Minor league baller playing in the Majors

Our president is so far out of his league that it’s not even remotely funny. While he may be able to speak well he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. His foreign policy is ridiculous. He kowtowed to Russia, who is not our ally, and pulled the missile defense shield from those who are our allies. The defense shield was doing several things but the biggest thing it was going to do is keep Russia in check and not let them run ruff shot over eastern Europe and NATO nations. Then while at the U.N. summit it comes to light that Iran has a secret nuclear plant that they’ve had for several years. As soon as they are called out on it they fire off a new missile that is capable of carrying a warhead and capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the middle east.

Instead of handling the problems at hand our clueless leader has now placed his hat in the ring for bringing the Olympics to Chicago, his home town, while the murder rate in Chicago is as bad as some middle east war zones. Last year 34 school kids were KILLED and another 290 SHOT. That’s some damn good community organizing you got going on there.

Now while Rome burns the president has only spoken to the commander in Afghanistan, the war that we HAD to win, his words, only once in the past 2+ months. He’s only spoken to him once! Casualties have continued to increase, the commander has requested more troops, and he’s only spoken to him once. This is unbelievable.

Oh, let's not forget that children are being “trained” to praise this guy in schools…

God help us, and thank you for reading my rant-o-the-day

You have to see it to believe it.

Healthcare ---- Another slant on a similar topic

We live in a world of goods and services. We go to work, where we either provide a good or a service and make money so that we can go and consume goods and services. Now when I say consume goods and services I’m talking about everything. I mean the car we buy, the gas we put in our car, the electricity we buy, the food we buy, and all the games we play. We also buy one very important service that people don’t necessarily consider to be a service. It’s healthcare. In many respects it’s the most important service because like the old saying goes, “If you don’t have your health what do you have?” When I got my job part of my compensation that we agreed to was health insurance. I chose to take health insurance as part of my payment for the work that I do at my job. That health insurance helps considerably to offset expenses that I or my family may occur when we need to be seen by a doctor.

Now speaking of doctors. When I was a kid in school I was told that I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up. It was true to most extents. I didn’t choose to be a doctor but others did and I'm thankful. They took the initiative to go to the schools, pay the incredible expenses for going to those schools, work unbelievably hard in those schools, work ridiculous hours at the hospitals after they got out of those schools, and take the almost unthinkable responsibility for the lives of those they treat and people have the audacity to complain when they get high medical bills? WTH?? The hard truth of the matter is most health problems that doctors treat can be prevented if we only took better care of ourselves. So we go to a doctor because we’re not feeling well. The doctor tells us that we have high cholesterol and blood pressure because we’re not eating right and we don’t get enough exercise. He puts us on medication to get that back under control and tells us that we need to eat better and get more exercise so that we can be more healthy and not have to come see them as often. We then complain when we get the bill for the pills that we’re taking to keep us 6 feet over instead of 6 feet under? We should be thanking the doctor for treating us AND thank the doctor for telling us what we need to do to better ourselves.

Consider doctors mechanics for the body. People will pay a mechanic $75.00 an hour to fix a car they’re paying $400.00 a month on but bitch and cry and raise holy hell at the thought of paying for our own health insurance. I’ve got an idea. Ditch the $400.00 a month car payment and buy $400.00 worth of health insurance for you and your family! That car's not going to do you much good when you’re dead! Remember like that old saying goes, if you don’t have your health what do you have?

Almost But Not Quite

So I’m scanning the online headlines this morning, like I always do, and I see something that makes me stop. The headline reads “Obama to world: Don't expect America to fix it all”.

When I saw it I thought, “Holy Crap! He said something I agree with!”, so I clicked on the article to read it. And sure enough, he said “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone”. “AMEN!” I thought.

If he’d just followed out the logic of that one statement we’d have been okay and I would have finally found common ground with him on something. But then he blew it by talking about global initiatives, world communities and the like.

This “world community” stuff is a bunch of hooey. There is no “world community”. Frankly, the world has been treated like an American community for far too long.

Whenever earthquakes, floods, tsunamis or other natural disasters strike a foreign country, who is the first group they call?

When the U.N. needs humanitarian workers and peacekeepers to enter an out of control African country where people are dying and rioting in the streets for lack of food, to whom does the UN turn to bring order from chaos?

When a disease breaks out and begins to eradicate people by the thousands, who steps in and not only develops the vaccine, but delivers and administers it to keep the disease in check?

When a country’s economy begins to collapse, who is asked to loan it money and prop it up?

When genocide begins somewhere in the world, who are the first people called upon to put a stop to it?

Who are the people chastised most if they let genocide continue?

When someone flees a country because of despotism, torture and rape, where do they go?

When and Indian, Pakistani, Saudi, Sudanese, Egyptian, African, Chinese, Korean or Russian national wants to give their kid the best college education in the world so they can come back and help out their village or nation, where do they send them?

Obama was right when he said, “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility”. It’s time the world starting taking on its share of responsibility. It’s time these countries, who take our money, use our education systems, use our generous spirit and the lives of our young men started solving some of their own problems and stopped begging us for help then turning on us once they’re back on their feet.

It’s time America focused its efforts on AMERICA, not the world. We’re having problems on a scale unprecedented in our history. Between the war on terror, natural disasters, the energy crisis, the collapse of the economy, out of control congressional spending, a growing national debt and a shrinking national product we’ve got a lot on our plate.

We can make the world a better place, by dealing with the log in our own eyes before removing the splinters from the eyes of the world.

And Obama should have said so.

50,000 Muslims at the Capitol

I just read about a gathering of 50,000 Muslims that is scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C. on September 25th, 2009. Apparently, in response to Barack Obama’s inaugural remarks about finding a way forward with Islam, a man named Hassen Abdellah got a permit to hold a national prayer gathering at the Capitol. His hope is that 50,000 Muslims will gather near the Capitol building and pray for the “soul of America”. Mr. Abdellah says that “most of the time when Muslims go to Washington, D.C. it is to protest. This is not a protest.” He wants America to know that there are Muslims who love America. He also says that any and all are invited to come.

I am about to go out on a limb here and run the risk of alienating friends and dissuading people, but I hope it works out the way he has portrayed his intent for it to be.

Mr. Abdellah’s decision to lead a national prayer of his faith is what America is all about. Freedom of religion is a sacred principle to the cause of America and I believe this man’s exercise of that right is a good thing. And just as I hold that I have the right as a practicing Christian to express my faith in whatever public setting by organizing friends and fellow members of my faith to pray for the soul of my country, so I acknowledge his right under the law to do the same.

More than that, I hope it goes well for this man because I believe his intent is an honorable one of simple faith in his God. I hope that no one gets harmed or does anything to foolishly endanger the lives of anyone at the event. And I hope that Christian America will take hope from a show of love, strength and tolerance from moderate Islam. The radical extremists of Islam are only a portion of what Islam is, just as the radical extremists of Christianity are only a portion of what we are.

There are a great many of us on the conservative side of things who talk a good game about freedom of religion and how intolerant others are to Christianity. We decry any slight to our religion and cry foul because we’re supposed to have freedom of religion and free speech in this country. Well, this is our opportunity to put our money where our mouth is and show that we believe in religious freedom not just for ourselves but for all Americans.

And then we should hold a prayer vigil of our own on the Capitol lawn… 100,000 strong.

Public Schools and Indoctrination on September 8th

On September 8th, the President is holding a direct to public schools meeting with students across America.

The White House spins it as a “Value of Education” speech aimed at helping students set and achieve goals in their educational life. It will be aimed at all ages from Pre-Kindergarten to High School Seniors. That means that the generation being talked to in this meeting is easily the most media aware group on the planet.

They are also the most media influenced generation and are far more likely to believe the television version of events than any evidence to the contrary. Studies are done all the time showing that today’s school children are not critical thinking enough to differentiate truth from rhetoric. I just read a case study done a couple of years ago regarding the story of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter. The vast majority of students who saw the Denzel Washington movie sided with Carter’s version of the events. When read a partial transcript of the trial revealing facts not mentioned in the movie that did not line up with Carter’s or the movie’s version of events, 90% of the class continued to believe the movie’s premise that Carter was innocent regardless of the new evidence presented to them.

Couple this lack of critical thinking skill with the fact that these kids will be a captive audience, to an inarguably eloquent speaker with an agenda to push and this meeting should scare the crap out of you.

The White House sent out a packet to schools across the country giving “suggestions” for how to handle the students before, during and after the speech.

You can read these instructions HERE and HERE.

Look at the questions the teachers are supposed to ask 4 year olds (Pre-K) to 12 year olds (6th grade), “What is the President asking us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what the President is asking us to do?”

Or the questions for 13-18 year olds (7th -12th grades), “What lines/phrases do you remember? How are we as individuals and as a class similar? What is President Obama inspiring you to do? What is he challenging you to do?”

These instructions sound like a “How To” manual for indoctrination.

And I have a few questions as well.

What is he asking them to do? I’ve looked and can find no transcript for what he’s going to talk about or what he’s going to say. (And a man that reliant on the teleprompter has this scripted somewhere.)

Will there be “equal time” given on this in any way? If not, why not?

Personally speaking, I don’t think I can let my kids participate in this. So is there an option for a student being excused if a parent doesn’t want their children to attend? If not, why not?

If schools don’t have enough participation, will they stop receiving federal funds?

And how come this has only come to light now, just 6 days from the event? I watch politics like a hawk, and this has been NOWHERE on my RADAR.

I plan on calling the BOE in my county and asking them these questions. I want to hear what they have to say. If need be, I may keep my kids from watching this on Tuesday. But whether you have kids in the schools or not you should be VERY worried about this. It is an unprecedented step and one that is so easily prone to manipulation it boggles the mind. For God’s sake, get out there, rattle the doors of sacred academia and tell them to stand up and say, the education and future of our children does NOT belong to Barack Obama.