Down And Out Outside Beverly Hills

                                                           

Do the boasts of politicians trumpeting a recovering economy leave you doubtful?  When the liberals say Obama is doing just fine, is there a twinge or two of suspicion?  If you question all the bright pronouncements about an American recovery you have good reason to.

Would you like to know how our economy is faring?  Then all you need to do is fire up the family car and drive around town a bit.  Here's what you'll find.

You'll find the Dollar Store and Dollar General and .99 Cents Only stores packed with customers.  Americans who once frequented Macy's and Kohls and Dillards are now buying watered downed dish soap and cleaning supplies at the dollar stores.  They're  buying six month old candy and cookies and corn and green beans processed in Panama.  They're buying feather dusters, rubber spatulas and plastic glasses made in China.  

This customer traffic plays out in financial earnings report you'll find on the Yahoo Finance page.  The dollar stores are racking up huge profits while all those once middle class retail stores are hurting.  Moms can no longer afford to outfit the kids in Levi 501's and instead, frequents the thrift shops and the Salvation Army.  The winter sweaters on Kohls racks go wanting as moms frequent the Walmart clearance rack to score school clothing for the kids.  

Dad takes one look at his mortgage statement and sees that he's still under water and decides he can wear the Levi's Dockers for one more year.  The two teen kids are doing even worse as their once part time jobs at MacDonald's and Burger King have been taken by illegal aliens.  Speaking of MacDonalds, the only ones that can afford to eat there are the food stamp crowd as  working mom and dad feed the clan on Hamburger Helper.  Since mom and pop are still working they don't qualify for free school breakfast and lunch so they pack generic peanut butter sandwiches into brown bags and send them off with the kids each morning.

Mom and Dad are playing bill paying roulette as they choose whether to get right with the electric company or pay the gas bill, both of which are skyrocketing because of Obama's war on coal. Things have gotten even more tenuous as both Mom and Dad's employers are thinking hard about dropping the company's health care plan and opting to convert full time employees to 30 hour part timers.

Times were not always this hard.  Until 2009 real middle class disposable income increased at 3.2 percent a year.  Since 2009 middle class disposable income has dropped by 7 percent even as the cost of living has increased.  Gas prices have tripled and utility costs have increased 20 percent in the last five years.

The great American middle class was once studied to death.  Their birth came just after World War II when the Greatest Generation came home from war, got college degrees through the G.I. Bill, bought their first homes and furnished it with General Electric appliances.  This led to a twenty year economic boom that transformed American society.

The obituary for the American middle class is being written as we speak.  Besieged by corporate profit lust where the bottom line means more than good corporate citizenship, squeezed to death by Big Government who demands onerous taxation to finance an ever growing army of government tit-suckers, the middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate and clearly can no longer fund Big Government's purchase of political support to union thugs, greedy and inefficient government workers and three generations of welfare queens hungering for free cell phones and the bartering value of food stamp cards for cash and drugs.

Soon there will be no middle class.  Instead the economic demographics will be a pyramid with the narrow ultra rich at the top, undaunted by social conscience, coldly deploying American jobs to India and China...and all that will be left is that huge base of abject poverty at the bottom of the pyramid.

So, things are fine in Beverly Hills.  Beyonce and Jay Z will continue to pay a million dollars for a three day birthing suite.  Pelosi and Feinstein will continue to thrive by promoting legislation that enriches their two investment banking husbands.  The Clintons will continue to rake in $100 million a year from speaking tours at liberal Kool-Aid banquets.  Obama will collect royalties from two books that toot the value of a Black man who speaks proper English, Hollywood will continue to rope in enough adoring twits to their music and their movies in order to fund their cocaine habit, private jets and maintain a staff of illegal aliens to mow their lawn, clean their pool and mop the floors.

The tit sucking green check recipients will continue to enjoy the largesse of the liberal politicians who stay in power by granting ever increasing government grants and giveaways.  

So things are okay in Detroit, Chicago,  New York, Newark, Baltimore, Atlanta and South Central Los Angeles where we just learned that $650 million dollars per year is spent on illegal aliens and billions more to the lame, lazy and corrupted.  

And out on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills the quaint shops are thriving as Oprah stops by to buy a $200,000 dollar purse and the Kardashians buy enough leather to keep a cattle ranch in Montana thriving.

But the middle class is down and out...and dying a slow painful death.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Why So Many Don't "Get" The Tea Party

                                                           

A wide swath of American society just do not "get" the Tea Party.  At first I just thought it was because so many are ignorant.  But I've come to believe it's because our national morality has declined so precipitously that they no longer understand anyone who would place principle over popularity or career success..or "being cool".  

So many moderates and most Democrats choose to demonize the Tea Party while knowing so little about it.  They call them racists, while failing to see thousands of Hispanics and Blacks and Asians marching in those Tea Party rallies.

They demonize 2nd amendment advocates because they fail to see the tyranny of big government, even as Obama and company used the NSA to spy on them, the Justice Department to intimidate the media and the IRS to suppress legal and proper dissent!

And so many of the immoral are ignorant of how government works.  They fail to draw a correlation between our founding fathers who were also called terrorists and radicals; the same Washington and Jefferson and Adams who are hailed around the world for the fight they mounted and for promoting the idea that God, and not government, grants us our natural rights.  The Tea Party wants no more than those rights granted by God.   

Oh, sure it's easy to find a few far right loonies; cretins who spout all manner of wild eyed theories...but it is just as easy to find those same loonies on the far left!  And yet, the ignorant and immoral among us will jump on the first crazy uttering and paint all conservatives with the same broad brush.

The Tea Party knows too well that this government has become too big, too oppressive, and far too expensive.  The Tea Party also knows that corruption in Washington is rampant, in both parties.  Thus one sees John McCain changing philosophies as often as he changes clothes, one who is open to compromise because he holds no firm principles.  The Democrats are worse for they embrace that corruption and thrive on an electorate as ignorant, as illiterate, as lazy as it has ever been.

The Tea Party believes in helping the truly needy, the old, the sick...they just want to stop the massive fraud, waste and abuse in a system that rewards gamers and politicians at the expense of our future generations.

The Tea Party has no problem paying taxes...as long as those taxes are spent wisely.

The Tea Party knows that Obamacare will be our national undoing, as an already oppressive big government takes over fully a third of our entire economy.  And the Tea Party will always ask the question "please name one government agency that is run efficiently and without massive fraud, waste and abuse?"...so what makes you think an even larger bureaucracy will be any different?

So yesterday those 80 or so Tea Party Congressmen, along with a handful of Tea Party Senators, stood up and voted to defund Obamacare, to delay it for a year so that we might have more time to evaluate before we become its servant.  They voted "for" a budget, essentially all that the Democrats asked for, but without Obamacare a part of it all.

So next week the Democrats will get on their high horse, stick their noses in the air, and point to those Tea Party terrorists who shut the government down.  Allied with an overwhelmingly liberal main stream media, they will no doubt win the war of propaganda.  They'll trot out a soldier who didn't get his pay (and fail to acknowledge that the House passed a bill restoring military pay after the Dems in the Senate included the military in their martyrdom.)

Just as they did with Sequestration, the Dems, with Obama in the lead, will retch and cry about the damage to the nation with half of all those $150,000 dollar a year federal workers idle (officially this time, as opposed to their normal work day).  

Folks, the Republicans are not going to win this one.  They will be blamed for every inconvenience  that plays out in ten thousand cities.  Those radical Tea Party folks will accrue further rue...all because most folks these days wouldn't know principle from principal...

But thank God we still have a few people in Washington with the courage of their convictions.  They will surely incur hate and scorn from the great unwashed masses of those on the government take in one form or another.  

But being a minority does not make you wrong...and being outnumbered is of no consequence if you have the courage to face your enemy.

Molon Labe..."come and get them"....your courage will be remembered long after the mice have marched off the cliff.

Sneak Peek At Obamacare? See VA Care

                                                       

Would you like a little sneak peek at what Obamacare is going to look like when all the fat ass bureaucrats have settled in nicely to managing our nation's healthcare?  Well, all you need to do is look at the Veterans Hospitals.

For the last five years Veterans awaiting hospital care has soared.  Our Veterans returning home from the Middle East with severe injuries are waiting up to six months just to get an appointment.  At some VA hospitals the wait is even longer.  And when a veteran does secure admission to a VA health facility he is just as likely to die as to be properly treated.

Just two weeks ago we learned that the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh were responsible for giving five veterans Legionaires Disease.  When the families first started investigating the VA denied any responsibility.  Just like for 20 years the government denied responsibility for Agent Orange and hundreds of thousands of veteran deaths.  And what action was taken against the Pittsburgh VA hospital?  The director was given a $63,000 dollar annual bonus.

At the St. Louis VA hospital tens of thousands of veterans were exposed to the HIV/Aids virus because the dental facility there didn't think it necessary to clean and sterilize dental equipment for a bunch of old veterans.  That director received $263,000 dollars in bonuses.

A few years ago here in Phoenix the VA hospital was neglecting patients to the extent that patients were left for hours sitting in a wheel chair out on a patio.  With temperatures as high as 115 degrees these old vets sat out there without food or water.  Other vets at that facility lay in bed for days without regular nursing checkups, many of them suffering skin infections from lying in their own urine and excrement.  

Nationwide, veterans with severe injuries are waiting for months to get into a VA hospital only to find when they do get in they may have been better off at home.    Apparently, the VA medical staffs have never heard the phrase "Physician, Do No Harm".  

Despite the horrible conditions at so many VA hospitals, despite the long waits for care, VA hospital directors are being paid millions of dollars in bonuses.   A few weeks ago the Congress, in an attempt to look like they cared, and would do something about it, held hearings with the Director of Veterans Affairs.  When he was asked if would continue to approve these bonuses despite the terribly inefficiencies in VA hospitals, he said he would!

Perhaps the biggest scam of American taxpayers is the fact that more than half of all Veterans are not eligible for VA care at all!  In 1996 President Clinton implemented "means testing" for VA care.  If by some stroke of fortune a veteran was making more than $24,000 a year he or she is denied VA care as it is primarily for the indigent now.

So when you hear Obama's heart felt promise to take care of our returning vets, when you heard it from Bush or Clinton, take all that schmaltz with a grain of salt.  As our vets come home with severe injuries after fighting for their country, they'll fight even harder just to get a chance to see a VA doctor.

If you want to see what Obamacare is going to look like when Big Government has crushed all the employer health plans, when hospitals will be forced to submit to government dictates, when federal bureaucrats decide who gets to see a doctor, and when, just look at the VA hospitals....a nightmare just waiting to happen.

Obamacare; More Societal Hate

                                                           

Is Barack Hussein Obama trying to destroy America by divide and conquer?  It certainly seems so.  To win elections he has had no qualms at all about setting the poor against the rich, gay against straight, Hispanic and Blacks against White and the phony Republicans "war on women".  

But of all Obama's skulduggery, I believe Obamacare will be the final blow that destroys any hope for societal unity.  The unfairness of Obamacare is without precedent.  Here you have a Socialist President that has chosen to grant Obamacare exemptions for he and his staff, the Congress and all of their staff, corporations who donated generously to his campaign and favored union members.

After granting exemptions Obama then began the Communistic process of subsidizing his most avid voter blocks; 30 million tit-suckers who have lived off of the government all of their lives and are not about to begin kicking in anything for their own health care.

So where does that leave the rest of us working stiffs?  What is left for the constantly eroding Middle Class who are paying the bills?  

Let's first take a look at the real costs to the average Joe.  If we can believe the stats from Health and Human Services, they allege the average monthly premium for one person will be $328 dollars per month, higher if you live in Wyoming and other less populous states.    So, a family of four will pay $1,300 dollar per month for their health care.  But wait, that's not all the middle class will pay!

You are still going to have Medicare/Medicaid taxes withheld from you paycheck.  That's to pay for old people and those 30 million tit-suckers on welfare who pay no premiums nor even a co-pay!  But that's not nearly enough so, under Obamacare, he's taking $500 billion out of the Medicare Trust fund to pay for even more free loaders.  But that's still not enough!

Obama is imposing an Obamacare tax when you sell your home, and a tax on medical devices, and a tax on sun tanning businesses and dozens of other tax grabbing gambits.  Oh, but that is still not enough; Obama is planning on an additional $13 trillion dollars in deficit spending over the next ten years to pay for the free loaders, the large army of government tit suckers and the huge bureaucracy to manage this monstrously large program.

All that adds up to a lot of money...which Obama needs.  He's added all kinds of extras in Obamacare.  For example, 500 million dollars of Obamacare funding is to to build clinics nationwide just for giving free medical treatment for illegals...until he can get them amnestied and authorized for a government handout.

OKAY; SO WE'VE DISCUSSED HOW YOU'LL RESENT THE ASSAULT ON YOUR WALLET, LET'S DISCUSS THE OTHER DIVISIVE THINGS THAT OBAMACARE WILL GENERATE:

Until I was 55 for so I went to the doctor about once every five years.  Despite being a smoker I was in relatively good health.  I could have paid for that once every five years doctor visit with a single $100 dollar bill, so little did I need health insurance up to that time.

Now, just imagine how all of those 55 and under folks like me who are healthy, rarely need a doctor, and, under Obamacare are expected to pay $5,000 dollars a year for service not rendered?  Multiply that by four for a family of four and you're shelling out $20,000 dollars a year for health care premiums...and that's before you pay rent, buy food, pay your utility bills, property and sales and income taxes and pay for the clothes on your back!  

Now imagine you're paying all this money and you walk into the grocery store and you run into a grossly obese family loading up on potato chips and ice cream and candy bars and cookies, and yes, using a food stamp card to pay for them!  The kids, like 30 percent of today's youth are now suffering from obesity and adult onset diabetes and the whole damn family is running up huge doctor bills, and they're not paying a dime toward that health care!  You are!  How's that gonna make you feel?  Oh sure, you used to put up with paying for their damn cake and cookies on food stamps but how are you going to feel knowing you are kicking in $40,000 dollars a year for that welfare queen and her eight kids?

You're gonna feel some real heat...you're gonna feel some real hate...

And, because Obamacare is placing such a huge tax burden on you, how are you gonna feel every time you pick up a newspaper and read that the Russian Mafia just gamed the system for $100 billion dollars in false claims, requiring even higher premiums from you!  Is that gonna piss you off a little?

Now multiply those scenarios by a thousand!  You go out running three times a week, watch your diet, get enough rest, abstain from cigarettes and excessive drink...while Joe Blow next door is a smoking couch potato and his medical costs drive your premiums even higher.  How you gonna feel about good neighbor Joe?

Folks, if you think Obamacare is a nightmare now, just wait until all the gamers are in place, wait until all the unfairness of the system becomes visible, wait until you start paying that $20,000 dollars per year for services unrendered...and when you finally do need health care, wait until you see how government restricts your personal choices, all set in stone because someone gamed the system and you end up paying the price!

You think you're seeing Middle Class resentment now?  Just wait a couple of years...yeah, about the time that 2nd American Civil War starts!

"Argh!...It's AARP!"

Good morning folks,

If any of you have been lucky enough to reach the "half-century" mark you have been getting junk mail from AARP.  Knowing what I do of this organization I quickly toss their 'pimp' letters into the trash.  Which is where they belong.

I can remember years ago when my mom first started getting these "join us" mailings.  At that time they probably were a good "Association for the Advancement of Retired People (AARP)".  Probably started out as a group of older people with the intention to group together to protect and promote the rights of older people.  They were hugely successful, so much so that, today, AARP is a huge conglomerate that rakes in billions in commissions for promoting auto, home and life insurance, hospital insurance, car-buying and all manner of other commercial enterprises.  They get kickbacks and commissions for anything they can sucker an old person into buying. 

AARP is now in bed with Congress so thoroughly that their prime concern is no longer old people but making sure Congress preserves and protects their many commercial endeavors. 

This is no more evident than their recent support of Obamacare.  One of the provisions of Obamacare is that, to fund the free healthcare for 40 million blood-sucking Americans who refuse to budget and pay healthcare premiums, the government will steal $500 billion dollars from Medicare, which was paid in by seniors over their lifetimes, to pay for those who didn't pay and won't pay for their own healthcare premiums!  Keep in mind that $500 billion dollars is one third of Medicare funding!  Also, keep in mind that this $500 billion dollars that came from Medicare taxes is in addition to the $333 billion already being spent on Medicaid from the general fund!

Now the news comes today that AARP has jumped in bed with the politicians on cutting Social Security!  How's that for an organization that purports to support the interests of retired people?

I've always thought "AARP" was a poor acronym for an organization.  It resembles the sound one might make when up-chucking a spoiled hamburg you ate at that greasy spoon diner down the street.  Unfortunately, it also best describes the sounds I make when that AARP mailer arrives every week.

Anyone dumb enough to pay those AARP dues, even as they are working against you, deserves what they get.  AARP is "behind you" but, surprise, surprise, they're back there getting ready to "ream you a new one".

Be aware and be afraid....and quit giving those damn carpetbaggers your money.  Let em earn it from Hertz and those Diabetes pump concerns.

Hershey Bar Diplomacy

                                                       

Most history buffs will know that, at the end of World War II, American and Soviet occupying forces had control over Berlin, Germany.  America stayed there to insure the Soviets did not take over a defeated Germany, as Churchill had warned about.  

Then, in the last week of June, 1948 the Soviets made their move; they closed off all water and land access to Berlin, hoping to starve Berliners into submission and accept Soviet control of their homeland.   With no way to bring in foodstuffs and critical supplies, the western allies would be curtailed from exerting any democratic influence and the Soviets would then "own" Germany.

It was then that President Truman ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to come up with a plan to outwit the Soviets, with the caveat that any actions be short of war.  The Joint Chiefs came up with the idea to mount the most ambitious air support plan in history.  They proposed flying in all the food, fuel, clothing and medical supplies that Berliners would need and deny the Soviets their goal of gobbling up Germany.

This humanitarian airlift would be code named Operation Vittles and the U.S. Air Force would partner with the British and Canadian Royal Air Forces to deliver the goods.  And for eleven months, from June 1948 to May 1949, allied air forces would land at approximately one flight landing a minute, 24 hours per day, at Tempelhoff Air Base, Germany, off load vital supplies and equipment, then take off to secure another load.

Even today, Air Force officers study Operation Vittles in leadership and command and staff courses.  Not until 1973, when America airlifted millions of tons of guns, planes, tanks and equipment to Israel would any airlift even approach the scale of Operation Vittles.

Ironically, in the hearts of Germans it was not Operation Vittles that they remember most.  And it was not the hugely expensive Marshall Plan, in which America spent a big chunk of her GDP to rebuild Europe that endears us to modern Germans.  

No, the kindness that Germans remember, the true appreciation for America came from a far smaller gesture; a kindness extended to the children of Berlin by an American Air Force pilot named Gail Halverson.  Captain Halverson was one of those pilots flying beans and butter to hungry Berliners.  Each time he landed Captain Halverson would walk in to the air terminal for a restroom and to refresh his flight plan.  And each time he took that short walk from plane to terminal he couldn't help but notice all the dirty, hungry, sad faced children who swarmed around the plane.  On his very next fly-in Halvorson brought boxes of Hershey bars and passed them out to the kids, immediately bringing sunshine and hope to their faces.

Halverson delighted in these smiles and got the idea to take the "Hershey Bar Diplomacy" a step further.  He enlisted his crew to wrap Hershey Bars in Handkerchiefs, hundreds of them.  Then, as Halvorson's plane came in low over Berlin, the flight crew would release these little candy parachutes over the city.  Soon thousands of Berlin's children flooded the streets, anxiously awaiting the candy parachutes being dropped by those nice Americans.  

Soon, a smart reporter filed a story about this back in the states.  Americans, thrilled by this, began donating thousands of pounds of candy toward the effort.  Then it didn't take long for the American candy manufacturers to get into the act, as they donated tons of candy toward Operation Little 

Vittles.  

Soon every pilot and every plane bringing fuel and foodstuffs into Berlin were also air dropping thousands of those little candy parachutes over the city of Berlin and winning the hearts of Germans.

Some sixty five years later, if you go to Germany, and if you ask a German why they ally so closely with Americans, they'll tell you about a time when they were starving and cold, and when they looked to the sky, they saw only dark clouds in their future.  That is, until some broad chested, big hearted American flyers carpet bombed their city with little droplets of sweetness and hope.

By the way, Gail Halverson is still alive, a sprightly 92 years old...no doubt blessed with a long life for his big heart.

                                                          

Census Bureau Reports American Misery

                                                           

It's true.  If you read enough, if you're curious enough, you learn something new every day.  For example, I thought the U.S. Census Bureau fanned out across America, dropped off or mailed out Census cards, collected the data, then went into hibernation for another ten years.

Not so!  Last week I was reading a U.S. Census Bureau report called the American Community Survey.  Alas, the report contained nothing but bad news about the state of our nation's economy as well as some nasty spikes in the number of folks living below the poverty level.

Every time I read of these misery indexes I can't help but look back on Obama's 2009 pork stimulus program.  How in the world did we spend nearly a trillion dollars only to make matters worse than they were.  More homeless people trying to survive in tent cities, homeless shelters, living under freeway bridges or even out of their cars.  

Even for those who still sleep with a roof over their heads the poverty rate has worsened with 44 million more people living below the poverty line since 2009.  Minority unemployment now stands at 30 percent and overall unemployment has averaged 8% across the board during the last four years.  

Census figures show that nearly fifty percent of college students who graduated in 2010 have now returned home to live with mom and dad, unable to get a job with that freshly minted college degree.  An astounding 10 million Americans, aged 44 to 65 have dropped out of the jobs market, no longer having hope of finding another job.  Thus, the Labor Participation Rate has declined to 63%, the lowest rate since 1979.  While this has kept the overall unemployment rate at 8%, the combination of idle recent college graduates and laid off adult workers shows the real unemployment/underemployment rate to be a frightening 30% of the entire American workforce.  Perhaps more frightening was the surge in 2012 and 2013 of employers converting full time jobs to part time in order to skirt paying Obamacare medical premiums.  

So far, over six million small, medium and large businesses have reduced employee hours from 40 to 30 hours per week in order to avoid paying for Obamacare and having to hire additional accountants to monitor thousands of new Obamacare regulatory requirements.  Ironically, the creation of these part time jobs have made the unemployment rate look better than it actually is.   The Bureau of Labor is reporting these new part time workers as additions to the labor force while failing to subtract the full time jobs wiped out by employee fears of Obamacare.  So now, businesses are eliminating full time jobs and hiring two part time workers to perform the same work.

The Census Bureau reported on demographics as well.  Those foreign born now living in the United States increased to 44 million, as undocumented Mexicans stopped returning to Mexico as the federal government stopped enforcing deportations.    Of that 44 million, over ten million Hispanics living here have less than a high school education and 7.7 million falling below the poverty level.  California had the largest increase in poverty level residents, having gained 1.5 million poverty level residents, the vast majority of those being illegal Mexicans.

The overall number of families falling below the poverty level increased by 22 percent since 2009 and sadly, the middle class (income from $50,000 to $99,000) eroded further as home equity and unemployment contributed to the declining American middle class.  25% of those who were considered Middle Class four years ago are now drawing Food Stamps, frequenting food banks and applying for local, state and federal assistance.

Well folks, not a promising report about the current state of the nation.  In addition to the statistics cited the U.S. Census Bureau opined that current economic indicators show further declines in both job and wealth creation as the economy continues to stutter.

Oh yes!  There was one bright spot in the bureau's report, I quote:  "Among the 25 largest metropolitan areas, the Washington, D.C., area had the highest median household income in 2012 at $88,233."

So, the Congressional lobbyists, the politicians and the federal workers are doing just fine, thanks!

"Molon Labe"

                                                         

In the 5th Century B.C. King Leonidas of Sparta, at the beginning of the Battle of Thermopylae, was met on the battlefield by an overwhelming Persian force led by  Field Commander Xerxes.  When Xerxes demanded a Spartan surrender, King Leonidas messaged back "Come and get it"...meaning come and take our weapons.

The undermanned Spartans would lose that battle and die on the field of battle.  But they didn't make it easy for the Persians.  The battle lasted three days and the undermanned Spartans killed an awful lot of Persians before it was all over.  And, as the Persians licked their many wounds, the people of Athens were able to evacuate that city and spared the Greeks a blood bath.

As Obama and his liberal cohorts have tried to restrict the 2nd Amendment rights of Americans, making every effort to confiscate our guns, our citizens have adopted that ancient Greek phrase Molon Labe.. "come and get it"...

But the phrase "Molon Labe" means so much more to me.  In an era when so many Americans have surrendered their pride, and their very soul, for a government check, it says "I will not surrender my God given natural rights for security."  It says that even if traditional American values are no longer in vogue, I will continue to embrace them because they were instilled in me by my forefathers; the giants who walked this land and built it and led it to unparalleled peace and prosperity.  It says that no matter how many desecrate the image of my creator, I will stand by what He instilled in my heart at first breath.

"Molon Labe" means that a huge oppressive government with an entire army of bureaucrats shall not force me into surrender.  Nor will the armies of America, or through the intervention of the United Nations into American affairs, the armies of the world ever force me into submission.  

"Molon Labe" means that my political philosphies will not change, will not bend to the winds of what is in vogue at the moment.  No matter the size of the force of my critics will I submit to the assembly line killings of millions of babies in the name of convenience.  No matter how many sanction the breeching of our nation's borders I will stand by the laws of the land, written long ago when justice and morality still had meaning.

"Molon Labe" means that I am stronger when I stand on my own two feet and not propped up and clinging to the skirts of an oppressive, all powerful Mother Government.  It means that, given the freedom to do so, I can create a better life for me and mine and Big Government will never know my children as well as I do....."it takes a village to stay out of my life".

"Molon Labe" has been used by military leaders on many occasions; most often when their armies are overwhelmed, with little hope for victory.  The most recent variation was offered on the night of 22 December 1944.  General Anthony McAulliffes's 101st Airborne Division was surrounded by German forces in the city of Bastogne.  The German general sent McAuliffe a demand that he surrender or have his entire Division annihilated, citing the many German forces in the area.  McAuliffe angrily took the note, crumbled it up and threw it into a fireplace, exclaiming "Nuts!".  When the German messenger demanded a response McAuliffe had his aide type up that one word response; "nuts!".  When the German general received the note he was confused by the phrasing.  He called for a translator who said "he's telling you to go to hell"...

Fortunately, the 101st Airborne held out until reinforcements arrived two days later.  McAuliffe's position was further strengthened when General Patton swift marched his troops to Bastogne, arriving on Christmas day and sent the Germans scurrying for cover.  "Molon Labe, baby"...said with a simple "Nuts!"

Molon Labe is not a celebration of victory; instead it is a celebration of of personal integrity, of bravery in the face of certain defeat.  It says "your superior forces may defeat me but I will fight to the death for what I believe in, and, long after my death, the strength of my spirit will live long after I am vanquished"

So, for my libertarian friends, my conservative friends, my moderate friends; take heart...there are many like us.  Folks who still know what is right and wrong and live by those beliefs.  Folks who have no voice amidst the screeching liberal rhetoric, but will stand and fight when the time comes, when words are merely empty utterings.  Folks who value work and know the dangers of sloth.  Folks who still remember and still value the Constitution of these United States.  

When the time comes that we must fight, let us all stand tall and strong and brave, even in the face of an overwhelming enemy.  Let us raise our swords as they glint in purity under a noon day sun, and say to our enemy "Molon Labe; Come and Take Them!"

Knowing The "Magic Word"

                                                       

I was in Walmart the other day and nearly got plowed under by a toddler flying out of the toy aisle into the main aisle with a set of those alphabet letters that we all played with as a kid.  The package was almost as big as the kid as he kept tentative hold on it and was no doubt seeking out his mom for a face to face "buy this for me" session.

Well, I didn't think much about that until driving home, and then my mind started ranging over open meadows and mental leaps over thought clouds while leaping over sidewalk cracks.  For some reason those alphabet blocks popped into my mind, and, as I often do, I transmigrate from that simplicity to deeper, more complex thoughts about our wonderful alphabet and the magic we can create with it.

Because really, when you think about it, our alphabet is a treasury of tools that allows us to express ourselves; what we think and feel, what we hate and what and who we love, what ails us and what brings us joy.  We gather up a conglomeration of letters to form the words that allow us to convey what we feel from within.  

And the more we are exposed to the millions of combinations of letters, the words we build from such simple structures the greater our chances of achieving the peace and contentment we feel when we can communicate those thoughts and feelings to another human being.  Being able to express ourselves well is a form of release, a lessening of tension when communication is blocked...for any number of reasons.

Not surprisingly, each of us own varying degrees of talents in the deployment of those letters and words.  The more we read, the more we are exposed to the wild soup bowl of letters and words available to us the greater magic we can conjure up.  We can use those words to elicit emotions in others, pity or praise and admiration.  The most talented of these "wordsmiths" take us to whole new worlds, to alien landscapes that occupy us thoroughly.  Sometimes, when inspired by a touch of the divine, these wordsmiths challenge our beliefs, shake us from foundations of certainties, inspire us to achieve greatness.  Some do all of that with such beauty they are given Pulitzers and Nobel prizes.

Conversely, try to imagine the level of frustration that lives within those of us who have never been properly exposed to these marvelous word treasuries; folks that are illiterate, who can neither read or write.  No doubt, years of frustration, at not being able to convey thoughts and feelings, at not being able to receive and understand those same thoughts and feelings from others surely breeds a corruption of the hearts and minds of those afflicted.  I had only pity for the young Black woman in the George Zimmerman trial, the one who could not read cursive.  No doubt the hate that spewed from her lips was  something that simmered for years from within.  That hate erupted in small boil overs, with such utterings as "white ass crackers"...and made tragic by her failure to even understand that the words might prove to be racially offensive to a White person.

They say that half of our high school graduates are functionally illiterate, incapable of reading or writing at a fairly basic 12th grade skill level.  Such poverty in our young; poverty so pronounced that they now live in a texting world of fractional words and phrases which convey nothing more than the meaningless digital version of a smoke signal.  

Illiteracy of reading and writing robs our young of the ability to live in a magic world where the exploration of other worlds is infinite, where anything is possible.  It deprives them from admission to all the magic that exists in this world alone.

I hope Mommy bought the kid those Alphabet blocks...god knows he'll need them.

"Playing President"

                                                         

Ronald Reagan was a former actor who just happened to be elected President....and he played the role pretty damn well.  In the actor's studio Reagan was taught to go inside himself, identify those traits and qualities that are "you", then translate those inner ethics into productive behavior.  In Reagan's case, he was naturally an optimist, held conservative principles, loved human interaction, and loved America deeply.  Though Reagan was far past the career point where an Oscar could be had, he achieved something far greater; he received political support from nearly every Republican in the country, and, more importantly, well over half of those who called themselves Democrats.  And, despite his age, Reagan was the only modern Republican to enjoy the adoration of college kids.

Barack Hussein Obama sadly lacks the skills of a quality actor.  Oh sure, he acts...but it is so superficial that most folks who abstain from drinking the liberal Kool-Aid see right through it.  Obama seems never to have grown past the stage where Tommy and Tammy go up in the attic, don Daddy and Mommy's oversize clothes and play "grownup".    Now, when Obama, in shoes far too big to fill, played "lawyer", he wasn't bad; he stood arrogantly, was careful with his words, spit out talking points as if he were making the closing argument before a trial jury.  However, when Obama tries to stand up as our nation's leader the little whiny boy-child comes out.  He stutters, he stammers, he equivocates, and all the while the American people are watching and listening.  And those same Americans gave Obama more than enough time to "find himself".  Sadly, after thousands of teleprompter speeches in which he fails to inspire or convince, he is now dismissed as a pretender.  

Again, look at the difference between Reagan and Obama.  Reagan deployed his actor's training to delve inside himself, decide what he believes in deeply, then deployed those beliefs to his public political persona.  With Obama, we are left to wonder where his ethical foundation lies, if one exists at all.  And the problem with this paucity of principle is that, when the hard decisions have to be made, Obama seems to have no inner strength to draw from...which leaves him panic stricken during the Benghazi tragedy, a bumbling back peddler on Syria, and, on domestic issues, must resort to bribery and special interest exemptions to pass Obamacare.  

So when Obama is faced with political or ideological opposition he tends to transform that opposition into something vulgar.  He possesses an arrogance so immense that, when someone disagrees with him, his only option is to demonize that opposition...to write it off as something that holds no substance.  For example, just the other day Obama was bemoaning the House conservatives efforts to defund Obamacare.  Rather than arguing the merits of his own program Obama chose to utter the query "why do Republicans want to hurt people?"  He really cannot understand that 67% of Americans continue to oppose Obamacare for its immense costs and oppressive regulation of our personal healthcare.  Nor does he understand that the additional $13 trillion Obamacare is projected to add to our already obscene national deficit!  As he has said often "we don't have a deficit problem...we just need to raise more taxes from the 'fat cats'".  

Gertrude Stein once wrote of her culturally deprived hometown, "there is no 'there' there".  Sadly, that seems to be the case with a man who can spout principles in soaring rhetoric...yet who saves none for himself.

Are We A Society Gone Mad?

                                                           

Having now achieved six decades in this life I'm not easily shaken by societal changes.  Thankfully, they usually evolve in small day to day increments, allowing us to adjust to them.  However, this week there have been so many bizarre stories about American comings and goings that I am left flabbergasted and stunned by what is happening in America.

Just last week I discovered that there's a Face Book Page celebrating teen pregnancy.  On this site you will find seemingly sane adults awing and cooing over sixteen year old girls having babies.  When these girls breed and then choose to raise the child without benefit of a father there is even more orgasmic delight!  One little fifteen year old girl was featured as a seeming "princess of the day" for having borne twins to care for!  I was alerted to this page when one of those in my Facebook circle posted a "like" for this teen pregnancy Facebook page.   And still another in my circle also posted a "like!"  This seemed incredible to me so I wandered on over to the site and, sure enough, there were hundreds of thousands posting adoring "likes" for those teens dumb enough to get pregnant.  As you can imagine, it didn't take me long at all to dig up the stats on the costs to taxpayers to pay for the birthing, feeding and educating of these babies.  Hundreds of billions of dollars go toward supporting kids born without paternal (or even maternal) support; instead American taxpayers must foot the bill for the back seat sluts too stupid to use birth control or a condom!  Insane!

Then, just yesterday I read that students at the University of Southern California have joined together to raise funds and send care packages to Al Quada!  And, I swear this is true!...at that same university a history professor presented a map of the Middle East and intentionally left off the nation of Israel, so enamored is he by the Muslim chaos, and so hateful is he of Jews who dare protect their homeland!

So I wake up this morning, fire up my IMAC, hit my usual five on line newspapers, only to learn that American taxpayer money is being used to fund a campaign by the U.S. Park Service (yes, I said U.S Park Service!) that makes films praising Muslims for their amazing efforts to emancipate women!

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/09/80143-national-park-service-produces-videos-praising-islams-contributions-womens-rights/

Are you kidding me?  In the most of the Middle East a woman is lashed if she reports her own rape, she 's not allowed to drive, or hold political office, or work outside the home, or decide whom she will marry, is often entered into an arranged marriage at 8 or nine to a fifty year old Muslim man (just last month an eight year old died from having sex with her forty something Muslim husband!) and, grandest of all, more than half of little Muslim girls have their genitalia mutilated so that she will never commit the sin of enjoying sex!  And our own U.S. Park Service is using taxpayer dollars to celebrate the Muslim treatment of women!  

And finally, we had another gun massacre this week.  The killer managed to kill twelve innocents because it ocurred in a gun free zone where no one had a gun to fire back and stop the mad man.  And it happened in Washington D.C. who own the most restrictive gun laws in the nation!  And how, did our President respond?  He vowed to circumvent the Constitution and issue executive orders that would  further restrict gun ownership!  Of course this does not stop anyone from illegally acquiring guns and creating more havoc; it only prevents law abiding citizens from having a gun that might stop the massacre!

Some days I hold out a little hope for America.  Most Americans are fair minded and level headed and not prone to holding the extreme philosophies as listed above.  I keep hoping those Americans will rise up, execute a grand "bitch slap" to these loonies and have us return to lives of sanity.  

Then I read a plethora of these wacko things playing out throughout our land and I am convinced we're all going insane and a hair's breath away from a societal nervous breakdown.  

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Belated Birthday Greetings United States Air Force

                                                                 

I'm feeling really bad this morning.  Yesterday was the 66th birthday of the United States Air Force.  Having served exactly one third of those years I should have been aware of her birthday.  

The Air Force has come a long way in those years.  First organized as the Army Air Corp, pilots and their planes took a back seat to Army generals and Navy admirals who jealously guarded their power, believing that wars would always be won on the ground or on the seas.  Then Billy Mitchell dropped a bomb on one of their precious ships and scared the hell out of the old guard.  

Not until World War II would airplanes be considered an important instrument of war.  And what a legacy those Army Air Corp folks left us when we assumed independency as the Air Force on 18 September 1947!  With the exception of those Pacific marines I doubt that anyone had a higher death toll than those B-17 pilots flying missions over Germany.  When your squadron taxi's off the runway and you know that half of you won't return, you're showing some real guts!

I've been fortunate, both as an enlisted man, and as an officer, to have worked with every Air Force fighter, bomber, trainer, or refueler in the Air Force arsenal.  This includes old Korean War era F-86's still being flown by the South Koreans during my first tour there.  As the prime logistics program manager for the old F-5 in Saudi Arabia in the 90's, I scavenged parts from the Arizona bone yard and supply warehouses in India and Pakistan and kept Saudi's F-5 Operationally Ready rate well over 90%...that for a plane that was nearly obsolete.  As a young enlisted security cop in Vietnam I guarded 101's and F-4's in their revetments and their engine run ups took out half my hearing within a few months.  During Desert Storm we generated hundreds of sorties by 27 international squadrons and pretty well had Sadaam's elite guard buried under the sand by the time the ground troops moved in...ask them..our ground troops went through Iraq like a hot knife through butter, the Iraqi's throwing up their hands in surrender to our approaching troops...anything not to get pounded again by F-15s, F-16's and B-1 bombers.  And just for giggles we threw a few B-52 bombings at em as well.

As much as I gave to the Air Force, they gave me so much more.  They took a dumb kid from a small town in California, made him a man, gave him tuition assistance and education grants so that he might attain a college degree by attending college classes at night and ultimately a commission as an officer.  When the National Security Agency began doing an extensive background check for my Top Secret clearance they showed up in my home town and interviewed dozens of people who knew me.  When they came to my house to ask my mom, she said "you tell me"..."you've had him almost as long as I have".  I hope that brought a smile to the investigator's face.  

So, yesterday I should have remembered the Air Force birthday.  Maybe I can shrug it off as being 65 years old and perhaps not as sharp as I used to be.  But I can remember as if were yesterday, the day I graduated from basic training and proudly wore my uniform home.  Some ten years later I would walk off the parade field at Officer's Training School.  I would retrieve my hat from the high toss in the air, grab my bags, place my hand in my pocket to retrieve a silver dollar, to be flipped to the first enlisted man that rendered me a salute...a salute to the brand spanking new butter bar lieutenant on his way to greater leadership opportunities.

Thereafter I would fill position billets as modest as lieutenant and as lofty as Lt. Colonel.  I would serve both at base and major command level and I would learn something valuable wherever I served...until that last day of service when I, a little grayer, with far less hair,  would stop and turn toward the flag and render a final salute to the flag I served for 22 years.  The Air Force is smaller now; when I entered she was 800,000 airmen strong, now she is less one quarter of that.  The Air Force took my youth, my innocence, left me lonely and often afraid in the far corners of the world...but I got as much as I gave, and for that I'm grateful and respectful and wish her all good wishes for the future.

Happy Birthday United States Air Force!

Ignorance Not Always Bliss

                                                         

Did you ever wonder how folks get picked to sit up on the podium,  behind Obama, when he mounts that teleprompter program and begins to read it?   Well, that little trick was revealed during Obama's 2012 campaign.  It seems the way it works is Obama's handlers show up well before the speech, takes a look at the crowd and begins culling a nice mix of old and young, Black, White, Asian and Hispanic, and most adoring, then leads them to those podium seats to complete scene as the Anointed One prepares to speak.

I was a bit amused to read that Obama's handlers had a bit of trouble filling those seats up on the stage on his last tour.  Both appearances took place at universities, normally a liberal bastion, peopled by naive future taxpayers..but not yet hurting from Obama's economic policies.  It seems that, at Obama's last great "college tour" few younger people wanted stage time with Obama, even in this age of "selfies".  

What happened between last November and mid-summer 2013?  It seems many of those young people have been poking around their state insurance exchanges and took a good look at what they'll be paying in Obamacare premiums in order to prop up the system.  And these young-uns didn't like what they saw!  $200 bucks a month!  No way, they cried!  Since young folks rarely go to the doctor, feel invincible, their immortality assured, they are angry beyond belief that they are being asked to subsidize old people and some 30 million welfare queens who are getting Obamacare for free!  And these college kids are talking to last year's seniors and finding more than half of them jobless and living with mom and dad.

Oh, the kids didn't mind shelling out $8 bucks a month so that Obama could buy votes with free welfare cell phones.  But the kids will be damned if they are going to subsidize some 250 pound Black woman's medical care after seeing her and her kids dining on Big Macs and fatback and collard greens and sucking down a 32 ounce Slurpee!

                                                       

So how could these young folks be so angry about Obamacare only months after giving Obama 75 percent of the youth vote?  Well, it seems those same young people didn't know a damn thing about Obamacare, and what it might mean to them!  

That fact was sifted out from this week's Pew/USA TODAY Obamacare poll.   http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/16/usa-today-pew-poll-health-care-law-opposition/2817169//.

 It seems that nearly fifty percent of those youthful Obama voters were not even aware that they were forced to join the program and pay premiums!  This would seem almost improbable given Obama's massive and costly propaganda program touting the greatness of Obamacare...yet that was the fact!

Across all age groups 56% of Americans oppose the implementation of Obamacare, with opposition rising each week as new health care restrictions, oppressive government control and confusing regulations have stymied efforts to get a handle on how the program works.

Sadly, like so many of Obama's Socialist dictates, Obamacare is turning American against American.  Last week I was reading a message board that accompanied a story about Obamacare and the national obesity epidemic.  It wasn't pretty.  Some posters were advocating death sentences for smokers and fat people because it drove their own premiums higher as they were required to pay for some 30 million welfare queens for whom the government picks up the entire costs of Obamacare.

Many of those complaining were the young people; the ones least likely to visit a doctor in any given year.  And because of that they see little need to shell out $3,000 bucks a year just to pay the freight for Obama's largest block of voter support!  

As the poll revealed...they just didn't know!  Funny and ironic...those young folks gave Obama 75% of their vote last November, even as Romney promised to kill the program!  Ignorance is not always bliss!

A $4.70 Cent Big Mac?

                                                         

Well, the Wacko liberals in Sacramento have made it official.  Having failed to educate their young in their failing school system, they are now asking consumers to kick in even more by susbsidizing an increase in the minimum wage to $10 dollars per hour so that societal losers can actually achieve a living wage by squirting special sauce on a hamburger bun.  

The California Chamber of Commerce responded to the new law by announcing that they'll lay off 20% of their workforce and raise prices of goods and services by 20 percent in order to fund the mandatory wage increase.  The Fast Food Association announced that they'll also be raising prices by 20%.

Here in Arizona a single Big Mac sandwich costs $3.99.  I'm guessing California prices are comparable.  If you want fries and a coke with that the combo runs you $7.00 plus tax.  So, with the new California minimum wage mandates the price of a Big Mac sandwich escalates from $3.99 to $4.70 and the combo meal will rise to $8.40 cents.

I don't know about you but I'm not seeing value in giving MacDonalds nine bucks for a meal put together by a hormonal teenager or a career loser that is satisfied with slapping a soybeef patty between sesame seed buns the rest of his life.

Back when America still owned a work ethic fast food workers were teens who were using the fast food jobs as a first step into an eventually more productive career path.  However, given that 50% of high school graduates are now illiterate I guess the rote practice of "squirt, slap and wrap" is all they are qualified to do.

I just read some really sad statistics last week.  First, college enrollments for American citizens are dropping.  Not surprising with the literacy rates of high school graduates where college administrators are bemoaning the fact that 75% of high school graduates can't meet basic college entrance requirements.  

Taking up the slack in the American decline in college enrollments are the hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Indian students who now represent as many as 50% of student enrollment at our premier universities.

And, lest one doubts the soundness of this strategy, keep in mind that the proposed Senate Immigration 

bill provides for hundreds of thousands of employment visas for high skilled foreigners as well as an automatic visa attached to the diploma of foreigners who complete their education in America.  This will almost assure a life long fast food serfdom for the next generation of America's youth, as foreigners crowd out any opportunity they may have enjoyed under a working American education system.

Instead, after forking over hundreds of billions in property taxes, income taxes, school bonds, free Pell grants, costly remedial education programs, Americans are now asked to pay even more via hikes in consumer prices to subsidize an entire generation of societal losers.

And yet, in every state in this nation, the public education budget eats up over a third of all budget outlays...and the teachers unions continue to demand even more in pay and benefits.

I guess we "don't deserve a break today" as we pull up to the loudspeaker and ask for a reasonably priced Big Mac.  

Infinitely Sad.  Damned Sad.

"The Anointed One"

Good Morning Folks,

Once again I'm borrowing from a piece that was written very shortly after Obama's inaugeration.  This was a Letter To The Editor written to the Fresno Bee, in Fresno, California.  Not only is it well written but was truly prophetic as most of what the writer forecast has indeed come true.

                                                
                                                                                          " THE ONE"


And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America, having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as The One.

He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning, but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you. My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. For I shall save you with Hope and Change.

Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who preceded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed."

And the people rejoiced. For even though they knew not what The One would do, He had promised that it was good; and they believed.

And The One said "We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!"

And the people said, "Hallelujah!! Change is good!"

Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats,"----

And the people said "Sock it to them!"

"---- and redistribute their wealth."

And the people said, "Show us the money!"

And then He said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody" And Joe the plumber asked, "Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??"

And The One ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized.

One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the kingdom!

Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?"

And The One said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!"

And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"

Then The One said, "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes."

And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes."

So The One said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!"

And the people said, "Hallelujah!! Show us the money!"

Then The One said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!"

And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed.

And He said, "I shall mandate employer- funded health care for EVERY worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics."

And the people said, "Gim'me some of that!"

Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas."

And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"

Then The One said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!"

And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates."

So The One said "Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out. Just sign up with ACORN and your troubles are over!"

Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..."

And the people said, "Hallelujah!!" And they made him King!

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff.

The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then The One said, "I am The One - The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!"

But our foreign trading partners said unto Him, "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more..."

And the people said, "Wait a minute. That is unfair!!"

And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"

And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?"

But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon The One and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung.

And the once mighty nation was no more and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope.

And the Change The One had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.

And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, "Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!"

But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.

Note:  I found this letter to the editor, written in late January, 2009, just days after Obama's inauguration.  I still marvel at the accuracy of the writer's foresight.  It took a little longer than many of us thought, but it looks like the wheels have come off of Obama's gravy train.

An English to Dog Dictionary

                                                 

Scientists who study the behavior of dogs says the average adult dog can understand an average of 200 human words.  They're wrong.  Here a just a few non-traditional words they know.


Refrigerator = a magical box which the humanoid visits often throughout the day.  Essential that you gather at his feet to catch anything that drops from the floor during the retrieval process.

Stove = a wasted device humanoid uses to make his food so hot it can't be eaten.  Essential that you gather at his feet, wait for food droppings to hit the floor, then scamper away with any booty captured.

*Note:  If the woman humanoid is cooking, hang around, look up at her often; make her think you are really interested in learning how to cook.  Sometimes she will intentionally bend down and give you a sample.

Sink = Something to avoid at all costs.   Humanoids sometimes, when they are feeling sadistic, will place you in this basin and enmesh you in soap and pour water over you!

Microwave Oven = another wasted heating device that whistles when the over-heated food is done.  Sometimes humanoids use it to heat cauliflower or broccoli; usually passed on to us when humanoid finds it inedible.

Fly Swatter = Another humanoid weapon.  Used primary to kill flying pests but sometimes used across the rump of dogs when they bark too often or too loudly.

Television = Electronic visual device that puts humanoid in a sedate daze.  Too bright.  Too loud and totally useless unless an old Lassie movie is showing.

"No" =  This is a show stopper word.  When humanoids use it you absolutely stop doing whatever you were doing.  It is the last final warning before he reaches for the fly swatter.  Safe to wait at least 30 seconds before you resume whatever caused the "no" word to be used.

Dining Table =  A magical place not unlike the humanoid kids' Disneyland.  You wait until three or four humanoids gather around it, then you scoot beneath it; before long food will be dropping down like manna from heaven, especially if kid humanoids are present.

*Note:  When humanoids have left the table it is perfectly acceptable to leap into a chair, then bound up on top of the table and devour any left overs remaining....if humanoids did not want you to have it they would put it away.

Nap = A lovely word!  Sometimes our humanoid allows us to jump up into the bed and cuddle with him beneath the covers.   So nice!

Birds = Evil creatures that prowl the patio and back yard and drive us crazy in our attempts to catch them. Often lodge on tree branches just out of our reach and caw and tease us.  Nasty!

Garden Hose = A long flexible snake like device that must be avoided at all costs.  Sometimes the humanoid sprays us with water just to irritate us.  When we see him with a hose in his hand we scamper back to the house or hide in the bushes.

"Come" = A useless humanoid term meant to command us to come to him.  Unless we feel like it we ignore him.

"Sit" = see "come"

"roll over" = see "come"

Sunflower seeds = About once a year, usually on our birthday, the humanoid spreads about a hundred of these hard-shelled morsels onto the tile floor.  We then begin to crack them, eating the seeds and spitting out the shells.  He thinks it is so cute and indicates some superior level of intelligence on our part.  What's the big deal, we just don't like eating shells!  He then takes a broom and sweeps up the mess left.  Very nice!

Undershorts = Something humanoid places on his head, then attempts to sneak up on us.  We humor him by barking at him, all the while wondering why he does such silly things.

Burt's Bees Hand Salve = An affection deterrent.  For some reason when we are feeling most affectionate with our humanoid he irritates us by bonking our noses with this salve.  It sends us into a frenzy of anger and we vacate his lap immediately.  Just another cruelty we are forced to endure from our silly humanoid.

Eat = One of the nicest words in humanoid language.  At the first uttering of this word we immediately leap into "happy mode".  If we are really hungry it is not uncommon to see us dancing on our two back legs, whining a little or simply spinning in circles.  This makes the human very happy and sometimes results in some great chow.

Treat =  See "eat"

Car = A fun ride, especially when the humanoid lowers your window so you can hang your head out and catch the breeze.

Note:  Be careful about the car:  if we are both told to jump in the car, that's great.  If he is taking only one of us, watch out!  You're bound for the vet!  When confronted with a ride to the vet, turn your back on the humanoid and refuse to respond to his beckoning.  Let him know you are very angry about this!

Massage =  When the doggie gods are shining on you the humanoid will sometimes give you a massage.  It is wonderful; he massages your neck and back and when he massages your haunches you enter a state of ecstasy.  This makes putting up with all the humanoid's frailties all worth it!

Pet =  The loveliest of all.  When the humanoid is feeling particularly affectionate he will allow me to nap in his lap while he rubs behind my ears, gently rubs my forehead and strokes the line between my eyes.  We often imagine this is what heaven will be like.

Lifetime = A variable term to define the length of our lives.  To humanoids our lives are all too brief.  But we know our time in this life is limited.  That's why we give humanoids all of our love unconditionally; we don't care if he's cute or ugly, we love him anyway.  And we forgive him quickly even if he hurts our feelings because we don't have time in our lives for hate.  We are love machines if humanoids just give us the chance.

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Answering The Mail

                                                     

Dear Reader,

I think I've said this before; I get about six times more comments that are sent directly to my email address than I get in the "posted comments" section of my blog.  Don't know why that is.  Maybe the writer believes their comments are more hard hitting when sent through email.  I don't need to tell you that the comments that come via email are mostly in opposition to my views and contain a level of vulgarity that I won't allow in the comments section.

And, by no means, are all the letters negative.  Some of my readers have become good coorespondence  friends and offer kudos for a blog that touched them in some way....and sometimes they offer their own ideas and opinions as well as suggest topics for future blogs.

Today's mail consisted a hurricane of protests about my blog "Obama; My Way Or The Highway.  Guess I riled more than my share of Obamanites as I pointed out that the "Anointed One" is violating the Constitution at every turn..and that we need to do something about it.  

To the lady from the Bay Area that called me a ignorant, arrogant racist who spreads hate, I wear your vulgarity with pride.  Whenever I get two lines of pure vulgarity, the entire argument lacking in point or substance, I know I've struck a liberal chord.

Once in a rare while I get a long, carefully thought out letter, written with clarity and point by point refutations of what I wrote.  I respect those who take the time to argue civilly, even if I disagree with everything they say.  It does place them head and heels above everything else I get from liberals.

The vast majority of emails from liberals are simply regurgitations of Obama's campaign slogans, a word for word aping of something Debbie Washerman Schultz said on last Sunday's Meet The Press, or the familiar liberal mantras uttered by every liberal every day of the year.  When I receive these I just respond with the lament that so many liberals are drinking the liberal Kool-Aid, who never provide proof for their points, which make their blathering as empty and meaningless as gruel emanating from a wooden dummy.

One letter writer spent extensive research time in finding every dirty word that has ever been uttered by western man.  Without regard to subject verb agreement, or any other rules of language, he was able to fill one complete page with vulgarity and never repeated himself.  

I rarely answer any of the emails that are negative because the writer rarely makes a point that requires an answer.  I almost always answer those who write to thank me for my efforts.

As to the frequent charge that my blog breeds hate and anger, I say you're half right.  I intend my blogs to spark anger.  I write these blogs with the intent to awaken America from a long slumbering apathy, even as our nation is tanking...and tanking rapidly.  If I can just touch a few people every day, cause them to pause and think, and, more importantly, goose them into calling their Congressional representatives, then it has all been worth it.  America has never needed citizen soldiers as much as they do now.

One last observation;  about 20 percent of my blogs are personal observations on the human condition, or about friends and family, are largely free of political issues, and don't get half of the page views of those angry political rants that I've been known to specialize in.  There is a great deal of anger out there and I'm trying to channel that anger toward responsive citizenship and legal civil disobedience.  Alas, as I've written often, I fear we are in for a bitter and violent 2nd Civil War....and all the politicians "fast talk", and all the punditry and all the blogs will no longer matter.  Sad.  Damned sad.

Finally, I have frequently extended an invitation for anyone to be a "guest blogger" on my blog, whether conservative, liberal or otherwise, as long as you are not trying to promote a product or service.  Just write your blog and send it to my email address.  I will not edit or change your blog in any way..but will print it exactly as received.

Very Truly Yours, 

The Modest Scribler