beyond hollywood

december

2011-12-10T21:52:00.001-08:00

A place holder...

let's get one thing straight...

2011-07-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

There are online posts of a specific genre that pop up like toadstools, the logic of which goes something like this:

"What? This person just spent (X dollars) on (Y item or activity) when there are (starving/dying/whatever people because of Z travesty) going on in (his/her) (country, neighborhood, state)?! That is disgraceful!"

Today I ran into one of these outbursts following someone's blog post about a Missouri woman buying 10,000 dollars worth of designer shoes, all at once, from an online store. One of the subsequent blog comments, predictably, opined it was disgraceful because of all the homeless tornado victims in Missouri. Actually, I take it back. She said it was eff-ing disgraceful.

Maybe it's because I'm having a terrible week, preparing to help the passing of my ailing geriatric cat who is very dear to me. Maybe it's because I read this kind of mindless Marxist crap every day and take it on the chin. For whatever reason, I got really hot about it and gave her a news flash:

OK, so it sounds excessive. But I would caution against making that kind of leap of logic. There are several things we can say about that. First of all, how would you know if this woman helped her homeless neighbors or not? The answer is, you don't. For all you know, she pays more a year in taxes than my annual income, and just wrote a 50,000 dollar check to the Red Cross. Maybe she's been saving for years for a fantasy shopping spree. Maybe she has cancer. How the hell would you know?

I'll bet you have more than one person in your town who's out on the street right now. But you're online on a computer, probably with a new flatscreen monitor, reading about shoes, and an iPhone in your purse and drycleaning to pick up. Who is to say you shouldn't live like you do, knowing there's even one starving person out there somewhere? Is that a "fucking" disgrace too? Same idea, different strata-- and it would be ridiculous to proclaim any assumptions or call you out. More importantly, it's wrong.

Are you willing to insist we all live by the statist rule your snide comment implies? Or just some people? And then who gets to decide and enforce that? Fifty years of USSR misery gives us a pretty good answer to how well that works.

PS By the way, since your comment infers resentment to those with discretionary income, I've never known a person with a high income who didn't make large contributions to charities on a regular basis. They may not issue press releases when they do it like moviestars do, but they definitely give back. Sorry, but holier-than-thou just isn't going to cut it.

royal wedding 2011

2011-04-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the royal couple. It was wonderful to see this old tradition come to life, an especially delightful event given the understated grace exhibited by the wedding party. I wish these young people long life and happiness together.

All the best to Catherine and William.

* * *

PS

To those simple-minded people wringing their hands and wailing in chat rooms that the wedding money should have been spent on the poor instead:

Stop what you're doing, sell your computer, and give all the money directly to the next poor person you encounter.

Go ahead. I'm waiting.

* * *

whiskey tango foxtrot

2011-04-15T17:31:00.001-07:00

snowy egret in flight

2011-04-15T14:05:00.001-07:00

a short note about art

2011-04-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

Poetry, drama, film, art—it just feels bigger and more powerful, and tons more rattles around in it. Fireworks go off in all that space, everything bounces off everything else. Liberal thinking has its roots in the arts, in feeling, in the idea of poetic inexactness, an expansive anything-is-possible-and-should-be-ness. It jumps tracks without consequence; it’s arguments go in big lazy worm Ouroboros circles and protagonists battle to the death with men of straw. It laughs at anything so small and constrained as a carefully constructed argument.

It’s the difference between giving the molecular structure of water, and writing a haiku about it. Because the haiku is poetic it feels more profound; all that allegorical space gives you room to fill in the blanks and conclude it’s the most truthful crazy genius stuff you’ve ever heard.

Update from Alec Rawls on Flight 93 Memorial

2010-09-08T01:26:00.001-07:00

Thank you for stopping by. I am a very irregular blogger, but from time to time I like to share thoughts here about current events.

This is a copy of my friend Alec Rawls' latest article on the Flight 93 Memorial, reprinted here with permission. If you're interested in following this important story as it unfolds, the best thing is to contact Alec and get on his mailing list. If you have your own blog, Alec encourages people to reprint his updates. /b.

* * *

Alan Keyes against the Flight 93 memorial

Conservative hero Alan Keyes is asking whether there is a pattern of submission surrounding the nation's 9/11 sites. Apparently he has seen our video expose of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the crescent memorial to Flight 93 (now called a broken circle). Like any straight-thinker, he doesn't like what he sees. The Flight 93 crash site is no place for a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, no matter what it is called.

On this point, Keyes cites Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo's 2005 objection to the newly unveiled Crescent of Embrace design:

Back in 2005, then-Rep. Tom Tancredo was reported to have sent a letter to the National Park Service "asking the Interior Department to reconsider the crescent-shaped design of the memorial to those aboard a plane hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, because some may think it honors the terrorists." Tancredo quite sensibly argues that "regardless of whether 'the invocation of a Muslim Symbol' was intentional, 'it seems that such a symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam.'"

Keyes notes our claim that the design is still replete with terrorist memorializing features and he seems to find it credible. Why shouldn't he? The damning features are all right there in architect Paul Murdoch's design drawings. Thank you Doctor Keyes!

"It’s not just embarrassing. It is a dangerous willful blindness, spurning the woken vigilance of Flight 93."

That's the last line of the full-page advertisement that Tom Burnett Senior and Alec Rawls will be running in the Somerset Daily American this Friday and Saturday (when the two first ladies will be in town for the 9/11 anniversary):

Click for legible image. Full ad-copy PDF here (large file warning).

We are hoping that visitors will hold onto our ad, maybe even tape it to their car windows, and most especially, show it to any press people they come across. Hey, if the Park Service can use 9/11 to plant the world's largest mosque on the Flight 93 crash site, we can use 9/11 to object.

To join our blogburst against the crescent mosque, just send your blog's url.

From Alec Rawls: Nuclear Summit Logo is Islamic Crescent

2010-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

Hello, friends.

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted anything to this blog in ages. My focus has been on personal and business matters, as well as the completion of my book. I've also been supporting local political efforts, maintaining an active Twitter presence, and attending rallies when I can.

Thank heavens there are people like Alec. Economist, author, and Flight 93 Memorial activist Alec Rawls is always very open and generous when it comes to encouraging people to re-post his material. Below is a complete, verbatim HTML copy of the post he shared this morning.

Thank you again, Alec. ---B. Giguere

Nuclear Summit logo is an Islamic-shaped crescent

World leader, known for reminding the Islamic world that his middle name is Hussein, hosts nuclear summit, presided over by large Islamic-shaped crescent:

Photo by Ron Sachs. Post via Error Theory.

It is hard to believe that the State Department could do this by accident:

An Islamic crescent is a very distinct and completely unnatural geometric shape, combining a circular outer arc with a non-concentric circular inner arc. The unnaturalness is an Islamic religious requirement. A lunar crescent has an elliptical inner arc. Using such a natural shape as a religious symbol would risk idolatry (the worship of any actual thing besides God). Thus Muslims use as their symbol the explicitly unnatural circle-in-circle crescent shape.

Sometimes the inner circle sits entirely inside the outer circle. This arrangement is typically used to symbolize Islamic world domination, as seen in the MAS logo. More often the inner circle extends beyond the outer circle, as seen on the last last Ottoman flags:

Turkish flag. Crescent covers an unnatural 2/3rds of a circle of arc, give or take (in contrast to a lunar crescent, which always covers a half a circle of arc).

Obama's circle-in-circle NSS logo uses a thin crescent to combine the world encompassing aspect of the MAS logo with the more familiar Ottoman crescent, covering less than a full circle of arc.

Obama has ordered his underlings not to notice Islamic connections

Given that the unnatural circle-in-circle crescent is the only widely recognized graphic symbol of Islam, it must have been recognized as such by at least a significant percentage of the State Department personnel who saw it prior to the summit. Why didn't anyone object, forcefully and publicly if necessary?

It would seem to be the Fort Hood phenomenon, where witnesses to Nidal Hasan's murderous ideology were afraid that making an issue of it would be career suicide, thereby enabling Hasan's mass murder of American soldiers. Obama has now made the career suicide threat official, ordering all members of the executive branch to be as oblivious to Islam as possible. The more disturbing the Islamic connection, the more it is to be avoided, to the point where Muslim terrorists, whose reading of orthodox Islamic interpretation compels them to slaughter infidels, are no longer to be called "Muslim terrorists" or "Islamic extremists." Everyone is just supposed to ignore their Islamic motivation.

Hydrogen atoms and Swastikas

Defenders of Obama's nuclear crescent (trolls in the comments at Gateway) think that so long as the Islamic-shaped crescent can be interpreted in some non-Islamic way, there is nothing wrong with using an Islamic shaped crescent to represent American hospitality:

Oh please, folks, get a grip. It’s modeled after a hydrogen atom, you know, as in hydrogen bombs?

This issue came up when the Missile Defense Agency's crescent shaped website logo became a news story in February.

MDA website logo, uses the world-encompassing symbolism of a full circle-in-circle crescent favored by several Islamic terror groups:

Left: Islamic Palestine Block insignia. Center: Hamas insignia. Right: PLFP insignia (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).

MDA spokesman Rich Lehner insists that the world-encompassing circle-in-circle crescent "symbolizes the worldwide protection of our homeland and deployed forces." But do we get to redefine in this way the only symbol shape that our terror war enemies claim as their own?

By that logic, one could say that the swastika represents a helicopter rotor in motion, making a great logo for our Apache squadrons, but no such interpretation can obviate the established meaning of the symbol shape, and like the swastika, the full circle-in-circle crescent has its own established meaning (a meaning not so different from the swastika). It represents Islamic domination of the planet. For Lehner to protest that this isn't what the full circle-in-circle crescent means to him is as ludicrous and irrelevant as saying that he sees the swastika as a spinning propeller.

Not that it matters, but the NSS logo fails as hydrogen atom

Most obviously, why the gap in the electron's orbit? The only purpose of this gap would seem to be to turn the crescent into the familiar Islamic-shaped crescent.

Less obviously, notice that the fattening of the crescent at the lower left indicates visually that the electron is coming closer at that point. That would only be the case if the orbit were being observed somewhat edge-on, but that would make the orbit appear to the observer as an ellipse, not the circle seen in the NSS logo.

By the same token, since the orbit is seen as circular rather than elliptical, that means it is being observed from above (from one of the poles of the axis of rotation), which means the electron is not moving closer to and further from the observer, hence no crescent-like fattening of the arc would be observed.

The only purpose for the unnatural fattening of the circle on one side representation would again seem to be to create the familiar Islamic shaped crescent.

Frank Gaffney was pre-mature in walking back his concerns about the MDA crescent

Kudo's to Frank Gaffney for forcing our Democrat dominated media to address the crescent shaped MDA logo two months ago. In addition to noting the Islamic shape, Gaffney also noted the likeness to Obama's permanent campaign logo:

When he discovered that the MDA logo predated the Obama administration, Frank began a walk-back, which he extended to the crescent shape:

It has also been observed that – rather than embracing the symbolic crescent and star, they could be interpreted as the targets of the intercepting swoosh in the MDA’s latest logo. If so, the 2009 design would presumably be offensive to Islamists, rather than evidence of submission to them.

No, the crescent cannot be interpreted as the target of the intercepting missile, because the target of the intercepting missile is explicit. It is shooting down another missile. The missile shot in the logo can be interpreted as defending the crescent, but it cannot be interpreted as attacking the crescent because the crescent is not a missile.

Ignorant coincidence, or stealth jihad?

The unanswered question is whether the Islamic-looking logos are the product of ignorant coincidence or Islamic supremacism. There are stealth jihadists who work in the field of Islamic symbolism, like the Los Angeles architect who designed the giant Mecca-oriented crescent that is now being built atop the Flight 93 crash site. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab, and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. (Some mihrabs are pointed arch shaped, but the archetypical mihrab is crescent shaped.) The planned memorial will be the world's largest mosque.

Like Gaffney (sorry Frank, but you really wimped out on this one), the defenders of the crescent mosque are willing to embrace untenable excuses for their Islamic symbol shape. Asked how he could abide the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent, Patrick White, Vice President of Families of Flight 93, argued that the almost-exact Mecca-orientation cannot be intended as a tribute to Islam because the in-exactness of it (within 2° of Mecca) would be "disrespectful" to Islam.

After the cartoon jihad, Gaffney and White might be excused for thinking that Muslims will take offense at just about anything, but the fact is, orthodox Islam cares very little about how exactly anyone faces Mecca for prayer. For most of Islam's 1400 year history, far flung Muslims had no accurate way to determine the direction to Mecca. Thus it developed as a matter of religious principle that what matters is intent to face Mecca (and God).

So where did Patrick White get the idea that orientation on Mecca must be exact? From a Muslim scholar commissioned by the Park Service to answer just this question. His name is Nasser Rabbat, and he told the Park Service a flat out lie. Why? Rabbat is presumably a stealth jihadist, though he could have also been doing a personal favor for ex-classmate Paul Murdoch, the Los Angeles architect who designed the Crescent of Embrace.

This is why these possibly coincidental Islamic symbol shapes need to be properly investigated: because where there is smoke, there is sometimes fire.

Gaffney was also premature in dismissing the Obama-like character of the MDA logo

Just because the Obama-like logo was not a product of the Obama administration does not mean it was not the work of a freelance Obamaton, or even an Obama-connected logo designer.

Obama started using his logo in early 2007, when it made a huge splash in the logo-design community. The contract for the MDA logo was not let until September 2007 and the logo itself did not appear until October 2008. Thus the MDA logo was designed while Obama's logo was all the rage, and given Obama's connections in the advertising industry, his people could even have exercised some direct influence over the MDA logo.

The strong Obama likeness makes it almost certain that the MDA logo was created by an Obama partisan as a tribute to Obama. From that strong prior, the likelihood that the Islamic-shaped crescent was also intentional goes up dramatically. Our president does not emphasize the "Hussein" in "Barack Hussein Obama" for nothing.

To join our blogburst-effort to stop the crescent mosque, just send your blog's url.

Alec Rawls: Islam is a Victim Too?

2010-03-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

Crocodile tears from the parents of Jihad Jamie?

Alec Rawls noticed something not quite right about Jihad Jamie's mother and father. Compare these two snippets from their Wall Street Journal interview:

Ms. Paulin-Ramirez's interest in Islam "came out of left field," said her mother, Christine Holcomb-Mott, in an interview at her home Friday, wearing a blue sweatsuit with a silver cross around her neck.

How out of left field?

Mr. Mott, a convert to Islam himself, says he went to Denver to find his stepdaughter but couldn't track her down.

This woman is married to a Muslim, but neither she nor her husband can grok where in the world their murder-plotting daughter/step-daughter ever got exposed to this worrisome religion that subducts so many of its followers into terrorism.

Their disgust at daughter Jamie sounds sincere, but their blatant dishonesty about how she could have gotten interested in Islam suggests otherwise. It is possible, however, that the Journal's paraphrase is not precise. If put on the spot, Holcomb-Mott would likely clarify that she has no idea how her daughter ever got interested in murder-cult Islam.

There is a way that this could actually happen: if Mr. Mott is some kind of multiculturalist do-gooder who converted to Islam in sympathy with the idea that "Islam was hijacked too" on 9/11. Such a person could have converted without comprehending the well established Islamic pedigree of violent aggressive jihad.

Don't scoff. This same "Islam is a victim too" sentiment is right now allowing a giant Mecca oriented crescent to be built on the Flight 93 crash site. After all, it would just be too horrible to reject the Crescent of Embrace memorial simply because it is in the shape of a giant Islamic crescent, not when Islam itself was amongst the victims on that terrible day. No, we must do the opposite and embrace Islam.

If Mott is thinking the same way, he has hardly gone any further than the Memorial Project. But then it seems that his step daughter took one step further still and actually read the Koran, with its endless commands to slaughter the unbelievers. Thus did an unhappy misfit finally find a home for the vicious vindictiveness that the religion of her birth had kept in check.

To join our blogbursts, just send your blog's url.

Deux et Machina, Jan. 19, 2010

2010-01-20T06:53:00.001-08:00

Now, before the media recovers its composure and begins its full-court press on Scott Brown, before he is subjected to the Palin treatment, we can take a few moments to savor something rare these days: something seemingly good actually happening in current events. It's been so long, I hardly remember the feeling.

Deux et machina: God in a box, a plot twist coming out of nowhere.

* * *

Michael Connelly on the Truth about the Health Care Bill

2010-01-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

This is a good summary written by a constitutional attorney. This is presented without any editing on my part, and to the best of my knowledge, the information is accurate. / b

The Truth About the Health Care Bill
Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney

* * *

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law.

I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession. The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.

However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated.

If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal healthcare direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide. If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law.

So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law.

It doesn't stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat, I suggest they consult the source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly Retired attorney, Constitutional Law Instructor Carrollton , Texas

Not Evil Just Wrong

2009-10-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

For the record, I just finished screening the film, "Not Evil Just Wrong" as part of the global simultaneous film premiere event.

Report to follow. An important, beautifully executed film.

* * *

Brenda Giguere

Ceding US Sovereignity: Video Update

2009-10-18T01:47:00.001-07:00

With gratitude to several plugged-in citizens on Twitter, I now have a link to share so we can view Lord Christopher Monckton's recent talk.

This is it, folks- pivotal issue. If we give up our sovereignity, we'll have one hell of a time getting it back.

http://bit.ly/2tYl6w

Pass it on.

Brenda Giguere

* * *

Signing Away America?

2009-10-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

President Poised to Cede US Sovereignty, Claims British Lord

But is anyone listening to Lord Christopher Monckton? We should be.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Hello, friends and neighbors. Something extraordinarily disturbing came to my attention this morning, and I immediately stopped what I was doing to check its veracity. I am so concerned I want share it with as many of you as possible. Its seriousness seems self-evident.

As you will find via the link below, the information that so alarmed me comes via a radio station website. But the piece itself-- the original source-- was a keynote talk given at an event at Bethel University in St. Paul on Wednesday evening [I am preparing this flier on Thursday October 15, 2009]. A friend called my attention to the talk.

Addressing the event was Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I'm aware of Lord Monckton's work in debunking the global warming scare tactics of Al Gore, and these issues aren't new to me. But his take on the upcoming UN agreement, and the details he provides here, effectively bring home the urgency of our situation.

The text of his talk can be found many places online, but this link is especially useful because it includes the transcript of the talk’s Q & A session:

http://www.infowars.com/obama-poised-to-cede-us-sovereignty-claims-british-lord/

For your convenience, here is the text of Lord Monckton’s talk, questions and responses included, as posted.

Says Monckton:

At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it. Most of the third world countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regime from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.
I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfication of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

How many of you think that the word “election” or “democracy” or “vote” or “ballot” occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it – Now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign it. He’ll sign anything. He’s a Nobel Peace Prize [winner]; of course he’ll sign it.

[laughter]

And the trouble is this; if that treaty is signed, if your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution (sic), and you can’t resign from that treaty unless you get agreement from all the other state parties – And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out of it.

So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free. But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever. And neither you nor any subsequent government you may elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back. That is how serious it is. I’ve read the treaty. I’ve seen this stuff about [world] government and climate debt and enforcement. They are going to do this to you whether you like it or not.

But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire – it is here that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty, that purposeless treaty. For there is no problem with climate and, even if there were, an economic treaty does nothing to [help] it.

So I end by saying to you the words that Winston Churchill addressed to your president in the darkest hour before the dawn of freedom in the Second World War. He quoted from your great poet Longfellow:

Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Lord Monckton received a standing ovation and took a series of questions from members of the audience. Among those questions were these relevant to the forthcoming Copenhagen treaty:

Question: The current administration and the Democratic majority in Congress has shown little regard for the will of the people. They’re trying to pass a serious government agenda, and serious taxation and burdens on future generations. And there seems to be little to stop them. How do you propose we stop Obama from doing this, because I see no way to stop him from signing anything in Copenhagen. I believe that’s his agenda and he’ll do it.

I don’t minimize the difficulty. But on this subject – I don’t really do politics, because it’s not right. In the end, your politics is for you. The correct procedure is for you to get onto your representatives, both in the US Senate where the bill has yet to go through (you can try and stop that) and in [the House], and get them to demand their right of audience (which they all have) with the president and tell him about this treaty. There are many very powerful people in this room, wealthy people, influential people. Get onto the media, tell them about this treaty. If they go to www.wattsupwiththat.com, they will find (if they look carefully enough) a copy of that treaty, because I arranged for it to be posted there not so long ago. Let them read it, and let the press tell the people that their democracy is about to be taken away for no good purpose, at least [with] no scientific basis [in reference to climate change]. Tell the press to say this. Tell the press to say that, even if there is a problem [with climate change], you don’t want your democracy taken away. It really is as simple as that.

Question: Is it really irrevocable if that treaty is signed? Suppose it’s signed by someone who does not have the authority, as I – I have some, a high degree of skepticism that we do have a valid president there because I -

I know at least one judge who shares your opinion, sir, yes.

I don’t believe it until I see it. … Would [Obama's potential illegitimacy as president] give us a reasonable cause to nullify whatever treaty that he does sign as president?

I would be very careful not to rely on things like that. Although there is a certain amount of doubt whether or not he was born in Hawaii, my fear is it would be very difficult to prove he wasn’t born in Hawaii and therefore we might not be able to get anywhere with that. Besides, once he’s signed that treaty, whether or not he signed it validly, once he’s signed it and ratified it – your Senate ratifies it – you’re bound by it. But I will say one thing; they know, in the White House, that they won’t be able to get the 67 votes in the Senate, the two-thirds majority that your Constitution has stipulated must be achieved in order to ratify a treaty of this kind. However, what they’ve worked out is this – and they actually let it slip during the election campaign, which is how I know about it. They plan to enact that Copenhagen treaty into legislation by a simple majority of both houses. That they can do. But the virtue of that – and here you have a point – is that is, thank God, reversible. So I want you to pray tonight, and pray hard for your Senate that they utterly refuse to ratify the [new] Treaty of Copenhagen, because if they refuse to ratify it and [Obama] has to push it through as domestic legislation, you can repeal it.

Regardless of whether global warming is taking place or caused to any degree by human activity, we do not want a global government empowered to tax Americans without elected representation or anything analogous to constitutional protections. The Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves if they knew their progeny allowed a foreign power such authority, effectively undoing their every effort in an act of Anti-American Revolution. If that is our imminent course, we need to put all else on hold and focus on stopping it. If American sovereignty is ceded, all other debate is irrelevant.

Edited to add @ 8:31 am:

Skimming through the treaty, I [radio host] came across verification of Monckton’s assessment of the new entity’s purpose:

38. The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism, and the basic organization of which will include the following:
World Government (heading added)

(a) The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate.

To Redistribute Wealth (heading added)

b) The Convention’s financial mechanism will include a multilateral climate change fund including five windows: (a) an Adaptation window, (b) a Compensation window, to address loss and damage from climate change impacts [read: the "climate debt" Monckton refers to], including insurance, rehabilitation and compensatory components, © a Technology window; (d) a Mitigation window; and (e) a REDD window, to support a multi-phases process for positive forest incentives relating to REDD actions.
With Enforcement Authority (heading added)

The Convention’s facilitative mechanism will include: (a) work programmes for adaptation and mitigation; (b) a long-term REDD process; © a short-term technology action plan; (d) an expert group on adaptation established by the subsidiary body on adaptation, and expert groups on mitigation, technologies and on monitoring, reporting and verification; and (e) an international registry for the monitoring, reporting and verification of compliance of emission reduction commitments, and the transfer of technical and financial resources from developed countries to developing countries. The secretariat will provide technical and administrative support, including a new centre for information exchange [read; enforcement].

END OF TRANSCRIPT of Lord Monckton’s talk and subsequent Q&A

Regardless of our affiliations or levels of civic involvement, we have to be careful what news and sources to take seriously. But with indisputable deterioration in objective mainstream news reporting, it’s no longer adequate to rely blindly on these outlets for the stringent and unbiased reporting (not to mention analysis) we need to evaluate current events.

I believe the above quotes to be accurate, and Monckton’s assessment to be valid. As more information about that evening's talk becomes available, I'll try to post links here so we can follow this story together.

It surely must be obvious that the pending signing of the aforementioned global agreement is extremely dangerous, requiring attention from of all of us. This issue needs to be at the top of the stack.

* * *

Brenda Giguere

Gilad Shalit Twitter Campaign

2009-08-05T11:21:00.001-07:00

* * *

On August 28th, 2009, kidnapped Israeli Defense Force soldier Gilad Shalit will celebrate his 23rd birthday. But for the fourth year in a row, it appears he will most likely celebrate this important milestone far away from his home in Israel. Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas in the summer of 2006 and has remained in captivity since. Negotiations for his release are ongoing.

‘Tweet4Shalit’ is a virtual grassroots movement inspired by the struggle Gilad Shalit must endure daily as a prisoner of war and as a victim of Islamic extremism.

For more information, see this link. Thank you.

Gilad Shalit Twitter Campaign!

Posted using ShareThis

* * *

Something "fishy": A U.S. citizen who is against Obamacare because of verifiable facts

2009-08-04T11:53:00.001-07:00

* * *

Dear White House:

I am most strenuously against government taking over our health care in this country. I want to be very clear about this.

Whenever possible, I do try to share with others my belief that the proposed health care legislation is a very bad choice. I don't have to lie or make things up to do this, either; all I need to do is present verifiable facts in a calm and logical manner. I am a working American, a voter, non-violent and reasonable, just a regular person exercising my right to free speech.

It is deeply disturbing that our government is now apparently calling on people to report citizens for exercising their Constitutional rights, merely because they do not agree with the government on this issue and dare to iterate those beliefs in writing. I saw this solicitation with my own eyes on the White House website this morning, but could scarcely believe it.

What are we to make of this? What possible virtue, what possible justification is there in gathering names of dissenters?

This is not the America I know.

Sincerely and respectfully submitted,

Brenda Cox Giguere

* * *

Endeavor touches down safely to earth

2009-07-31T08:02:00.000-07:00

* * *
Congratulations to the incredible team behind the Endeavor, and the brave crew.

Here's a link to the NASA site to catch the latest updates:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Again, I am honored to live in an era that saw the dawn of manned space flight. It is my deep wish that our time in space is only just beginning.

Regards,

bg

* * *

The Flight 93 disgrace continues

2009-07-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

Memorial Project still helping the hijacker fix his disguise / latest information from Alec Rawls

After denying for 4 years that the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 will contain 44 inscribed memorial panels (equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists) the Memorial Project has announced a new design that appears to collapse three of the panels into one:

Artist's depiction of the slightly altered design for the Sacred Ground Plaza.

[If you are a newcomer, the Plaza sits in the position of the star on architect Paul Murdoch's giant Islamic crescent and star flag. They call the giant crescent a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle--what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11--is completely unchanged. It is still a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca.]

The focus of the Plaza is the two part Memorial Wall that follows the path of Flight 93 down to the crash site. As before, the lower section of wall contains 40 memorial panels, inscribed with the names of the 40 heroes. Instead of being small translucent panels set into the wall, they will now be 8 foot tall slabs. Nice.

The symbolically significant change is in the separate upper section of Memorial Wall that will be inscribed with the 9/11 date. In the original design, this separate upper section of wall contained three additional inscribed memorial panels:

Elevation view from original Sacred Ground Plaza design PDF.

The wall on the left is designated: “WALL WITH INSCRIBED NAMES ON FOLDED BAND OF TRANSLUCENT MARBLE.” The opening between the two sections of wall is marked “TRAIL,” and the wall on the right is designated: “WALL WITH INSCRIBED DATE.”

The three translucent panels inscribed with the 9/11 date were a problem because further up the flight path, at the upper crescent tip (where Flight 93 symbolically breaks the circle, turning it into the giant Islamic shaped crescent), sits one more inscribed translucent memorial panel:

At the end of the Entry Portal Walkway sits a huge glass panel that dedicates the entire site. In the original design, this brought the total number of inscribed translucent memorial panels on the flight path to 44, with the number of "extra" blocks matching the number of Islamic hijackers on Flight 93.

The enabling legislation for the Flight 93 Memorial specifically bars the Park Service from memorializing the enemy, but architect Paul Murdoch has other ideas. He doesn't just include them in some kind of can't-we-all-just-get-along multiculturalist fantasy. He depicts them as triumphant warriors, placing the capstone of his terrorist memorializing block count at the exact point where, in Murdoch's description, the terrorists' circle-breaking, crescent-creating feat is achieved. They explode through our peaceful circle, then die along with their victims. The capstone block commemorating this glorious martyrdom will be inscribed: “A field of honor forever.”

The Memorial Project is okay with all of this, but thanks to our blogbursts, too many people OUTSIDE of the Project also know about the terrorist memorializing block count, so they decided to fix up architect Paul Murdoch’s disguise, telling a caller two years ago that they were going to turn the three panels with the 9/11 date into one large panel. That would change the memorial block count from 44 to 42. Here is Mountain Goat's report on that 2007 phone call:

The gentleman did add, that the translucent blocks are actually white marble, and that the one with Sept. 11 inscribed on it will be one block, although it will be roughly the length three of the other blocks would have been.

This seems to be the change that is depicted in the new design image, though we will have to see the construction drawings to be sure. (An FOIA request for the recently completed construction drawings was submitted to the Park Service earlier this month.)

Primping Murdoch’s disguise does not stop his terrorist-memorializing plot, but only helps him to get away with it

The Park Service assumes that the 44 blocks were a coincidence and that by eliminating the coincidence it has eliminated the problem, but the 44 blocks were not a coincidence and changing the number of blocks to 42 does nothing alter the terrorist memorializing intent. Also, because the Park Service has been trying NOT to see Murdoch is up to, they left other terrorist memorializing features of the inscribed panels completely intact.

Notice, for instance, that the separate upper section of memorial wall, inscribed with the 9/11 date, is centered on the centerline of the giant crescent:

The trail that divides the Memorial Wall into two parts is marked in purple. The section of wall with the 9/11 date is marked in aqua.

You can see just by looking that the upper section of wall is centered on the center line of the crescent. That is the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. Thus the 9/11 date goes to the star on the Islamic flag. The date goes to the terrorists.

Changing the number of panels used to inscribe the 9/11 date does nothing to alter this terrorist memorializing feature. Not that Murdoch really cares whether the Park Service executes his design with proper Islamic precision.

To Murdoch, it is the plan that matters

Murdoch made clear from the beginning that it is the plan that matters, not whether the memorial is actually built exactly to his specifications. We can tell that he fully expected at least one of his terrorist memorializing features to be caught and stopped because he left provision for his “mistake” to be easily corrected. This was the so called “40 Memorial Groves." There were supposed to be one for each of the 40 infidel heroes, but Murdoch's site-plan only shows 38 groves:

Why 38? Try to figure it out for yourself, then look here. As usual, Murdoch provides multiply redundant proof of intent, once you figure out what he is up to.

Notice that Murdoch left room for two more Memorial Groves, one at each end. But just as the 38 Groves “mistake” is easy to fix, it will also be easy to un-fix it later. Indeed, failure to follow Murdoch's exact design is not a bug. It is a feature.

Islamic fundamentalists have been citing control of the al-Aqsa mosque as a grounds for waging war against Israel since the founding of the modern Jewish state. If we fail to be true to the glorious design of Murdoch's terrorist memorial mosque, that will just be one more reason for Murdoch's co-religionists to conquer The Great Satan, so that this death-penalty insult can first be avenged ("It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land" 8.67), then corrected.

Murdoch has not admitted to being Muslim (never mind a fundamentalist Muslim), but he HAS demonstrably designed an al Qaeda sympathizing memorial to Flight 93, all according to the established principles of proper mosque design (chapter 5), so there is no doubt of his ambition. Anyone who tries to sneak an al Qaeda memorial onto the Flight 93 crash site IS al Qaeda.

In 2005, the Park Service helped Murdoch hide his giant crescent by calling it a broken circle instead (as Murdoch had described it all along). Now the Park Service is helping to disguise yet another of Murdoch's terrorist memorializing design features, but without even acknowledging this time that the changes are in response to anything troublesome about the original design.

So tell us Park Service: if there never were 44 memorial panels on the flight path, as you have been telling the press for almost four years, why did you change the number of panels? And do you really think it is wise to help a hijacker improve his disguise?

2009-07-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

* * *

The old diary with the cracked white vinyl cover is somewhere in my garage; this I know. I've run across it since moving here. It's not something I'd ever throw away primarily because in it I wrote about the first moon walk while it was happening.

My hope was to find that diary in time to scan my multi-page entry for July 20, 1969 and share it here in Future World.

No such luck, but I guess I've been busy. We live in strange, rapidly-evolving times with too many earthbound dangers and no moon quest to dazzle us.

Coming to grips with a time span like forty years seems like the first order of business, but it's unnerving to face head on. At first I try to reason with those memories, hold them up to the light like so many glass cat eye marbles, but instead it all comes at me achingly and at once. That one night could be refracted into a long meditation, but I'll discipline it into a cluster of fragments.

My sixteenth birthday was two months away.

Summers in my home town were always hot, and my memory of that night merges in that respect with countless others: the barest tease of coolness arriving only well after the last rays of that day’s sun. If it had been any other night and we'd wanted to cool off, we'd drive to get icy mugs of car-hop root beer, or go to the library.

On this particular night we are all at home, of course: Mama, Daddy, my sister, and me. Every person I knew would be in their homes as well, all of us excited and waiting around the curved glass screens of heavy television sets.

The room is dark. I have a can of Shasta soda half finished and warming in my hand, and we’re waiting. In his corner chair, my father has a camera ready to take pictures of the television’s images.

What first strikes me now, beyond the sharp melancholy for that all but forgotten shared sense of pride, and wonder, and endless possibility, is that we could achieve so much with so little, and what that said about us, and how that has changed. Our technology was most certainly crude by today's standards, making a mission to the moon all the more heroic, a collective effort that spoke volumes about who we were, and proof of our rich, vast sense of possibility and even grandeur.

As we sat together that hot July night, the sleeping moon of Aristotle and Shakespeare and a million children's drawings had finally been prodded, transformed into ghostly dust under an astronaut's boot, and a brilliant slice of white on countless cathode ray tubes. The jumble of ideas it seemed to suggest was intoxicating. I couldn’t shake the realization that we’d crawled out of our caves, organized our activities in such a way that it culminated in this breathtaking moment.

After the first footsteps and the moving words I'll always feel proud of, when it felt like the world would never be the same again, I slipped outside, alone. The street, usually filled with summer restlessness, was quieter than I had ever known. I looked up and stared.

Once back in the house, the images were still being transmitted. The acute joy of it made me feel inexplicably sad, and in the midst of all that, I recall wondering how many times I would recall that night in the years ahead.

By the light of the televised moon, I wrote in my diary, It is beyond belief. It still is.

* * *

Smoking gun: President caught in huge health care lie

2009-07-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

* * *

Democrats Refuse to Let Americans Keep the Insurance They Have and Like

2 out of 3 will lose their health insurance

Democrats voted against an amendment offered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to strike the government-run plan.

When speaking before the American Medical Association, President Obama stated that, “If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

However, the Democrats government-run plan breaks this promise.

According to two independent studies: The government-run plan will result in more than 100 million Americans losing their current private health coverage.

This amendment to let Americans keep the insurance they like by striking the government-run plan was defeated, 25-15

* * *

This nightmare scenario is really happening, my friends- socialist utopians are intent on dismantling our health care system and subsitute one like the disastrous plans of Canada and the UK-- plans that put bureacrats in charge of health care and cause deadly rationing and delays... plans that shift health care away from the elderly and those who pay into the system in order to address a mere 3% of the population-- many of whom aren't even U. S. citizens.

Unless we demand our representatives stop it.

Begin by writing a letter to your family doctor right away.

For more information, try the following links (will be adding to this list; check back):

http://smartgirlpolitics.ning.com/

Time is of the essence.

* * *

One Giant Leap for Mankind

2009-07-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

Latest Update on the Flight 93 Memorial

2009-07-10T15:14:00.001-07:00

Everyone involved with the Flight 93 Memorial knows that the Crescent of Embrace points to Mecca

In 2007, Flight 93 Advisory Commission member Tim Baird told Alec Rawls (the author of these blogburst posts) that everyone at the meetings he attended is fully aware that the giant crescent, originally named the Crescent of Embrace, really does point almost exactly at Mecca. Professor Baird says they all just assume (himself included) that the Mecca orientation must be an innocent coincidence.

Pretty crazy, when they have also been told the meaning of a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca. Every mosque is built around a Mecca-direction indicator called a mihrab, and the classic mihrab is crescent shaped. Geometrically, the Crescent of Embrace is the world’s largest mihrab.

However honestly Project Partners believe that the Mecca orientation of the crescent must be a coincidence, this is not what they tell the public. When reporters asked Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley about the Mecca orientation, she denied it:

"The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site," she said.

Thinking that the Mecca orientation of the crescent must be a coincidence in no way justifies lying to the public about this explosive information. If Baird’s account is accurate—that the dozens of Memorial Project Partners all know that the giant crescent actually does point to Mecca—then the Memorial Project has a lot of explaining to do. Now an overlooked article from 2007 corroborates Professor Baird’s information.

Dr. Glenn Kashurba

It turns out that a Pennsylvania psychiatrist who has been intimately involved with the memorialization of Flight 93 (writing two books on the subject) argued to a reporter before the July 2007 Memorial Project meeting that the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent (which he took as a given) should be seen as coincidental:

“When you calculate angles to Mecca - I'm going to be in Washington, D.C., this week, and I'm sure if I calculate angles of the monuments, at least one points to Mecca,” Kashurba said. “I don't know if it will be the White House or the Lincoln Memorial, but at least one will. People looking for a way to support their way of looking at things will look at this in this way for ever and ever.”

If Dr. Kashurba was getting his information from the Memorial Project’s public statements, he would have denied that the crescent points to Mecca. Here is what Memorial Project Partner Patrick White told the press 9 days before the Kashurba story:

Rawls, of Palo Alto, Calif., contends that the centerpiece of the design points toward Mecca.

Rawls’ claims are untrue and “preposterous,” according to Patrick White, Families of Flight 93 vice president. “We went through in detail all his original claims and came away with nothing.”

Kashurba knew better, as did Patrick White himself. The week after his public denial, a local woman asked White how he could be okay with the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. This time White did not deny the Mecca orientation, but argued that it cannot be seen as honoring Islam because the inexactness of the Mecca orientation would be "disrespectful" to Islam.

Mecca orientation takes literally 2 minutes to verify, starting from source documents

It is not surprising that these Memorial Project insiders would know that the giant crescent does in fact point almost exactly at Mecca (1.8° north of Mecca to be precise, ± 0.1°). After all, they had by the summer of 2007 been examining Rawls’ report, and answering questions from the press about it, for over a year, and the near Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace is trivially easy to verify.

Just use any of the online Islamic prayer-direction calculators to print out the direction to Mecca from Somerset PA. Place this graphic over the Crescent site-plan on your computer screen, and you will see that the Mecca-direction line (which Muslims call “qibla”) almost exactly bisects the crescent:

The green circle in this image is from the qibla calculator at Islam.com (down at the moment, but you can use the one at Qibla.com, or QiblaLocator.com). A person standing between the tips of the giant crescent and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing almost exactly at Mecca.

Patrick White knows this and deceives the press and the public about it. Dr. Kashurba knows it and stands by as White and others deceive the press and the public about it. These deceptions have been blatant.

Everything points to Mecca?

The Project even went to far as to dig up an academic fraud from Texas, willing to deny that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca:

Daniel Griffith, a geospatial information sciences professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, said anything can point toward Mecca, because the earth is round.

Was the reporter embarrassed to ask Muslims if they can really face any direction to face Mecca? Hard to blame her. Just to ask such a stupid question is to answer it, but the obviousness of the fraud is no excuse for letting it stand.

According to Professor Baird, every Memorial Project member who saw these denials knew that they were fraudulent, yet not one of them has tried to tell the public about the Project’s dishonest cover-up. When the truth does get out to the broader public, Project members are going to have a lot to answer for, which is presumably why they are keeping their mouths shut now. They have done a very bad thing and they don’t want it exposed.

What proves Islamic intent is the architect’s elaborate repetition of the Mecca orientation

No one ever claimed that the almost exact Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace proves Islamic intent. Architect Paul Murdoch proves intent in a different way: by elaborate repetition of his Mecca orientations. His first confirmation of intent is to include an exact Mecca orientation.

In Murdoch’s explanation, the flight path breaks the circle, turning it into the giant crescent. To find this thematically defined crescent, remove those parts of the full Crescent of Embrace that extend out past the point where the flight path breaks the circle. The resulting true or thematic crescent points EXACTLY at Mecca:

At the upper tip of the crescent, the flight path comes down from the NNE and symbolically breaks the circle. What symbolically remains standing is the true or thematic Crescent of Embrace, pointing exactly at Mecca.

Murdoch’s next confirmation of intent is to exactly repeat this entire multi-Mecca oriented geometry in the vast array of crescents of trees that surround the Tower of Voices part of the memorial. Setting aside the chance that an architect could in the first place design a memorial to Flight 93 out of nothing but crescents just by innocent coincidence (which must be close to zero), the odds that these crescents would by random chance manifest Murdoch’s repeated Mecca orientations are 1 in 131 billion:

The only change was to include an explicitly broken off part of the circle

The original Crescent of Embrace design included the symbolically broken off parts at the upper crescent tip. When the bare naked Islamic-crescent shape caused a public uproar, the Memorial Project added another broken off part of the circle, floating out in front of the mouth of the original crescent.

They call it a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle, the symbolic result of 9/11, is still a giant Islamic shaped crescent, still pointing EXACTLY at Mecca. That makes it a mihrab, the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. The planned memorial is actually a terrorist memorial mosque.

* * *
Reprinted courtesy of Alec Rawls

Independence Day

2009-07-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

* * *

Like so many of us, I'm taking the occasion of our nation's birthday to express my gratitude. What better way to show our appreciation for our freedom than by heading outdoors and relaxing with friends and family, maybe gathering to watch fireworks.

It's been a rough year, but Americans are a positive people. We make the best of both gray and sunny days.

Our founding fathers probably did too good of a job in securing freedom for us. They forged the most significant national documents in the history of civilization, laying the groundwork for the United States of America to arise and lead the world in strength, freedom, and opportunity. We have always taken these documents seriously, and built our nation upon them.

Not that we didn’t have some painful lessons to learn along the way. We would falter painfully. We weren’t always kind and tolerant of one another, and still are not fully beyond these problems. But we learn from our mistakes, seek with earnest enthusiasm to right our wrongs, and with this philosophy firmly in place have slowly but surely assumed our legitimate place as the world’s beacon of hope.

Much of the rest of the world limps along under varying levels of tyranny, or stagnates under various forms of statism, and shivers fearfully under the watchful eye of restrictive government. But here, we can still speak out, we can still assemble. We have had dark moments, but we have never seen our streets bloodied like Tehran has recently seen. We do not drive tanks over citizens or gun them down in churches, or strap bombs to children. While the UN gets together for wine and cheese and tsk-tsks nations for breeches of human rights, we’ve stepped up and helped people around the world with manpower, money, goods, leadership, and military help. We've done this again and again.

Here in the US, we champion anyone who wants to make something of himself, so much so that it is a key element of our national identity. Success stories abound across race and gender, and we assume our children will have at least the opportunities we did.

This is why it is hard for many Americans to see just how bad things are getting. We know the situation is grim, but somehow can’t believe an economic downturn can be any worse than anything we’ve endured in the past. We speak of pendulums swinging, of tough times and recoveries, of periodic shifts from liberal to conservative leadership. We think despite some serious setbacks, everything is eventually-- automatically-- going to be just fine. We don't quite see how the very ground is slipping away under our feet. It seems impossible that the leaders of the free world aren't acting in our best interest and upholding our most precious documents.

But never has it been truer than it now is: freedom is never free.

You are good, honest, trusting people.

But if someone you know and love is urging you to look at how bad things are getting, give them an ear. Thoughtful citizens are seeing some alarming unprecedented choices being made right under our noses.

The people sounding the alarm go to work every day (or are looking for work) and are keeping up their homes, just like you are. In their spare time, they’re digging to find accurate news information so they can piece together the truth- a truth that's hard to face. They're writing letters, signing petitions, calling Congressmen and women, writing blogs, handing out fliers- even the quiet introverts (like me) who would far rather be doing something else entirely.

They're not trying for sainthood or trying to be better than anyone else. They're just trying to keep misguided and deadly forces right here on our own soil from ruining our country.

They’re not trying to ruin your day. Please give them a listen.

* * *

Everyone please enjoy the blessings of our independence this Independence Day.

Regards,

bg

* * *

The day after it began

2009-06-16T08:03:00.001-07:00

Rain woke me up early.

It was still dark out, and one of those times when I couldn't quite decide if I was really awake for good. I finally stepped into my slippers and moved towards caffeine and my computer, even though it was only about 4:30.

* * *

Coffee in hand, a new day in the land of the free begins with a pale wash of light through my office window. Other than exclamations from a few noisy birds, my neighborhood is quiet and peaceful.

One of many things now buzzing through my head-- so many issues to choose from!-- as I get my premature start on today is the post-election situation unfolding in Iran.

First, I hope nobody concludes I'm a Mousavi fan, because I'm not. Even from my inexpert perspective I know he's not a friend, and Iran's leadership is now-- and will probably still be in the foreseeable future-- a threat to the free world. It's sad, but they have a long way to go, and I think we'd all do well to remember that.

It's possible the ruthlessness of that country's longstanding power base would merely have a better outward appearance.

Media producer and journalist Roger L. Simon, a self-described agnostic Jew, was surprised to find that Ahmadinejad in person emanated a palpable, overpowering, unforgettable evil, an evil with theological implications. Simon was left quite shaken by the experience. (text of Simon's article about the Durban II Conference is here). Unlike Simon, I didn't have a personal encounter with the diminutive dictator (and for that matter, I'm not Jewish); still, I must say Ahmadinejad's agenda and persona have always frightened me and filled me with dread.

In some ways Iran would be going from one bad situation to another in changing leaders, but I'm grateful to see people's outrage against a tyrant and an apparently rigged election. The Iranian people aren't all suddenly going to be our best friends, but something in me is always encouraged, on some gut level, by social expressions of the desire for justice and freedom; most Americans are eager to share this concept with the world and cheer it on. It's movement in the right direction and in that sense, exhilarating to see. Still, it's appalling and heartbreaking to see a government hunting down its own people in cold blood.

Another reminder that freedom isn't free.

* * *

For a discerning and highly detailed historical look at this situation, please go here:

http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/ June 16 post

* * *

Iran election protests unfold online in real time

2009-06-15T13:44:00.001-07:00

Health care stretched thin... and then you die

2009-06-08T06:44:00.001-07:00

* * *

National health care.

Health care for everyone sounds wonderful, right? Most people in this country have access to good medical care, arguably the best in the world, but a portion are without it. Some of these uninsured folks are here illegally, some legally.

Some people automatically think socializing medicine is a good idea because then everyone can access medical care. And we all live happily ever after.

Maybe it sounds good if you don't look at it too closely. Setting aside for the moment the basic philosophy of what and how much of any endeavor should be run by a federal bureaucracy, and who on our soil should receive such care and who pays for it, I suggest we remove our rose-colored glasses and take a look.

What will socialized medicine really mean? Universal health care isn't an untested concept; we have only to take an unblinking look at Canada or the UK.

The subject is a very complex one, and this blog post doesn't pretend to address all the practical, legal, political, and ethical aspects of this issue. I'm not an expert by any means, but rather am a concerned citizen-- as you should be-- gathering pertinent information. Concerned probably isn't strong enough of a word; more accurately, I am alarmed. And I don't alarm too easily.

Let's start with some basic facts. The bottom line is, there are a finite number of doctors and nurses out there. Extending health care to everyone means stretching this finite resource. As Thomas Sowell so often reminds us in another context, it's all about choices. Everything has a price.

We can't wave a magic wand and create a medical professional work force overnight.

And to compound the problem, are your doctor and his/her associates going to quit their practices in disgust when, under such a system, they can no longer provide the quality of care their conscience allows? Some doctors have already made this very promise.

And what happens to medical research?

Remember, when costs are cut, this means income is cut for health care professionals-- hardly an enticement to enter the field.

Do you really want to allow our federal government to deliver health care coverage? The claim is it won't replace private care, but this is the deadly lie. Simply put, private health care will be run out of business. But don't take my word for it:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/ (scroll down to June 5 blog post)

These choices carry a predictable end result that no amount of wishful thinking can mitigate.

I'm sorry, sir. We can't do anything about your wife's colon cancer.

Here's something else I've found on the subject. The video quality is a bit imperfect, but this gentleman brings up several valid points, including the irreversible nature of this entitlement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qp8JdeSHlk

Just something to think about, but don't take too long. Like the colon cancer that kills far more people in Canada than it does here in the US-- for reasons seemingly related only to health care services-- the clock is ticking.

I know we're all worried about a dozen other serious issues right now, but this one is coming right at us in the upcoming weeks.

If we allow this utopian fantasy to unfold, health care will ultimately become a matter of bureaucrats deciding who lives and dies. Is this how our great country will end up? There are already serious discussions in the UK about which people will need to be taken off of medical support.

And our own postmodern civil servants mull it over too.

This is an actual interview with direct quotes:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-endorses-government-mandated.html

Is this really happening here? I'm ready to hit the streets.

Respectfully submitted,

b. giguere

* * *

Update: I just found a highly detailed and well-written discussion of this subject by someone with a humbling direct knowledge and experience, published on June 1 at a site called The Liberty Tree Lantern. Well worth reading.

http://tinyurl.com/mgyhem

And finally, the Wall Street Journal:

http://tinyurl.com/m2f8gt

* * *

Homegrown Jihad: Murder in Little Rock

2009-06-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

Rest in peace, William Long.

On Balance

2009-04-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

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There's a legitimate sense of being on red alert lately. So many things are in disarray, so much is outrageously and dangerously wrong, it's become difficult to carry on in a relaxed fashion with my normal activities.

It's not logical, but the feeling is there: How can I go into my studio and work on something like costume jewelry or doll couture when Washington is spending trillions of our dollars and growing into something unrecognizable? How can I spend a morning planting a fern garden in my side yard if our president-- a man with questionable abilities and loyalties-- is apologizing and appeasing our dangerous enemies? How can I sit and work on my novel when Israel is in such danger, and Jews and Christians are brutally persecuted around the world? How can I repaint my bathroom cabinets when personal liberties are being eroded from one hour to the next? How can I relax in a hot bubblebath when leaders in Pakistan and Iran can't wait to go nuclear, the UK is increasingly accepting of Sharia law, and the free world all but ignores countless ghastly "honor killings"? When an out-of-control party and administration is sending our nation into economic ruin?

We're in this for the long haul.

Worrying, in and of itself, is not constructive, but rather, a call to action. Despite never enjoying civic involvement, and being a peaceful and non-confrontational person, I now force myself to determine what needs my action and involvement, and work on these tasks during a specified time slot each day.

With so much at stake, it's essential that concerned citizens involve themselves in judicious reading, emailing, and appropriate civic action on an ongoing basis. The job of bringing back our country is a serious call to action. But without balance, there's a risk of our becoming overwhelmed. Ultimately, this works against our effectiveness, and invites resignation.

It's not as if we can actually spend all twenty-four hours a day actively making things better. When I'm sleeping, I want to sleep... not grind my teeth.

These are dangerous times, and we must act effectively every single day. But we must also find ways to be healthy, to carry on with our daily lives. When we're working to make things better, we must do so with great resolve... nothing is more important. But when we're with our families, or doing our jobs, making our way through our tasks and hobbies and daily activities, I think it's important to be fully appreciative within those activities.

When I listen to music, I want to do this in a full and complete way. The creek behind my house is home to egrets and herons, and there are hummingbirds at my backyard feeder; should these daily miracles go unappreciated? I need to remain as positive and helpful as I can when interacting with friends and family. And I need to continue to work on those projects large and small that make me who I am.

Life and freedom are precious, and what better ongoing motivation is there for defending those things we love than to deeply appreciate them ?

If not, we've already lost some of what we're fighting for.

respectfully submitted,

b. giguere

* * *

Saint Pelosi

2009-03-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS IN YOUR CHURCH BULLETIN... Nancy Pelosi is now a Saint.

On a Saturday afternoon, in Washington, D. C., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's aide visited the Cardinal of the Catholic cathedral.

He told the Cardinal that Nancy Pelosi would be attending the next day's sermon, and he asked if the Cardinal would kindly point out Pelosi to the congregation and say a few words that would include calling Pelosi a saint.

The Cardinal replied, "No. I don't really like the woman, and there are issues of conflict with the Catholic Church over certain of Pelosi's views."

Pelosi's aide then said, "Look. I'll write a check here and now for a donation of $100,000 to your church if you'll just tell the congregation you see Pelosi as a saint."

The Cardinal thought about it and said, "Well, the church can use the money, so I'll work your request into tomorrow's sermon."

As Pelosi's aide promised, House Speaker Pelosi appeared for the Sunday sermon and seated herself prominently at the edge of the main aisle.

And, during the sermon, as promised, the Cardinal pointed out that House Speaker Pelosi was present.

Then the Cardinal went on to explain to the congregation, "While Speaker Pelosi's presence is probably an honor to some, she is not my favorite person. Some of her views are contrary to those of the church, and she tends to flip-flop on many other views. Nancy Pelosi is a petty, self-absorbed hypocrite, a thumb sucker, and a nit-wit. Nancy Pelosi is also a serial liar, a cheat, and a thief. Nancy Pelosi is the worst example of a Catholic I have ever personally witnessed. She married for money and is using it to lie to the American people. She also has a reputation for shirking her Representative obligations both in Washington, and in California . She simply is not to be trusted."

The Cardinal completed his view of Pelosi with, "But, when compared to Senators Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, and John Kerry, House Speaker Pelosi is a saint."

* * *

The preceding arrived in my in-box this morning and is my hands-down favorite of today's various email humor pieces. Author unknown. Thank you, whoever you are.

* * *

Does aid to Africa make things worse?

2009-03-06T16:34:00.000-08:00

* * *

Fiction writing is taking most of my waking hours of late, but I'd like to get in the habit of sharing interesting and relevant pieces my thoughtful friends might otherwise miss.

To that end: This articulate book review, linked immediately below, asks us to look carefully at the way aid actually affects those we are trying to help:

http://tinyurl.com/adohaq

Regards,
bg

* * *

Short radio piece: conservatism speaks

2009-02-27T15:44:00.000-08:00

* * *

Now and then we run into surprising jewels of wisdom.

My friend Larrey and his wife Eileen have written an unusual piece of a patriotic nature and shared it on national radio today. Now I want to share it with you.

If you are curious about that kind of passion, I invite you to go here, download, and listen to this short work. Then share the link if you find it on point.

Thank you, Larrey and Eileen.

http://www.mikechurch.com/mikes_audio/real_cpac/Lady_conservatism_speaks_022709.mp3
regards,
b. giguere

2076-- Can America Make It? by Howie Rich

2009-02-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

This post comes to us from an outside author, Howie Rich, presented here with permission, in its entirety.

* * *

More than perhaps any other nation in human history, the United States of America needs to brush up on its own history.

After all, a Republic founded 233 years ago in defiance of fiscal tyranny has once again succumbed to it – only this time we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Worse still, a frightening paradigm shift has completely overtaken the thinking of our nation's "leaders" in both political parties.

No longer is there any real debate as to whether the federal government should grow into new and undefined roles at the expense of our liberties (and our wallets) – the question has become how fast and how much of our individual and economic freedom these "leaders" should be permitted to deprive us of.

So let's dispense with the meaningless partisan sniping of our modern-day, 24-hour news cycle for a moment, because that's frankly the last place we're going to find the sort of wisdom we need to deal with these issues.

Let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes," wrote Thomas Jefferson, one of many "wise and frugal" governing principles he committed to posterity.

Sadly, our country is now $13 trillion away from realizing his goal, thanks to a problem he predicted.

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government," Jefferson added, a reminder to adhere to the basic limitations set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights – limitations on government that now no longer exist.

Obviously, the road to complete and total abandonment of America's founding fiscal and governmental ideals was a long one, and – to hear revisionist historians tell it – a necessary one.
Sort of like all of the trillions in recent federal interventionism was "necessary," according to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

In fact, Obama went so far as to say that our current national recession would be "irreversible" unless his bailout boondoggle was passed.

Interestingly enough, it was a creative definition of the "necessary and proper" clause – made infamous in the 1812 McCulloch v. Maryland ruling – that first enabled government to assume powers far beyond those originally enumerated by its founding documents.

What powers, you may ask? Whatever powers it deemed "necessary and proper," obviously.
Paired with the Commerce clause – sixteen little words that have also been interpreted as giving the federal government near-unlimited power to do whatever it pleases – the slippery slope toward future excesses was well-oiled.

After the Civil War came the Interstate Commerce Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and "stream of commerce" doctrine - all of which radically enhanced the federal government's authority at the expense of the states.

Then came the first "New Deal," which firmly centralized national power under a federal welfare state, but according to Franklin D. Roosevelt's own Treasury Secretary only made matters worse economically.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work," said Henry Morganthau. "I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot!"

Mark those words … because you very well may hear them again after eight years of Obama's "New Deal 2.0."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them," Jefferson wrote.

At every turn along the way, America has failed to heed that advice.

All that remains to be seen is if we ever will.

* * *

Howie Rich

The author is Chairman of Americans for Limited Government, and this piece can be found at The Daily Grind. The author invites bloggers to distribute this piece.

http://alg31blog.timberlakepublishing.com/default.asp?Display=976

* * *

Pure madness: disregard for safety in time of War

2009-02-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

* * *

Greetings, and welcome to 2009. I guess I can't keep pretending this isn't happening.

My friends, please take a look at this brief article over at Newsmax. I agree with Cheney's assessment of the riskiness of leaving behind the Bush anti-terrorism policies that have kept us safe.

Sorry to make my first post of the new blog site such a fearful one, but this is too important to dismiss.

Recently I've been very busy working on the last section of a lengthy work of fiction, and am also doing the outline and research for an article. Between that and my fresh commitment to streamlining my household, the result is a neglected blog. But I'll be back here in earnest as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I'm trying to keep up with my favorite sources for important news and commentary. Uppermost in my mind (and probably yours too) are two huge national issues: security and the economy.

Frankly speaking, only misguided moonbats believe you can achieve peace by pretending you're not at war. And only a liberal can actually believe you help the economy by pouring billions of our hard-earned dollars into pet projects... but that's a subject for another day.

Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.newsmax.com/index.html

Dick Cheney / terrorism / Bush policies

* * *

Be well, everyone.

Respectfully submitted,

b. giguere

* * *