for power. It puts Mr. Obama and the Democrats in the position of forever redeeming a fallen nation, rather than leading a great nation. They bet on America's characterological evil and not on her sense of fairness, generosity or ingenuity....

Our great presidents have been stewards... But he has functioned more as a redeemer than a steward, a leader who sees a badness in us from which we must be redeemed. Many Americans are afraid of this because a mandate as grandiose as redemption justifies a vast expansion of government. A redeemer can't just tweak and guide a faltering economy; he will need a trillion- dollar stimulus package. He can't take on health care a step at a time; he must do it all at once, finally mandating that every citizen buy in.

Next week's election is, among other things, a referendum on the idea of president-as- redeemer. We have a president so determined to transform and redeem us from what we are that, by his own words, he is willing to risk being a one-term president. People now wonder if Barack Obama can pivot back to the center like Bill Clinton did after his set-back in '94. But Mr. Clinton was already a steward, a policy wonk, a man of the center. Mr. Obama has to change archetypes.

I think Mr. Steele has hit the nail on the head... dead on.

Go read the entire opinion.

xtnyoda, shalomed

"cultural relativism is a fancy phrase for what is, in practice, smug racism"

Following is to consider and ponder... very carefully.

Brutally Honest

This one from Bookworm needs to be read in full, more than once, and passed on with the same advice. What follows is but a small teaser:

Modern so-called liberals, of course, would never dream of saying that the brown people of the world are less than fully human because of their race. May’s point, however, is that, when it comes to Muslims, we still manage to treat them that way. (I’ll add that the same holds true for the low, low standards so-called liberals establish for black people.)

Sure, we in the West treat women well, but we certainly can’t expect that level of sophistication from the brown people. And sure, we treat gays well, but we have to understand that the brown people haven’t evolved to that point, and we should therefore just ignore their sins. And sure, we can tolerate free speech (or, at least, if we’re a so-called liberal, we pay lip-service to the notion of free speech), but we’re big enough to recognize that the brown people haven’t matured enough as a race to handle it.

The exceptionally low standards we allow for Muslims and blacks are always phrased in terms of “respect” for the “other” culture. “Respect,” however, is a misnomer. True respect is impossible if we consistently assert that the “others” (who invariably have skin darker than ours) cannot hold themselves to the normative behaviors of which we’re most proud.

...

I don’t see any of our liberals recognizing in Muslims the common humanity that the more enlightened English and Christians saw in the East Indians or Native Americans. Instead, our cultural relativists glory in their own superiority. Sure, they’ll bad-mouth their own culture left, right and center, but they know that their respect for women, for gays, and for other people who have traditionally been oppressed, makes them better than other cultures that continue to oppress those same people. In other words, cultural relativism is a fancy phrase for what is, in practice, smug racism....

xtnyoda, shalomed

The euphoria of rescue

There's rich symbolism here, so rich:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Anchoress sums things up nicely:

And then, after a brief wait, the second miner emerges from the rescue capsule with great joy; he embraces his wife and then opens a bag to retrieve…gifts.

For others.

In the midst of all of this drama, all of the lights and excitement and concern, and at a moment when a man could reasonably be excused for thinking only of himself, Mario Sepulveda Espinace thought about others, and he brought them gifts.

Rocks? Rocks containing gold? It doesn’t matter. Mario Sepulveda Espinace crested the top of a hole from which he thought he might never escape, and his first instinct was to give. That’s a thing worth writing about, and thinking about and praying about. I wish I had a picture of that moment! How huge and resilient is the human spirit?

We were already witnessing something jaw-dropping and near-miraculous. And a man arose bearing gifts, and it got even better, for everyone in the world who was paying attention.

All the above courtesy of Brutally Honest.