New IL plate

Sex in the Shower

In a recent survey carried out for a leading toiletries firm (Brut), people from Detroit and Chicago have proved to be the most likely to have had sex in the shower!

In the survey, 86% of Detroit 's and Chicago 's inner city residents (almost all of whom are registeredDemocrats) said that they have enjoyed sex in the shower.

The other 14% said they hadn't been to prison yet.

New ad campaign

Thought for the day

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Thank goodness the government is there to protect me!

The Role of Newspapers in America

In case you were wondering --
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts in color.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it or take those pesky drug tests.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train and the Yankees win.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated and the Mets win.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores to see how the Mets & Yankees did.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that it stands for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist bisexual dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Seattle Times is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.

Biggest problem for US auto makers

Click it.

C.h.a.n.g.e.

Clinton
Hacks
Are
Now
Government
Employees

Absolutely The Funniest Joke Ever !

. . . ON US Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration? Anybody? Anything? No ? Didn't think so.

Bottom line . . we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember. Ready?

It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it very appropriate. The Department of Energy was instituted 8-04-1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

HEY, PRETTY EFFICIENT, HUH? AND NOW IT'S 2008, 31 YEARS LATER, AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR, THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE!

THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY 'WHAT WAS I THINKING?'

Ah yes, good ole bureaucracy. And now we are going to turn the Banking system over to them? God Help us.

How to piss off the Democrats

You know what would really PISS OFF the Democrats...

Bush should resign now.

Then Dick Cheney becomes President (that would really PISS OFF the libs) !!!

Then he appoints Condoleeza Rice as VP.

Then Cheney resigns two weeks later and Condoleeza Rice, A Republican, becomes the first BLACK - WOMAN President!!!

Sounds pretty good to me!

Divorce

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists, Obama supporters, et. al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce.

I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile, slate it up to irreconcilable differences, and go our own ways.

Here is a model dissolution agreement. Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA, and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore, and Rosie O'Donnell (you are however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move them). We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart, and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies, and illegal aliens.

We'll keep the hot Alaskan Hockey Moms, greedy CEO's, and Rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood. You can make nice with Iran, Palestine, and France, and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protestors. When our allies or way of life are under assault, we'll provide them job security. We'll keep our Judeo Christian Values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, and Shirley McClain. You can have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill. We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks, and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Prius and Subaru Station Wagon you can find. You can give everyone healthcare, if you can find any practicing Doctors who will follow to your turf. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.

We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and The National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "I'd Like to Teach The World To Sing", "Kum Ba Ya", or "We Are the World". We'll practice trickle down economics, and you can give trickle up poverty its best shot. Since it often so offends you we'll keep our History, our Name, and our Flag.

Would you agree to this? In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you ANWAR on who will need whose help in 15 years.


P.S. Please take Barbra Streisand also.

The Plan

Okay, here's the plan:

1) Back off and allow those men who want to marry men, marry men.

2) Allow those women who want to marry women, marry women.

3) Allow those folks who want to abort their babies, abort their babies.

4) In four generations, there will be no democrats!!!

'Man, I love it when a plan comes together!'

Obama tax change

From Rusty

It seems fitting on this election day that I share this with someone who is so politically oriented. It is one of my all-time favorite pieces of literature. Written in 1943, a government board requested the editorial staff of the New Yorker magazine for statement on "The Meaning of Democracy." E.B. White was the editor in chief. Do with it as you see fit.

Democracy E.B. White

We received a letter from the Writers’ War Board the other day asking for a statement on “The Meaning of Democracy.” It presumably is our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure. Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.

Replace your VV sticker with...

Bumper sticker

Share the wealth

No Christmas Parade, no fireworks.

The internationally known fireworks company, Grucci, has pulled out of an annual Christmas event on Long Island because the town of Patchogue decided to break with its 15-year tradition of holding a Christmas Boat Parade: This year it decided to rename the event the Patchogue Holiday Boat Parade.

Grucci vice president Phil Butler, a vocal critic of the secularization of Christmas, accused the parade’s organizers of “using all the themes of Christmas and plagiarizing all those themes.” Grucci is headquartered on Long Island.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commended Butler’s decision: “If more people like Phil Butler stood up to the high priests of political correctness, the dumbing-down of Christmas would cease Christmas is the only holiday that is singled out by these authoritarians. They do not object to Jewish or Muslim holidays, nor do they object to holidays like Martin Luther King Day. And they relish Kwanzaa celebrations. But when it comes to Christmas, they quickly become censors. “So Kudos to Grucci. Let this be the first of many counterpunches thrown at the cultural fascists this year.”

Contact Phil Butler at: pbutler@grucci.com

NY Post link.

My greatest fear

The Perfect Storm of the Left

Say it ain't so!

Dear Fellow Business Owners

As a business owner who employs 30 people, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barack Obamawill be our next president, and that my taxes and fees will go up in a BIG way.
To compensate for these increases, I figure that the Customer will have to see an increase in my fees to them of about 8-10%.

I will also have to lay off six of my employees. This really bothered me asI believe we are family here and didn't know how to choose who will have to go. So, this is what I did.I strolled thru the parking lot and found eight Obama bumper stickers on my employees cars. I havedecided these folks will be the first to be laid off.

I can't think of another fair way to approach this problem. If you have a better idea, let me know.I am sending this letter to all business owners that I know.

SincerelyWard
JOOA Corp.

I don't think there are any federal anti-discrimination laws that would apply here.

Warn your kids

So what did you have for lunch?

He's totally awsome.

This weeks sign that the apocolypse is upon us

OCTOBER 10, 2008
From the Wall St. Journal

Switzerland's Green Power Revolution: Ethicists Ponder Plants' Rights
Who Is to Say Flora Don't Have Feelings? Figuring Out What Wheat Would Want
By GAUTAM NAIK


ZURICH -- For years, Swiss scientists have blithely created genetically modified rice, corn and apples. But did they ever stop to consider just how humiliating such experiments may be to plants?
That's a question they must now ask. Last spring, this small Alpine nation began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant's dignity.

Beat Keller
"Unfortunately, we have to take it seriously," Beat Keller, a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. "It's one more constraint on doing genetic research."
Dr. Keller recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus. He first had to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. Then, in a written application to the government, he tried to explain why the planned trial wouldn't "disturb the vital functions or lifestyle" of the plants. He eventually got the green light.
The rule, based on a constitutional amendment, came into being after the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to establish the meaning of flora's dignity.
"We couldn't start laughing and tell the government we're not going to do anything about it," says Markus Schefer, a member of the ethics panel and a professor of law at the University of Basel. "The constitution requires it."
In April, the team published a 22-page treatise on "the moral consideration of plants for their own sake." It stated that vegetation has an inherent value and that it is immoral to arbitrarily harm plants by, say, "decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason."
On the question of genetic modification, most of the panel argued that the dignity of plants could be safeguarded "as long as their independence, i.e., reproductive ability and adaptive ability, are ensured." In other words: It's wrong to genetically alter a plant and render it sterile.
Many scientists interpret the dignity rule as applying mainly to field trials like Dr. Keller's, but some worry it may one day apply to lab studies as well. Another gripe: While Switzerland's stern laws defend lab animals and now plants from genetic tweaking, similar protections haven't been granted to snails and drosophila flies, which are commonly used in genetic experiments.
It also begs an obvious, if unrelated question: For a carrot, is there a more mortifying fate than being peeled, chopped and dropped into boiling water?
"Where does it stop?" asks Yves Poirier, a molecular biologist at the laboratory of plant biotechnology at the University of Lausanne. "Should we now defend the dignity of microbes and viruses?"
Seeking clarity, Dr. Poirier recently invited the head of the Swiss ethics panel to his university. In their public discussion, Dr. Poirier said the new rules are flawed because decades of traditional plant breeding had led to widely available sterile fruit, such as seedless grapes. Things took a surreal turn when it was disclosed that some panel members believe plants have feelings, Dr. Poirier says.
Getty Images
Switzerland requires that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant's dignity.
Back in the 1990s, the Swiss constitution was amended in order to defend the dignity of all creatures -- including the leafy kind -- against unwanted consequences of genetic manipulation. When the amendment was turned into a law -- known as the Gene Technology Act -- it didn't say anything specific about plants. But earlier this year, the government asked the ethics panel to come up rules for plants as well.
The Swiss debate isn't just academic twittering. Like other countries in Europe, Switzerland has long kept a tight rein on crop genetics, fearing that a mutant strain might run amok and harm the environment. Swiss geneticists say the dignity rule makes their job even harder.
Related Reading
The Ethics Committee on Non Human Gene Technology and the Swiss Committee on Animals Experiments have created brochures with the goal of defining the dignity of plants and animals.
The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants
The Dignity of Animals
Crazy Talk?
Several years ago, when Christof Sautter, a botanist at Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology, failed to get permission to do a local field trial on transgenic wheat, he moved the experiment to the U.S. He's too embarrassed to mention the new dignity rule to his American colleagues. "They'll think Swiss people are crazy," he says.
Defenders of the law argue that it reflects a broader, progressive effort to protect the sanctity of living things. Last month, Switzerland granted new rights to all "social animals." Prospective dog owners must take a four-hour course on pet care before they can buy a canine companion, while anglers must learn to catch fish humanely. Fish can't be kept in aquariums that are transparent on all sides. The fish need some shelter. Nor can goldfish be flushed down a toilet to an inglorious end; they must first be anesthetized with special chemicals, and then killed.
Rhinoceroses can't be kept in an enclosure smaller than 600 square yards. Failure to comply can lead to a fine of 200 Swiss francs, or about $175. "The rules apply for zoos and private owners," says Marcel Falk, spokesman for the Federal Veterinary Office in Bern.
Are there pet rhinos in Switzerland? "I hope not," he says.
New Constitution
In another unusual move, the people of Ecuador last month voted for a new constitution that is the first to recognize ecosystem rights enforceable in a court of law. Thus, the nation's rivers, forests and air are no longer mere property, but right-bearing entities with "the right to exist, persist and...regenerate."
Dr. Keller in Zurich has more mundane concerns. He wants to breed wheat that can resist powdery mildew. In lab experiments, Dr. Keller found that by transferring certain genes from barley to wheat, he could make the wheat resistant to disease.
When applying for a larger field trial, he ran into the thorny question of plant dignity. Plants don't have a nervous system and probably can't feel pain, but no one knows for sure. So Dr. Keller argued that by protecting wheat from fungus he was actually helping the plant, not violating its dignity -- and helping society in the process.
One morning recently, he stood by a field near Zurich where the three-year trial with transgenic wheat is under way. His observations suggest that the transgenic wheat does well in the wild. Yet Dr. Keller's troubles aren't over.
In June, about 35 members of a group opposed to the genetic modification of crops, invaded the test field. Clad in white overalls and masks, they scythed and trampled the plants, causing plenty of damage.
"They just cut them," says Dr. Keller, gesturing to wheat stumps left in the field. "Where's the dignity in that?"

Opposed by who?

By STEPHEN LABATON
NY Times, Published: September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

''There is a general recognition that the supervisory system for housing-related government-sponsored enterprises neither has the tools, nor the stature, to deal effectively with the current size, complexity and importance of these enterprises,'' Treasury Secretary John W. Snow told the House Financial Services Committee in an appearance with Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, who also backed the plan.

Mr. Snow said that Congress should eliminate the power of the president to appoint directors to the companies, a sign that the administration is less concerned about the perks of patronage than it is about the potential political problems associated with any new difficulties arising at the companies.

The administration's proposal, which was endorsed in large part today by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would not repeal the significant government subsidies granted to the two companies. And it does not alter the implicit guarantee that Washington will bail the companies out if they run into financial difficulty; that perception enables them to issue debt at significantly lower rates than their competitors. Nor would it remove the companies' exemptions from taxes and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws.

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session.

After the hearing, Representative Michael G. Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced their intention to draft legislation based on the administration's proposal. Industry executives said Congress could complete action on legislation before leaving for recess in the fall.
''The current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,'' Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. ''We have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,'' the independent agency that now regulates the companies.

''These irregularities, which have been going on for several years, should have been detected earlier by the regulator,'' he added.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was created by Congress in 1992 after the bailout of the savings and loan industry and concerns about regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them as securities or hold them in their own portfolios.

At the time, the companies and their allies beat back efforts for tougher oversight by the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve. Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. This year, however, the chances of passing legislation to tighten the oversight are better than in the past.

Reflecting the changing political climate, both Fannie Mae and its leading rivals applauded the administration's package. The support from Fannie Mae came after a round of discussions between it and the administration and assurances from the Treasury that it would not seek to change the company's mission.

After those assurances, Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chief executive, endorsed the shift of regulatory oversight to the Treasury Department, as well as other elements of the plan.

''We welcome the administration's approach outlined today,'' Mr. Raines said. The company opposes some smaller elements of the package, like one that eliminates the authority of the president to appoint 5 of the company's 18 board members.

Company executives said that the company preferred having the president select some directors. The company is also likely to lobby against the efforts that give regulators too much authority to approve its products.
Freddie Mac, whose accounting is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a United States attorney in Virginia, issued a statement calling the administration plan a ''responsible proposal.''

The stocks of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae fell while the prices of their bonds generally rose. Shares of Freddie Mac fell $2.04, or 3.7 percent, to $53.40, while Fannie Mae was down $1.62, or 2.4 percent, to $66.74. The price of a Fannie Mae bond due in March 2013 rose to 97.337 from 96.525.Its yield fell to 4.726 percent from 4.835 percent on Tuesday.

Fannie Mae, which was previously known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, which was the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, have been criticized by rivals for exerting too much influence over their regulators.

''The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,'' said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ''Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie's operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.''

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed. ''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES
NY Times, Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

This is the link.

Cuckoo

Thomas Jefferson quote.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Thomas Jefferson
Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin
1802

Wow

Of course!

On television today a Democratic operative pointed out that when Obama holds a rally 25-30,000 people show up, whereas when McCain holds one he only draws 10-15,000.

The Republican spokesman repled, 'That's because McCain's supporters are at work.

Potential new movie idea

Check out the tag too.

Reformer

Insanity?

Q. - What do the top ten cities with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

A. - Democrat leadership.

#1. Detroit, MI - hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
#2. Buffalo, NY - hasn't elected one since 1954;
#3. Cincinnati, OH - ...since 1984;
#4. Cleveland, OH - ...since 1989;
#5. Miami, FL - has never had a Republican Mayor;
#6. St. Louis, MO - ....since 1949;
#7. El Paso, TX - has never had a Republican Mayor;
#8. Milwaukee, WI - ...since 1908;
#9. Philadelphia, PA -...since 1952;
#10. Newark, NJ - ...since 1907.

Einstein once said. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Editorial

143 days

The first time I read this quote, I thought it was dangerously true. Then I really started pondering it and thought how would this apply to our own lives/careers?
Let's look at it again to see how absurd it is.

You couldn't get a job at McDonalds and become district manager after 143 days of experience.

You couldn't become chief of surgery after 143 days of experience of being a surgeon.

You couldn't get a job as a teacher and be the superintendent after 143 days of experience.

You couldn't join the military and become a colonel after 143 days of experience.

You couldn't get a job as a reporter and become the nightly news anchor after 143 days of experience.

BUT.... 'From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United State Senator, to the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate. That's how many days the Senate was actually in session and working. After 143 days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan. 143 days?

We all have to start somewhere. The senate is a good start, but after 143 days, that's all it is - a start. AND, strangely, a large sector of the American public seems to feel comfortable with this and campaigning for him. We wouldn't accept this in our own line of work, yet some are OK with this for the President of the United States of America?

Come on folks, we are not voting for the next American Idol.

Government regulation at work

New tag

I knew it!

Liberalism as a mental illness?

En Vogue

Rock & roll

A new candidate

Tired of Obama & McCain?

Can I ask for your vote?

Check this out.

And lastly I will ask to be kissed first.

PC

In deference to The Archbishop of Canterbury and The Royal Commission for Political Correctness, it was announced today that the local climate should no longer be referred to as "English Weather,' but rather than offend a sizable portion of the population, it should be referred to as "Muslim Weather." In other words, "partly Sunni but mostly Shi'ite."

Hate crime?

I checked snopes and this is true. dbhttp://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/newsom.asp

The Victims
The animals pictured below; car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her!
Channon Christian was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breasts and put chemicals in her mouth... and then murdered her.
The PERPS:
Knoxville (WVLT) - The District Attorney General Randy Nichols of Knox County, Tennessee announced the list of charges facing now five suspects in the double murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
He is not saying whether or not he will seek the death penalty, but does say the State will seek conviction for all charges filed in a 24-page indictment from the Knox County Grand Jury.
Lemaricus Davidson, 25, faces a total of 46 charges. Davidson was indicted on 16 counts of Felony Murder growing out of rape, robbery kidnapping and theft ,2 counts premeditated murder, 2 counts especially aggravated robberies, 4 counts especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft.
Letalvis Cobbins, 24, faces a total of 46 charges. Cobbins was indicted on 16 counts of Felony Murder growing out of rape, robbery kidnapping and theft, 2 counts premeditated murder, 2 counts especially aggravated robberies, 4 counts especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft.
George Thomas, 24, faces a total of 46 charges. Thomas was indicted on 16 counts of Felony Murder growing out of rape, robbery kidnapping and theft, 2 counts premeditated murder, 2 counts especially aggravated robberies, 4 counts especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft.
Vanessa Coleman, 18, faces 40 Tennessee state charges. Coleman was indicted on 12 counts of Felony Murder growing out of rape, robbery kidnapping and theft, 1 count Premeditated Murder of Christian only, 1 count Especially Aggravated Robbery of Newsom only, 4 counts especially aggravated kidnapping of Christian and Newsom, 20 counts of aggravated rape of Christian and Newsom and 2 Counts of theft from Christian and Newsom.
Eric Boyd, 24, also arrested in connection with the fatal carjacking, only faces federal charges as an accessory after the fact. He was not indicted by Knox county grand jury.
Felony Murder carries a possibility of death, life without the possibility of parole and life with parole. Especially Aggravated Robbery is a Class A felony that carries a possibility of 15 to 60 years in prison. Aggravated Rape is a Class A felony that carries a possibility of 15 to 60 years of prison.
At a news conference Thursday, Nichols commended the cooperative efforts between several departments and credits that cooperation for the fast pace this case is moving through the court system.
Nichols says he hopes to move the case to trial on the first day its set.
The four are expected to make their first court appearance within ten to fifteen days.
This case is garnering a lot of public interest. Nichols says he expects all kinds of requests filed in this case, including a change of venue in order to receive a fair trial. But he says he does hope 12 Knox County jurors will be able to determine the guilt or innocence of these suspects.
Where are Al and Jesse? Are they providing counsel and help to the families of the victims?
Of course not - the victims were white
Why hasn't this received National coverage by the news media like the Duke "rape" case?
Oh, that's right - the victims were white
Why hasn't the NAACP, ACLU, New York Times etc., called for an investigation?
Must be cause the victims were white
Why hasn't the FBI been called in to investigate this as a hate crime?
Oh, that's right - the victims were white"
So, if a white radio shock jock uses the phrase "Nappy headed", it gets 2 weeks of constant news coverage.
If two white people are tortured, raped, and murdered by a group of black people, it barely gets a blip in the news.
Pass this around, and maybe, just maybe, it will land in the hands of someone in the media or politics, that has the balls to stand up for the white people!!

Bumper sticker

This weeks sign that the Apocolypse is upon us.

The story doesn't even address the fact that the Seattle paid $1 million for each one and sold them for a couple thousand!

We can't find any way to cut our budget.

No insurance

You want this?

The Difference

That about says it all.

Another free ad for Bud

WIN A COUNCIL HOUSE

From my British friends:

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Prizes include all-expenses-paid accommodation, cash benefits starting at £180 a week and a chance to earn thousands more begging, mugging and accosting drivers at traffic lights. This competition is open to everyone buying a ticket or stowing away on one of our partner airlines, ferry companies or Eurostar.

No application ever refused reasonable or unreasonable. All you have to do is destroy all your papers and remember the magic password: 'ASYLUM'.

Only this week 140 members of the Taliban family from Afghanistan were flown Goat Class from Kabul to our international gateway at Stansted where local law enforcement officers were on hand to fast-track them to their luxury £200-a-night rooms in the fabulous four star Hilton Hotel. They join tens of thousands of other lucky winners already staying in hotels all over Britain

Our most popular destinations also include the White Cliffs of Dover and the world famous Toddington Services area In Historic Bedfordshire.

If you still don't understand the rules, don't forget there's no need to phone a friend or ask the audience, just apply for legal aid. Hundreds of lawyers, social workers and counsellors are waiting to help. It won't cost you a penny, so play today; it could change your life forever.

Iraqi terrorists, Afghan dissidents, Albanian gangsters, pro-Pinochet activists, anti-Pinochet activists, Kosovan drug-smugglers, Tamil tigers, bogus Bosnians, Rwandan mass murderers, Somali guerrillas...COME ON DOWN!

Get along to the airport, get along to the lorry park, get along to the ferry terminal. Don't stop in Germany or France . Go straight to Britain and you are guaranteed to be one of tens of thousands of lucky winners in the softest game on earth.
Everyone's a winner, when they play 'ASYLUM'.

FORWARD THIS TO EVERY BRITISH TAX PAYER YOU KNOW!

Why he's voting Democrat

*I'm voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better jobof spending the money I earn than I would.
*I'm voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.
*I'm voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we're good people.
*I'm voting Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don't start driving a Prius.
*I'm voting Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
*I'm voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves.. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.
* I'm voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.
* I'm voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don't have to hide from us over there, when they come over here I don't want to have any guns in the house to fight them off with.
* I'm voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my horse.
* I'm voting Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on agallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.

After watching this I know who is getting my vote.

I don't know

Interesting op-ed about Batman

From the Wall St. Journal. What do Batman and politics have in common? To find out just...

Click it.

Executive summary

I know that some of you don't like to read long drawn out missives...so here's the executive summary.........

Congress Military
John McCain 26 Years 22 years
Barrack Obama 143 days 0 years

Preview of Obama health plan

The phone rings and the lady of the house answers, "Hello."

"Mrs. Sanders, please."

"Speaking."

"Mrs. Sanders, this is Doctor Jones at Saint Agnes Laboratory.
When your doctor sent your husband's biopsy to the lab yesterday, a
biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well, and we are now
uncertain which one is your husband's. Frankly the results are either bad or terrible."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.

"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the
other one tested positive for AIDS. We can't tell which is your
husband's."

"That's dreadful! Can't you do the test again?" questioned Mrs. Sanders.


"Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay for these expensive tests one time."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"The people at Medicare recommend that you drop your husband off
somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him."

They're giddy

Another place the liberals won't let us drill

Don't take this as Gospel, Google Bakken Formation.
Seriously! Go to Google, type in Bakken Formation and read Wikipedia.
1. I did, and it BLEW my mind. The U.S. Geological Serviceissued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oilmen knew was coming. It's a revised report (it hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana ... check THIS out:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.
'When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.' says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst. 'This sizeable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,' reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
It's a formation known as the Williston Basin but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken,' and it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago however a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves... and this country now has access of up to 500 billion barrels and because this is light, sweet oil those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL! That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.
2. If THAT didn't throw you to the floor then this next one should, because it's from TWO YEARS AGO!
U.S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World! Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006 Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world, and has more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. What is going on? They reported this stunning news: The United States has more oil inside its borders than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates: -8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia -18-times as much oil as Iraq -21-times as much oil as Kuwait -22-times as much oil as Iran -500-times as much oil as Yemen and it's all right here in the Western United States .
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT be extracting this? Because we have not DEMANDED Legislation out of the Congress in Washington, allowing its extraction, that's why!
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study, says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East, more than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
So, you don't you think 'Big Oil' will drop its price even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace and if they can extract it (here) for less, they can afford to sell it for less - and if they DON'T, others will. It will come down! It has to. ---- Got your attention yet? Hope so! Now, while you're thinking about it ... and hopefully you're pissed off, do this:
3. Take 5-10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax or write a good old-fashioned letter to the elected officials in Washington D.C. and their respected leaders.
We'll start with them. You can send your elected Congressmen a letter, e-mail or fax, DEMANDING the immediate Legislation for an Energy Plan. Mention that this plan should call for tapping into the U.S. Petroleum Reserves, as well as allowing for drilling in the U.S. offshore waters and U.S. Continental Shelf including Alaska .
Technology is not what it used to be. Have you ever had arthroscopic surgery? They can "surgically" extract the oil, and get us on the way to at least some measure of energy independence.
If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices because by doing NOTHING you've forfeited your right to complain!
Some links:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation
http://www.nd.gov/ndic/ic-press/bakken-form-06.pdf
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/energy/samson-oil--gas-drill-bakken-formation-north-dakota/

Obama New Yorker cover

Michele Obama's thesis

There is a link on THIS SITE to her Princeton thesis. Check it out.

Another take on change

An editorial from the Richmond Times Dispatch.

Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate MY independence day and on July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40th anniversary of my independence. On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba and a few months later I was in the US to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on
Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but I digress.

I've thought a lot about the anniversary this year. The election year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950's most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive. When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said "Praise the Lord." And when the young leader said, "I will be for change and I'll bring you change," everyone yelled, "Viva Fidel!"

But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status.

By the time the change was over more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans. And now I'm back to the beginning of my story.

Luckily, we would never fall in America for a young leader who promised change without asking,

WHAT change?

How will you carry it out?

What will it cost America?

Would we?

Manuel Alvarez, Jr

Winning Isn't News

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT Iraq: What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq.

London's Sunday Times called it "the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul. The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering. We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy. Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there. Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended. Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside. Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks — a big change for the better from a year ago. Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates, which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad — an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq. But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, "the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks" that signaled political progress. The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don't seem to consider this historic event a big story.

Taking care of illegal aliens.

Free advertising for Bud

The lawyer party

The Democrat Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer, and so is his wife, Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and, Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America . And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow.
Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the leg al system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform, or real hope in America .. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

Old tire danger

Speaking Democrat

Change

3 Ways to Lower Gas Prices

Iowa and New Orleans

Northern Approaches [John Derbyshire] National Review Online, the corner

A reader from the Wolverine State [Michigan] wonders:

Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods?

Where is all the media asking the tough questions about why the federal government hasn't solved the problem? Asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are?

Why isn't the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago?

When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines?

Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?

Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes and big screen television sets?

When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a 'vanilla' Iowa, because that's the way God wants it?

Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of cannibalism?

Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural people?

How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again?

John Coleman on global warming

Click it.

This week sign that the apocolypse is upon us

The brass at ABC News issued orders forbidding reporters to wear lapel pin American flags or other patriotic insignia. Their reasoning was that ABC should remain neutral about "causes".

Since when is support for preventing our death and destruction some sort of a cause?

Since when is patriotism to be discouraged.

Snopes confirms.

Energy

How to catch wild pigs

There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.

One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

Also, if you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to tell this to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to our way of life then you will probably delete won't, but God help you when the gate slams shut!

In this 'very important' election year, listen closely to what the candidates are promising you - just maybe you will be able to tell who is about to slam the gate on America.

Think about this very carefully because:
'A government that is big enough to give you everything you want, is also big enough to take away everything you have.'
- Thomas Jefferson

Green is the new Red

China's Cyber-Militia

Here is an interesting article from the National Journal about our favorite trading partner.

Click it.

Could apply to a bunch of politicans

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Texas rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our President.

The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Obama is a post turtle'. Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle'.

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. 'You know he didn't get up there by himself, you know he doesn't belong up there, you know he doesn't know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of a dumb ass put him up there.'

Close

Say what Judge?

This weeks sign that the apocolypse is upon us.

What the hell?

Fan of Dem's energy policies

Oh great!

An actual letter to the passport office

Dear Sir:

I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a TV cable from them back in 1997, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date. For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my social security card, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver's license, on the last eight goddamn passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at election times. Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Maryanne, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!!SHIT!

I apologize; I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my f*ckin' address. What is going on? You have a gang of Neanderthal assholes working there! Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for shit sakes. I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone! Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another f*ckin' copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day?? Nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe makes sense. You'd rather have us running all over the f*ckin' place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some asshole to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (f*ckin' morons) Hey, you know why we can't smile? We're totally pissed off!

Signed - An Irate f*cking Citizen.

P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776. I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the ying yang. However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN COMMUNIST f*cking CHINA !

From the "So who gives a $&it" file

How to pronouce the name of the leader of Iran.

Click me.

Kid politics

I remember the time that Kathryn, one of my daughter's little friends, told me that she wanted to be President one day. Bothof her parents are liberals and were standing there with us - and Iasked Kathryn, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?'

Kathryn replied, 'I would give houses to all the homeless people.'
'Wow, what a worthy goal you have there, Kathryn.' I told her, 'You don't have to wait until you are President to do that, you can comeover to my house and clean up all the dog poop in the back yard and Iwill pay you $5.00. Then we can go over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $5.00 to use for a new house.'

Kathryn, who was about 5, thought that over for a second while her mom looked at me, and then she replied, 'Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and clean up the dog poop and you can pay him the$5.00?'

Bingo! Welcome to the Republican Party, Kathryn.

She can't help herself

Lawyers coming to the rescue once again

I watched an interview on CSPAN on Friday. Cities all over the country are suing mortgage lenders for lost tax revenue and the burden of safeguarding neighborhoods with vacant, foreclosed properties. Brad Blower, who represents the city of Baltimore in its suit against Wells Fargo bank, talked about this new strategy in battling the effects of a nationwide increase in foreclosures. He responded to telephone calls and electronic mail. The interview with the lawyer suing Wells Fargo is here (click one of the icons on the right to watch).

It occurs to me that if WF refused to loan to a certain racial group because they think that the debtor will not satisfy the requirements of the loan, then they will get sued for a civil rights violation. In this video, this shyster is suing them because they DID. How can a mortgage company do business without being sued?

The Round Mound of Rebound quip

Quote of the week from our esteemed friend Sir Charles Barkley:

"Poor People have been voting for Democrats for the last 50 years, and they are still poor."

Patton on Iraq

New element discovered

Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years; It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Minorities

We need to show more sympathy for these people.

They travel miles in the heat.
They risk their lives crossing a border.
They don't get paid enough wages.
They do jobs that others won't do or are afraid to do.
They live in crowded conditions among a people who speak a different language.
They rarely see their families and they face adversity all day every day...

I'm not talking about illegal Mexicans, I'm talking about our troops! Doesn't it seem strange that many Democrats and Republicans are willing to lavish all kinds of social benefits on illegal's, but don't support our troops and are now threatening to cut funding for them?

Good answer

Some "dirtbag" in Polk County Florida who got pulled over in a routine traffic stop ended up "executing" the deputy who stopped him. The deputy was shot eight times, including once behind his right ear at close range. Another deputy was wounded and a police dog killed. A statewide manhunt ensued.

The low-life was found hiding in a wooded area with his gun. SWAT team officers fired and hit the guy 68 times.

Now here's the kicker:

Naturally, the media asked why they shot him 68 times. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, told the Orlando Sentinel :

"That's all the bullets we had!" (Talk about an all time classic answer!!!)