Right As Usual

I was sent this link by my cousin Patty.   It explains what Memorial Day is all about - not picnics, or a day off work, nor a chance to kick back and watch some sports. Remembering the price paid by American servicemen, and the families that lost, so young, these men and women in wars. Share

Monday evening will be the official start for my summer vacation.  But, in spirit, I'm already there. Share

I feel like Tom Peters, the business guru of the 80s, whose signature phrase was, "I don't know how to make this any simpler".  Nice way of saying, "Are you freakin' stupid?" Comprehensive reform of immigration is a favorite catch-phrase of the Left.  They say, we'd LOVE to stop illegals from violating our borders, but it has to be a COMPREHENSIVE reform of the situation. BS. Picture someone saying, "We'd love to stop rape, but we can't just direct our efforts to prevent it, or investigate it, or punish the rapists.  We have to have a Comprehensive Reform of rape." Would you accept that? Share

Hard to believe that Rep. Tom McClintock is from CA.  He delivers the slapdown that Calderon and his buddies in Congress deserved! It is OUR country, and Calderon has NO business telling us how to run it.  He has used our nation to take the pressure off the Mexican political system, which needs to reform, not ship their ambitious citizens off to a foreign country. BTW, HIS country has far more rigid and anti-immigrant laws than ANY state in the USA. Share

I found this site via The Anchoress. It's the global story of the Catholic Church today.  The trailer is at the link.  I urge anyone who wants to know more to follow it. Share

And they call the Catholic Church "ritualistic"! All kidding aside, this reminds me of a discussion I had with my daughter.  She LOVED Sister Act (well, it is quite entertaining and funny).  I said that, for a movie with a "Catholic" understory, it surprisingly showed little of the Church.  I pointed out that the movie showed a mass, but failed to include the central point of the mass, the Eucharist.  For Catholics, the music is nice, but not the essential part of the service (nor, for that matter, is the preaching the main focus).  For Protestants, the music and the preaching are the central parts - is it any wonder that they excel at both? Share

Via Betsy's Page, I found this link : The Obama administration appointee who would run a proposed subsidy program dubbed "Cash for Caulkers" has intimate ties to a company that has lobbied for the bill and would profit from it. Al Gore acolyte Cathy Zoi, the Energy Department official in charge of energy efficiency, has testified in favor of the caulkers bill, which the House passed last week. She would administer it if it became law and is married to an executive at a window company that has pushed for this legislation. Zoi, formerly chief executive officer of the Gore-initiated Alliance for Climate Protection, also owns stock options in Serious Windows. The massive lobbying army backing the caulkers bill, and the conflicts of interest bubbling up behind the scenes, is one more hole in President Obama's sinking claims of being a good-government reformer and a scourge of the special interests. Why do I care?  Aside from the fact that the money is MY (the taxpayer...

The Shaw family lost a child to an illegal immigrant's ability to trespass in the US unopposed.  Their response? Jamiel's Law Jamiel's mother had been looking forward to returning from Iraq, but not the way she was summoned - to bury her son. This was a family tragedy - BUT, a National Outrage!  Sanctuary cities need to be made trespasser-free. Share

There's a hot discussion going on at The Volokh Conspiracy.    Some American students decided to wear clothing with US flags on them to school on Cinco de Mayo, and were sent home for the day, after refusing to change.  There was some talk about possible suspensions, but I think the school has backed down on that. I don't know that there is an easy answer to the problem the school administration had on its hands.  Certainly, they took the easy way out - sent the small number of American students home, justifying their classification of US flag clothing as provocative on Cinco de Mayo. I made a comment about it: In a school, free speech is always somewhat limited. Given the fact that “wearing the colors” is considered to be deliberate disrespect by members of another gang, I think the school was justified in forbidding the wearing of the US flag, in this case. It would be taken as a deliberate provocation by the Hispanic students. HOWEVER, the school has to be ...

In recent times: The 1965 Ted Kennedy Bill - Major Provisions Limit of 300,000 visas/year, 170,000 reserved for Eastern Europeans. NO country got more than 20,000/year Unlimited family reunification - which has since shown to be a HUGE mistake How did Ted, a freshman Senator, sell the bill?  From Wikipedi a: Kennedy, speaking of the effects of the act, said: "First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... It will not cause American workers to lose their job...

I've always said that the real dangers in life are disguised as benefits, or to be as bland-seeming as possible.  Very few dangers come like rattlesnakes - clearly signaling their approach. Just a few of the troubling legislative tools in response to court upholding of 1st Amendment rights: Fortunately, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals stymied -- at least temporarily -- the FCC from imposing the Fairness Doctrine on the Internet when it struck down the FCC's "net neutrality" tactics in the Comcast-BitTorrent case. In response, the FCC is considering reclassifying the Internet by moving it from the lightly regulated Title I to the heavily regulated Title II section of the federal statute that governs the FCC's activities. Title I prohibits the FCC from exercising considerable regulatory authority over information systems. In contrast, industries such as telephony that fall under Title II can be abused like a rented mule. And they ar...

The Question: Do you approve of the way President Obama has handled the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? The Yes answers are leading, which I have to believe is mostly staffers and the like answering.  Go there and let them see what average American voters think. Share

You know, I sort of feel about this Immigration Divide - one side wants to stop being the destination for anyone who can walk across the border, the other side KNOWS that the ONLY reason for not wanting to prefer having these scofflaws in America is because THOSE people are Racist, Bigoted, and Just Hateful, not to mention Secret Nazis - like my dad did about desegration orders back in the 60s and 70s. He always asked: If it's such a good thing, why aren't the people that support it sending their own children to those schools? Now, please, before you tell me how your high-priced private school or its suburban equivalent has 0.5 percent black students, ask yourself - are those kids the gang-bangers, the professional drug dealers, the convicted felons whose lawyers managed to persuade the judge to give them probation provided they return to school? I thought not.  We aren't talking about the same kids. The same with the illegals each side knows: The Pro-Illegal Immigr...

I'm not a huge fan of Conspiracy Theories - although I loved the Mel Gibson/Julia Roberts movie. But, there's been a niggling prod at the back of my head, ever since I heard about the oil spill in the Gulf.  That prod says: How convenient.  Obama didn't want to drill, but was pressured into it.  Now, thanks to the spill, ALL drilling may be eliminated due to fears of an environmental catastrophe. Funny, although the cause has been speculated about, the word "terrorism" hasn't been mentioned.  Oh, well, I'm SURE terrorism is a myth, anyway.  Everyone, including radical Islamicists and Environmental wackos, loves us. What are the odds that, just as the push to start getting that Cap & Trade bill moving again, an energy-related crisis would erupt?  Which, of course, provides cover for Congress to pass the bill. Lastly, JUST as unemployment benefits end, there's a new crisis that has to be dealt with, and the funds can be approved without politic...