May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will leave the world a little better for your having been here. -- Ronald Reagan

Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial Day Tribute


http://youtu.be/5tdAX04YI3I


http://youtu.be/5tdAX04YI3I

I posted another tribute\remembrance on a blog I'm proud to contribute to, The Windrose Hotel http://windrosehotel.blogspot.com/      Titled "Our Memorial Day"

We honor the fallen. We honor those that made the ultimate sacrifice. This day I remember those I saw give their lives. God bless them all and their families.

Patton, Real Men, Army On This Memorial Day

Speech given to the U.S. Third Army on June 5, 1944, one day before the Normandy invasion, D-Day by Gen. George S. Patton Jr.:

Be seated. Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.

You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self-respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight.

When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players.

Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.

You are not all going to die [in the battle]. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar.

Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days.

But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they are He Men. Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen.

All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call ‘chicken s*** drilling.’ That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a f*** for a man who's not always on his toes.

You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you're not alert, sometime, a German son-of-a-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sockful of s***!

There are 400 neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily -- all because one man went to sleep on the job.
But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.
An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about f******!"

We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do.

My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That's not just bullshit either.

The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man!

All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain.
What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, ‘Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.’ But what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, damnit, Americans don't think like that.

Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting the ‘G.I. S****.’

Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the damend  cowards and we will have a nation of brave men.
One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, ‘Fixing the wire, Sir.’ I asked, ‘Isn't that a little unhealthy right about now?’ He answered, ‘Yes Sir, but the damned wire has to be fixed.’
I asked, ‘Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?’ And he answered, ‘No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!’

Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds. And you should have seen those trucks on the road to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting all around them all of the time.

We got through on good old American guts. Many of those men drove for over 40 consecutive hours. These men weren't combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable."

Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the G***amned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, ‘It's the  damned Third Army again and that son-of-a-f***ing-bitch Patton.’

We want to get the hell over there. The quicker we clean up this damned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the damned Marines get all of the credit.

Men of 3rd Armored Division look at the front of a knocked out Sturmgeschütz, the corpse of one of the crew found itself suspended on the end of the barrel of the cannon.

Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!

When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea!  The hell with taking it!  My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either.

We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living G***amned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks.

We're going to murder those lousy Huns by the bushel-f***ing-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!

I don't want to get any messages saying, ‘I am holding my position.’   We are not holding a damned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's b****.  We are going to twist him and kick the living s***  out of him all of the time.

Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like s*** through a tin horn!

From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good damn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood.

The harder we  push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.

There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that 20 years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won’t have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, ‘Well, your Granddaddy shoveled s*** in Louisiana.’
No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, ‘Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a son-of-a-bitch named Georgie Patton!

Oslo: ALL Sexual Assaults Ending in Rape Commited by Non-Westerners

In the previous post 1001Inventions, the "contributions" from Muslims to humanity were revealed. Here's another contribution.

http://youtu.be/K_rHFKRwv5Y

1001Inventions?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has released a vid on the State Department web site here, praising the inventiveness and ingenuity of Muslims. (More accurately the Arab world.) Not so much. The world is not, materially, better off for their contributions. Here's the opening to her statement: "I am delighted to send greetings to each of you at this year’s “1001Inventions,” celebrating a millennium of science and innovation in the Muslim world."

Has anyone heard a similar declaration about the accomplishments of the Jewish world?


The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics:
(zero)

Physics:
(zero)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino
TOTAL: 129!

Jews don’t have schools that teach hatred and intolerance to children. Jews didn’t murder athletes at the Olympics. Jews don’t strap bombs to themselves and murder innocent people. Jews don't fly planes into building killing thousands. Jews aren’t calling for Jihad and death to all Infidels. Jews didn’t create genocide to conquer the Middle East and Europe. Jews aren’t rioting all over Europe and killing people that don’t agree with their religion and political ideology. Jews don’t attack places of worship and kill people. Jews don’t advocate for the annihilation of a whole country and people. Jews don’t traffic in slaves. Jews don’t subjugate, demean, beat and oppress women.

Muslims have not brought much good or value to the world, materially or with ideas.

“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel." ~~Benjamin Netanyahu


Sunday, May 29, 2011

State Sanctioned Arboricide!

Crape Myrtle Trees

The kudzu of government is spreading out into the tiniest of places. Big picture they spend excessive amounts of money on stupid stuff into the trillions of dollars, most of which is none of their business. They reach down into our personal property and behaviors, and now comes this story a local government telling people how to trim and prune their own trees.

Eddie Sales of the Albemarle Road Presbyterian Church in Charlotte goes about church property every two or three years and trims trees. It’s against the law if not done right. Who knew? One would think, on one’s own property, and owning those trees, you could pretty much do what you want.

It turns out the City of Charlotte has tree police, and the church is being fined $100 per branch cut for excessive pruning; that’s $4,000. Really? Excessive pruning? Apparently the church, specifically Eddie, has been trimming the trees this way for years, and nothing has been said by tree police.

There’s a guy, Tom Johnson, that’s the “senior urban forester” for the city. If he’s the senior one, then there must be a whole department of “urban foresters”. The main bureaucracy is the Charlotte Land Development Division. What do you want to be when you grow up Johnny? I want to be an urban forester daddy! Good grief.

The ordinance came into to being from some knucklehead city officials in 1978. I wonder how trees survived in that city until then. This character Johnson:  "When they are nonrepairable, when they have been pruned beyond repair, we will ask them to be replaced."… "We do that for a number of reasons but mainly because they are going to come back unhealthy and create a dangerous situation down the road." "The purpose of the tree ordinance is to protect trees."… "Charlotte has always been known as the city of trees. When we take down trees, we need to replace these trees." What needs to be replaced are a bunch of meddlesome government busybodies.
Let’s do some government trimming by the citizens, and let the citizens trim their trees without being turned into criminals.

If you do want to trim trees, according to the state Division of Forestry, you should get certified! Really. By the National Horticulture Board. To trim trees on your own property! Wonder how long before an ordinance is passed before tree trimming certified city employees will be the only ones authorized to snip a few branches.

The Charlotte tree police hunt down on average six violators of the ordinance per year. Johnson said Charlotte was known as the city of trees; no it’s not. Also, the crape myrtle, the tree in question, doesn’t need to be trimmed at all. Survives just fine. The trees that have been improperly trimmed must be removed and replaced, which is so silly. What are they going to do, just throw the tree away? It’s a perfectly good tree!

I charge the Charlotte City Council with premeditated arboricide.

I was reminded, writing this, of one of the most lovely literary passages ever, found by Henry Miller, which he quoted in one of his books:
Honorable sir: I hope that you are well and enjoying good health during this very changeable weather that we are now having. I am quite well myself at the present time and I am glad to say so. I wish that you would do me a very kindhearted and a very special favor and kindly have the men of the Park Department go around now and start by the Borough Lines of Queens and Kings Counties and work outward easterly and back westerly and likewise northerly and southerly and remove the numerous dead and dying trees, trees all open at the base part and in the trunk part and trees bending and leaning over and ready to fall down and do damage to human life, limb and property, and to give all the good trees both large and small sizes an extra good, thorough, proper, systematic and symmetrical pruning, trimming and paring off from the base to the very top parts and all through. I wish that you would do me a very kindhearted and very special favor and kindly have the men of the Park Department greatly reduce all the top heavy and overgrown trees in height to a height of about twenty-five feet high and to have all the long boughs and branches shortened considerably in the length and all parts of the trees greatly thinned out from the base to the very top parts and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty and very much more safety to the pedestrians, the general thoroughfares and to the surroundings along by the streets, avenues, places, roadways, roads, highways, boulevards, terraces, parkways (streets called courts, lanes, etc.) and by the Parks inside and outside.
I would generally, kindly and very urgently request that the boughs and branches be pruned, trimmed and pared off at a distance of from twelve to fifteen feet from the front, side and rear walls of all houses and other buildings of every description and not allow them to come in contact with them as a great many of them are very much marred by them coming in contact with them, and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty and very much more safety.
I wish that you would kindly have the men of the Park Department prune, trim and pare off the boughs and branches at a distance of from twelve to sixteen feet above the sidewalks, flagging, grounds, curbs, etc. and not allow them to keep drooping away down low as a great many of them are now doing and thereby give plenty of height to walk beneath the same...
I wish that you would kindly have the boughs and branches pruned, trimmed and pared off and down considerably below the roofs of the houses and other buildings and not allow them to protrude over, lap over, lay over, cross over or come in contact with the houses and other buildings and to have the boughs and branches greatly separated between each and every tree and not allow the boughs and branches to lap over, lay over, cross over, entwine, hug cluster or come in contact with the adjoining trees and thereby give a great deal more light more natural light, more air, more beauty and very much more safety to the pedestrians, the thoroughfares and to the general surrounding around by all parts of Queens County, New York...

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Listening to Beauty

Lovely, moving, touching the soul

http://youtu.be/rSzkJaNxBNQ


'Glück, das mir verblieb' (Mariettas Lied) / Korngold * Neblett * Kollo * Leinsdorf

Friday, May 27, 2011

The Tag


I hearby propose that from this time forward all babies be strapped with a wrist tag at birth. It makes no sense to me that we should have simple, printed instructions for flowers and cars and absolutely none for human beings. So, when a baby is pushed screaming into the world let us immediately lash a tag onto that baby’s wrist that says something like this:

For proper development, this person must be touched, kissed, talked to, listened to, prayed for, and given utmost attention. Unless this person is the object of someone’s delight, this person will wither and die.
I would even go so far as to suggest that the wrist tag be worn all through life.

When said person reaches the age of five and goes off to kindergarten, everyone-parents, grandparents, teachers, principals- can look at the tag and remember what it takes for a kindergartner to survive the new and frightening rigors of school life.

When said person is about to begin junior high, parents and siblings and friends can look at the tag again and refresh their memories. The gangling, silly, obnoxious, confused child must be touched, kissed, talked to, listened to, prayed for, and given utmost attention. The information on the wrist tag, you see, is as true for adolescents as it is for infants.

About the same time this same individual get married, let’s make it a requirement for everyone to read the tag again. And remember: If this one is going to have a joy filled marriage, these directions must be followed carefully.

When our person enters mid-life and faces the now famous mid-life crisis, it would behoove us to read these instructions again and remember that people in their forties are pondering, perhaps for the first time n their life, their own coming death. Often they are also struggling with teenage children, broken dreams, job dissatisfaction and a once youthful body that is sagging in all the wrong places.

Years later, when this person checks in to the nursing home, we should read the tag once more. And once more we could remember. Old people need to be touched, kissed, talked to, listened to, prayed for and given utmost attention. From nursery to nursing home the species called “human being” grows and thrives only in an environment of caring. All of us need to be loved with a particular, focused kind of love.

Author Unknown


Rest, Be Still, and Trust

Sometimes it’s hard to trust in the Lord. Then I wonder why. As all my friends know, I suffer vertigo, and most times it’s really nasty. I had scheduled today and yesterday off as vacation and in the late morning prior to my days off, I was stricken, the vertigo came on so strong, I had to leave work early. When this happens, the only thing is to rest, and let it pass.

God’s ‘still waters’. At the same time, there’s a lot of things on my mind; mind, heart and soul are wrestling with so many issues, I’m finding that I’m stressing myself out. I’ve found that I’m by the still waters, in the green pastures, and it’s given me time to pray and meditate. Lots of prayer. I’ve got to ask, so why is it so hard just to trust in the Lord? Good grief, how many things do we project in to future, how many imaginings do we get ourselves worked up? How often does that stuff really happen? Not much.

My previous post, a prayer for the Midwest and all they are suffering, needs to be applied personally too. It’s all in God’s hands, and really, He knows what He’s doing. I’ve been worked up about so many things the past two or three weeks, stressing myself out, and now I’m becoming calmer. God says to me, be still, be patient, trust Me, listen to Me. What’s not to trust? These five days off could not have come at a better time, and I’m grateful.



http://youtu.be/Co6HXUN19AY

My Prayer for Those Suffering in the Midwest

With sadness our hearts break for the people suffering the devastation of tornadoes and storms in the Midwest. We ask when these hit us, "Why God?" We want to understand. Job wanted to understand. He asked and pretty much got a tongue lashing:

1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
 2 “Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge?
 3 Now prepare yourself like a man;
      I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
 4 “ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
      Tell Me, if you have understanding.
 5 Who determined its measurements?
      Surely you know!
      Or who stretched the line upon it?
 6 To what were its foundations fastened?
      Or who laid its cornerstone,
 7 When the morning stars sang together,
      And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
 8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors,
      When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
 9 When I made the clouds its garment,
      And thick darkness its swaddling band;
 10 When I fixed My limit for it,
      And set bars and doors;
 11 When I said,
      ‘This far you may come, but no farther,
      And here your proud waves must stop!’
 12 “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
      And caused the dawn to know its place,
 13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
      And the wicked be shaken out of it?
14 It takes on form like clay under a seal,
      And stands out like a garment.
 15 From the wicked their light is withheld,
      And the upraised arm is broken.
16 “Have you entered the springs of the sea?
      Or have you walked in search of the depths?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
      Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
 18 Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?
      Tell Me, if you know all this.
19 “ Where is the way to the dwelling of light?
      And darkness, where is its place,
20 That you may take it to its territory,
      That you may know the paths to its home?
 21 Do you know it, because you were born then,
      Or because the number of your days is great?
 22 “Have you entered the treasury of snow,
      Or have you seen the treasury of hail,
 23 Which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
      For the day of battle and war?
 24 By what way is light diffused,
      Or the east wind scattered over the earth?
 25 “Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water,
      Or a path for the thunderbolt,
 26 To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one,
      A wilderness in which there is no man;
 27 To satisfy the desolate waste,
      And cause to spring forth the growth of tender grass?
 28 Has the rain a father?
      Or who has begotten the drops of dew?
 29 From whose womb comes the ice?
      And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?
 30 The waters harden like stone,
      And the surface of the deep is frozen.
 31 “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
      Or loose the belt of Orion?
 32 Can you bring out Mazzaroth[a] in its season?
      Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
 33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
      Can you set their dominion over the earth?
 34 “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
      That an abundance of water may cover you?
 35 Can you send out lightnings, that they may go,
      And say to you, ‘Here we are!’?
 36 Who has put wisdom in the mind?[b]
      Or who has given understanding to the heart?
 37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
      Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven,
 38 When the dust hardens in clumps,
      And the clods cling together?
 39 “Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
      Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
 40 When they crouch in their dens,
      Or lurk in their lairs to lie in wait?
 41 Who provides food for the raven,
      When its young ones cry to God,
      And wander about for lack of food?

Lots of people throughout time have asked why the suffering. God has not really provided an answer, other than trust in Him. 

There's an old hymn:
We are often tossed and driven
on the restless sea of time;
somber skies and howling tempests
oft succeed a bright sunshine;
in that land of perfect day,
when the mists are rolled away,
we will understand it better by and by

Trials dark on every hand,
and we cannot understand
all the ways of God would lead us
to that blessed promised land;
but he guides us with his eye,
and we’ll follow till we die,
and we’ll understand it better by and by.

We can only trust, and know He is God. We pray fervently for those that are suffering and have lost everything. This is all so sad, we pray that all is made whole; homes and businesses, bodies and souls. 

When the oceans rise and thunders roll, I will soar with you above the storm. Father you are king over the flood, I will be still, know you are God.


http://youtu.be/Qk8horRi3_E

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: New Democrat National Committee Chairman

Wasserman

New Democratic National Committee Chairman Wasserman Shultz is already stepping in it, and she’s only been the Chair since April. She’s as much a Marxist, radical Leftist as Obama.

If you don’t think the government should pay for abortion on demand, you’re ‘anti-woman; unless you’re a Democrat. Really. From an interview with “The Weekly Standard”:
TWS: But there were eleven [correction: ten] Democrats who voted against funding for Planned Parenthood, so are those eleven Democrats anti-woman?

 WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, they’re not, because if you, when I declare someone, when I make a broad statement like that, I look at the balance of somebody’s–where their priorities are, the balance of their record. And so one individual isolated vote here and there does not make you anti-woman.
TWS: So what are the broader votes that make those Democrats who voted on those same issues–on Planned Parenthood on H.R. 3–what makes them not anti-woman?
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I don’t think there are any Democrats.
TWS: Eleven.
Uniformed and inarticulate.  By the way, the government funded abortion mill, Planned Parenthood, made about $300 million in profits last year. It’s also already illegal to use tax dollars to pay for abortions.

Wasserman was a huge advocate the automotive bailout, very vocally admonishing Republicans that were against the government using borrowed and printed money to buy majority stock in a private company. The whole thing was just a pay off to the unions for supporting Obama and the Dems during the campaign.

Wasserman at the time:
"If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars. They would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes."

Kind of car Wasserman drives
 Wasserman drives a Nissan.

Wasserman totally supports Obama’s notion that Israel commit national suicide by moving back to the 1967 borders, leaving Israel nine miles wide and essentially defenseless. Her justification here. She’s Jewish, and I’m floored by the notion any Jew in this country supports the anti-Semitic Democrat Party and especially this pro-Muslim president. There’s a lot of credibility in the observation that Leftists are Statists first and foremost, and anything else second, including their Faith. She was instrumental in creating “National Jewish Heritage Month”, but the limitation is that the “faith” part, the religious beliefs of Jews can’t be discussed because she doesn’t support teaching religion in schools. Her justification of this notion is her view being Jewish is both a religion and an ethnicity.
I can’t help notice no one has advocated for a “Christian Heritage Month”. At least no Democrat. 

Wasserman is also anti-second amendment. Doesn’t believe citizens have the right to protect themselves. I think part of Democrats’ campaigns should be the repeal of the second amendment; a little truth in advertising. 

Looks like this woman is the standard Statist/Democrat…pro-death for babies, anti-second amendment, do as I say, not as I do (her car), spend money we don’t have, is anti-Semitic (even though a Jew), hates Israel like any good Democrat, and votes yes on every bit of legislation that increases taxes, costs citizens money and curtails their liberty, advocates for using tax money to pay off unions (buy GM and Chrysler), using bailout money to pay off fat cats that donate to the Democrat Party and payoff (Democrat) State employees so they can keep their phony jobs and inflated pensions. Her voting record here

We congratulate her on her appointment, elevating her from hypocritical corruptocrat to chief hypocritical corruptocrat.   

Monitoring Every Move You Make

Automotive Event Data Recorder

Don’t know how I ever missed this since it should be on the government intrusion check list. We’re all aware airplanes have event data recorders (black boxes) but I wasn’t aware that most cars have them too.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTS) estimates as of 2005 about 64% of light vehicles have event data recorders (EDR’s) and are proposing to have mandatory EDR’s in all passenger vehicles by the end of  2011. Black boxes have been getting installed for twenty years; they just get better every year.

I had no idea. General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Co. are all doing this. NHTS set the most recent rules for data collection in 2006, and is firming up and making adjustments to the rules. Right now each of the car makers’ devices record different data, so this is supposed to standardize them. All the car makers endorse the devices, but some have expressed concern the government may want other data collected by the black boxes, driving up the cost. As we all know, cars already have a hefty price tag.

Well of course the government wants more data and higher cost. Something else to control and cost citizens more, and is why this should be on the government intrusion check list. This is the perfect device to do what the Obama and the Dems want, an idea they’ve floated twice, which is to tax drivers by the mile. The idea is to reduce driving in the name of protecting the environment. Environmental control isn’t about the environment. The key word is control. “Progressives” are big on public transportation. Notice how they’re always advocating for new rail systems no one wants? Notice to they don’t use trains and buses themselves? Those are for “the masses” (hate the phrase). Just watch, Dems will be trying to get a mileage monitor on the black box. Out here in the West, where everything is so spread out, we’ll take a financial pounding. We already do with the current high gas prices. Note too Western states are usually Red States, vote Republican.

Obama and the Dems want high fuel prices. Most famously is Obama’s statement just before announcing his run for the presidency that under his plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket.  This may just be another way to ensure this happens. I’m certain that for them EDR’s are not for data collection for safety purposes, but control and taxing purposes.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Thoughts on Hope

 Hope has been always prevalent in our lives. The word became a campaign slogan during the last presidential campaign. (The promise that government will provide heaven on earth). It’s become essentially meaningless, or only means specific things to specific people or groups.

We all hope for things. Usually it’s for stuff, or the means to get stuff, or to be released from something causing us pain or discomfort, or an event that will benefit us.  These things I don’t think of so much as hope but wishes, dreams and fantasy. What they have in common is they’re secular and about the self.

What’s lost in our secular society is where the idea of hope comes from; it’s other meaning is faith based. Understanding that is what can give hope a working meaning, not a fantasy for the future.  Hope is an expectation, something we yearn for or anticipate. It comes from the Hebrew “Tiqvah”. That in turn comes from “Qavah” meaning to wait for. Originally Tiqvah meant “to stretch like a rope”. The word shows up thirty three times in the Bible.

In Joshua is the story of the House of Rahab, where some of his spies hid out when in Acacia Grove. Rahab came under suspicion and soldiers were sent to investigate. In this story, there were two men she was hiding and when asked lied to the soldiers about them. They escaped by dropping a rope from her house over the wall of the city. Rahab knew the men were from the Jews outside the city, were sent by God, and that they were going to invade. She wanted assurances that her family would survive when the Jews took the city. The said to her: “…unless, when we come into the land, you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household to your own home.” The red cord would be the identifier to the Jewish army which house was hers’, and to let it be. Symbolically the red cord represents Christ’s redemption of us. We just need to hold on to Him. 

We have the rope of redemption, which is our hope. It’s not something based on fantasy or wishes; it’s founded in God’s promise to us. Hope that God will redeem us; guide our future through Grace and our acceptance of Christ. Hope in this sense is a certainty. If we allow God to guide our lives, we’ll get a good outcome, which is Him. It’s hope based in faith, and that faith in turn is confidence in the future, not a projection of our own wishes and fantasies of self fulfillment.

It’s hard sometimes to determine, or even better, to discern, between what’s our wishes and God’s grace and guidance. Those of us that have the good sense and good fortune to know God, understand that hope is based on His certainty, is not self based, and patience and prayer will fulfill His hopes for us.

That’s how the future that will pan out for us, not with the hope for stuff we wish for. 

The Seven Faces of Dr. Obama, The Doctor of Ego and Deceit

When we listen to Obama, it’s hard to get passed the first person pronoun “I”. He talks about “I” directed whatever to happen, an investigation, a change in policy, an executive order. That’s if he thinks it’s a good thing (often it’s not) and if it’s a bad thing it’s usually somebody else’s fault, usually the ‘wascally Republicans’ and specifically George Bush.

The latest and greatest example of his monument chest thumping ego was his statement after the bin Laden kill:
“Tonight, I can report . . . And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta . . . I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . . I’ve made clear . . . Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear . . . Tonight, I called President Zardari . . . and my team has also spoken. . .These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief . . . Finally, let me say to the families . . . know that it has, at times, frayed. . . .”

I can’t remember any president using this pronoun so much. Usually presidents say ‘this administration’, US policy, or some third person identification.

Look at some of the things the “I” president has directed. These are things he was against when he ran for president and for now, but “I” directed them. It’s a pretty amazing list.
He was against Gitmo, a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda,” yet has kept it open and used intelligence gathered there. He was against rendition, This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of law.” “That will be my position as president. That includes renditions.”  “I” has kept the program running and uses intell gathered from that practice. He ran against military tribunals, but when he went against the will of the American people and tried to try apply civilian legal rights to terrorists and got toasted for it, well, “I” directed maybe military tribunals weren’t such a bad thing after all. He was against the “surge” in Iraq, “I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.” “Here’s what we know. The surge has not worked.” Of course it did, and he became all for it after he became president. He was against overseas wiretaps. Want to guess what he’s for and uses now?

Since he’s come to power, he’s having traveling women, children and babies fondled in public, in airports. “I” certainly doesn’t seem to respect the rights of citizens’ privacy, especially those that he has identified as the most vulnerable in our society, at least when he was campaigning.

He often does what is antithetical for the good of this country because of his Marxist pro-Muslim ideology, but thinks such things make him look good, and that inflates his ego. Self aggrandizement, hypocrisy, and ego lie at the core of his presidency. This man-child puts himself before country.  

Getting Fleeced by the Left, and You're Not Even a Sheep

Dems and other Leftists have the idea that if you confiscate the earnings of the wealthy, that’ll pay for everything, and there won’t be a debt problem; plus all their redistribution and payoffs to their donors can continue endlessly, and they can continue to increase spending.

What they do show, besides irresponsibility, is a total lack of understanding of economics, or the moral tale of the goose that lays the golden eggs.

At one time the marginal tax rate was 90%. That was when JFK brought it down. It went back up, to a little lower percentage, and Reagan brought it down. Dems raise taxes at every opportunity, to as high as they can. Since the Dems see no moral reasons for limiting taxes, why not raise it to 100%? They certainly have the mind set.

Starting where we are now, the top 1% of earners, including salaries, capital gains, and dividends, have an income of $380,000 per year. They pay 38% of our nation’s taxes. If the Dems and Obama were to get all that tax money in a lump sum, it would come to about $938 billion. Our debt is over $4 trillion. Not much of a dent.

The top 10% of earners pay 69% of the taxes. Those are people that make about $114,000 a year, certainly not the millionaires the Left says are not paying “their fair share”. To keep paying for all the entitlements and redistribution, where are they going to get the bucks? Mostly it would come from the middle class in the form of hidden taxes and fees.

“Cap and trade” was one way to fleece the middle class, but even filtered through the Leftist Jurassic Press, the huge increase in energy costs to ordinary citizens could not be masked. It’s been put on the back burner for now. They floated the Value Added Tax (VAT), so every level of production of a product gets taxed, in addition to the current point of sale taxes. Of course the manufacturers are going to pass that cost on to ordinary citizens, the middle class. Next is to eliminate mortgage deductions; a cost to ordinary citizens, the middle class. They want to get rid of deductions for state and local taxes, at cost to the middle class. They want to get rid of property tax deductions, at cost to the middle class. They want to raid retirement funds (they’re already doing this with federal employees) and 401K’s, tax your company health insurance as income, and they’ve already reduced the deductions for charitable giving. Meanwhile, nearly half of the citizens pay no income tax. My view is that no matter what the income, a minimum of 10% should be deducted. Everyone benefits in some way from services this country offers, and if there’s no contribution, there’s no appreciation. That half that doesn’t pay up, think they’re entitled.

When one looks at the tax returns of the limousine Liberals, they have huge deductions. Obama certainly did. If these guys believe so much in the goodness of government, why are they deducting anything at all? Why aren’t they paying more voluntarily?

The cold hard truth is the Dems are attacking the middle class more than the rich. They can confiscate all the wealth of the middle class and the wealthy and still coverage of all their redistributionist schemes will not be paid for. When citizens and companies work to increase their incomes, the Left calls them greedy. When the Left uses the sledge hammer of the government to confiscate the wealth of citizens, and they balk at giving up more of their worked for income, then it’s the citizens that are greedy.  

Of course the Left isn’t greedy, they’re taking away your income and enriching themselves for your own good.    

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Waiver Mania

Dems and Obama, instead of waving the flag, are waiving ObamaCare. Extreme Leftist Radical and first female ex-Speaker of the House have gotten a lot of waivers from participating in the Obama healthcare shakedown of the American people. This past April the Obama Administration has granted another 204 waivers from ObamaCare, the system that was to bring us better healthcare at lower cost.

Of those 204 waivers, 38 are in Nancy Pelosi’s district. Gotta ask Nancy, if the law is so good why are so many being granted waivers? Of course she denies having anything to do with getting these companies in her district the waivers. Really and truly? Twenty percent of these latest waivers going to a specific district just kinda happened?

So far the Obama Administration has given 1,372 businesses and eight states waivers. Got to ask again, if this healthcare legislation is such a great deal, why all the waivers? We were told that it would be cheaper and better. Love it too that so many of the unions that advocated for ObamaCare are getting out because it’s too expensive; and it hasn’t even taken full effect yet. Unions make up about 11.9% of the workforce, yet 50.26% of the waivers so far have gone to them.

The latest waiver has gone to one of the largest Leftist lobbies, the AARP, who pushed mightily for this government takeover of our personal health.

Of course all these unions, lobbies and businesses are huge donors to Obama and the Dems. One can extend the idea that besides waivers, the cost and quality of healthcare down the road will depend upon one’s political affiliation.  

Yet Another Example of Leftists "New Civility"-Vid Accusing Republicans of Murdering Seasoned Citizens

The Dems for years whined about the "politics of fear", and after the Texas shooting by a deranged madman, were all over Republicans and Conservatives for their lack of civility; many of the accusations posted on this blog. Of course the madman had no political agenda, but the Jurassic Press and Dems kept repeating that he did.
Here's the 'civility' of the Left. The murder of an elderly woman by Republicans. The big lie underneath this is nothing in the Ryan budget plan touches anyone's existing Medicare, it only gives insurance options to those under 55.
Another example of the "new civility".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnE83A1Z4U&feature=player_embedded

Netanyahu Gives Obama a History and Foreign Policy Lesson, aka Smackdown

The difference between a real leader and a guy that claims to lead from behind. Usually these meet a greets between a foreign leader and the US President are formatted with the same things about mutual respect blah blah blah; but this was a brilliant history lesson and admonishment of a man-child that's in way over his head.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

National Debt: A Visual Perspective


http://youtu.be/cWt8hTayupE

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Fr. Barron Comments on Celebrating Bin Laden's Death

This is a tall tough order. I think I can pray for the man, but love him?

http://youtu.be/hlRtlJnLN68

Certainly we shouldn't celebrate his death.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Wasted in a Sea of Vids

This weekend I read. A lot. All day Saturday and all day Sunday I read the history of Christianity. In the evening I read a novel. There was a time when I would sit for hours, barely moving, and read. I would forget to eat. All that existed was what was on the page.

Now it’s become more difficult. Part of it is I can't sit still for as long a stretch at a time. My attention drifts. I go through periods of massive TV viewing, yet still manage to read a bit more than most. I’ve gone through periods when I banned TV all together. One of those periods was right after I read Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.  (I recommend to anyone also interested in classic argument essay construction.) This weekend though, I wanted a break, so checked out the movies, and nothing there worth the time, effort, or money. Went to the vid store, and nothing worth renting. Tried watching a basketball game, which has gotten an air of silliness about it now; I just see giant wanna be gangstas in pants skirts running around bouncing a ball. No interest there. So I went back to reading.

Most people, I think, would have just continued to flounder around the visual media. I remember Pastor Jack Hayford saying one night he was exhausted and wanted to just be entertained, fill the void, and he channeled surfed. I don’t remember how long he said he did this for, but he realized how much precious time he had wasted, and got down on his knees and asked God’s forgiveness for wasting so much precious God given time. We do have a finite existence after all.

Edward Abby said television is based on the principle of the vacuum tube, and that’s exactly what it does to the mind. There was a study done last year, published in the “Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine” about the physical and intellectual effects of massive TV viewing. The more TV the lower the scores in class and the less physically able the viewers became. There was a definite increase in the consumption of junk food. The BMI goes up correlated to the number of hours watched.

Kids with TV’s in their bedrooms watch 56% more TV than kids without. I’ve always been of a mind that no TV should be in any bedroom. Bedrooms are made for sleeping, making love, and reading. Why should the vid set trump those marvelous activities?

What we’re ending up with are quick discussions lacking analysis and depth, by a growing number of people with increasing physical heft and diminishing intellectual heft. That imperials freedom and liberty. It imperials personal health. It imperials free minds.

Too many are shutting out the world, not living, experiencing, getting involved, learning new stuff, and being attentive to others and the world around us. 

One Person's Poet Is Another Man's Thug

Ronnie Rahisd Lynn

Barbara Bush scheduled a poetry reading that included the works of Langston  Hughes, Emily Dickson, Walt Whitman and it was canceled for some reason related to some Leftist anti war stuff. Really murky what happened.

Now Michelle Obama is having a poetry night, and she’s invited thug gangsta rapper Ronnie Rahisd Lynn, nom de plume “Common” as a poet. We know the kind of verse the above mentioned penned.

Here’s some lovely violence and praise of thuggery that passes for poetry for the Obama’s:

A Letter to the Law

Dem boy wanna talk… [indistinguishable]
Whatcha gon do if ya got one gun?
I sing a song for the hero unsung
with faces on the mural of the revolution
No looking back cos’ in back is what’s done
Tell the preacher, god got more than one son
Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton
I walk like a warrior,
from them I won’t run
On the streets, they try to beat us like a drum
In Cincinnati, another brother hung
A guinea won’t see the sun
with his family stung
They want us to hold justice
but you handed me none
The same they did to Kobe and Michael Jackson 
make them the main attraction
Turn around and attack them
Black gem in the rough
You’re rugged enough
Use your mind and nine-power, get the government touch
Them boys chat-chat on how him pop gun
I got the black strap to make the cops run
They watching me, I’m watching them
Them dick boys got a lock of cock in them
My people on the block got a lot of pok* in them
and when we roll together
we be rocking them to sleep
No time for that, because there’s things to be done
Stay true to what I do so the youth dream come
from project building
Seeing a fiend being hung
With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?
Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button
Killing over oil and grease
no weapons of destruction
How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one
The government’s a g-unit and they might buck young black people
Black people In the urban area one
I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun.
Peace, ya’ll.”

Advocating the murder of a President of the United States. Peace out.

Does it bother anyone that the two knuckelheads in the White House thinks this is poetry? This pretty much fits into the Leftist view of the arts and literature. Remember Amiri Baraka, ex-poet laureate of New Jersey? Wrote a lovely anti Semitic piece circa 2002,  Somebody Blew Up America" and was one of the first “Truthers”; America, AKA Republicans, Whites, and George Bush masterminded 9/11, expressed in breathtaking verse.

Just no accounting for taste I guess.



Monday, May 2, 2011

Dems Budget Plan to Save Old People, Save Babies, and Create Perfection in the Universe


The last post here observed the Dems had not offered any budget solutions of their own, only play the old saw about how because of the Republican budget proposal, old people will die homeless, and babies will starve, blah blah blah. Then it dawned on me, they do have a budget solution, playing the same old saw.





Raise the top tax rate from 37% to 47%.
Raise capital gains taxes.
Raise the death tax.
Raise payroll taxes.
Raise tariffs.
Raise small business taxes.
Raise corporate taxes.
Raise taxes on dividends.

Increase spending.
Borrow more money.
Print more money.

Right now every man woman and child in America owes $45, 903. 


Sunday, May 1, 2011

Actual Republican Budget Cut Items That Will Reign Poverty, Pollution, Death & Destruction on America

These are some of the actual proposed spending cuts that the Dems and the Bamster say will turn old people out into the streets to live in dumpsters and eat dog food, starve babies, pollute the air and water, and destroy America. This is from the new "civil" and no blaming and no finger pointing new approach from the Dems and Barry. Haven't seen yet what they plan to do lift the debt burden of $45,000 from every man, woman and child in America, not to say how much future generations will be burdened with.


  • Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.
  • Save America's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.
  • International Fund for Ireland. $17 million annual savings.
  • Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings.
  • National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.
  • National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.
  • Hope VI Program.. $250 million annual savings.
  • Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.
  • Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
  • U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings.
  • Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings.
  • Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding. $47 million annual savings.
  • John C. Stennis Center Subsidy. $430,000 annual savings.
  • Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings.
  • Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid. $24 million annual savings.
  • Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings
  • Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%. $600 million annual savings.
  • Essential Air Service. $150 million annual savings.
  • Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.
  • Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. $125 million annual savings.
  • Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.
  • Beach Replenishment. $95 million annual savings.
  • New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings.
  • Exchange Programs for Alaska, Natives Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts. $9 million annual savings
  • Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion annual savings.
  • Title X Family Planning. $318 million annual savings.
  • Appalachian Regional Commission. $76 million annual savings.
  • Economic Development Administration. $293 million annual savings.
  • Programs under the National and Community Services Act. $1.15 billion annual savings.
  • Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings.
  • FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.
  • Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.
  • Economic Assistance to Egypt. $250 million annually.
  • U.S. Agency for International Development. $1.39 billion annual savings.
  • General Assistance to District of Columbia. $210 million annual savings.
  • Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.
  • Presidential Campaign Fund. $775 million savings over ten years.
  • No funding for federal office space acquisition. $864 million annual savings.
  • End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
  • Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually.
  • IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget. $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
  • Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings. WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees. $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
  • Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of. $15 billion total savings.
  • Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.
  • Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings.
  • Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings
  • Eliminate Market Access Program. $200 million annual savings.
  • USDA Sugar Program. $14 million annual savings.
  • Subsidy to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). $93 million annual savings.
  • Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.
  • Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs. $900 million savings.
  • Ready to Learn TV Program. $27 million savings..
  • HUD Ph.D. Program.
  • Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.

  • TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years
The question is, what is all this doing in the budget in the first place?