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

Sunday, July 31, 2011

More On The Ever So Civil Left-Those Republican Terrorists Are Now Fragging the American People



The new civility from the vacuumheads that chastise Conservatives and Republicans for using violent language. 


http://www.mrctv.org/video/104166
"In battle, when you accidentally shoot your own, it's called friendly fire. When you deliberately shoot your own it's called fragging. Republicans, stop fragging the American economy and the American people."

Wilson Getchell “You’re Gonna Pay!”

A song about the debt mess. Who woulda thunk it? This is good!

http://youtu.be/IILD0N8eeQc

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Those Right Wing Terrorists

This blog has frequently cited Leftists criticizing and chastising Conservatives and Republicans for using violent language during political discourse, especially after the Tucson shooting. Obama is particularly adept at the use of violent language when speaking of political opponents, as I chronicled here
Here are just a few of dozens of examples of violent language of the Left. These are the same knuckleheads that excoriated Sarah Palin during the campaign talking about “targeting” specific Democrat districts. Nearly every Dem and media Leftist mouthpiece the past week have used this kind of language.   

Titled “The tea party's terrorist tactics” from Politico.com:
“It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House “hostage takers.” But they have now become full-blown terrorists.
 They have joined the villains of American history who have been sufficiently craven to inflict massive harm on innocent victims to achieve their political goals. A strong America has always stood firm in the face of terrorism. That tradition is in jeopardy, as Congress and President Barack careen toward an uncertain outcome in the tea party- manufactured debt crisis.
 As we stumble closer to Aug. 2, it has become clear that many in the tea party are willing to inflict massive harm on the American people to obtain their political objective of a severely shrunken federal government. Their persistence in rejecting compromise, even as the economic effects of the phony crisis they have created mount, has taken their radicalism beyond tough negotiating, beyond even hostage-taking.” Full article here
 Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Chair of the Democrat Party:
“Aren’t we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats?” “This is not leadership. This is almost like dictatorship. I know they want to force the outcome that … their extremists would like to impose. But they are getting ready to spark panic and chaos, and they seem to be OK with that. And it’s just really disappointing, and potentially devastating.”
The first woman ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
“This isn’t just about them saying we should reduce the deficit,” she said, adding: “This is an excuse. The budget deficit is an excuse for the Republicans to undermine government plain and simple. They don’t just want to make cuts, they want to destroy. They want to destroy food safety, clean air, clean water, the department of education. They want to destroy your rights.”
Nancy's ride while saving planet

“What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today.”


 Harry “Dusty” Reid:
“Some Tea Party extremists seem to think ‘compromise’ is a dirty word, and have said that they would rather shut down the government than work with Democrats to find a common-sense, bipartisan solution.”



Left wing extremist writer for the Dem Party main propaganda outlet, the NY Times,
Thomas Friedman:
“Alas, that is the Tea Party. It is so lacking in any aspiration for American greatness, so dominated by the narrowest visions for our country and so ignorant of the fact that it was not tax cuts that made America great but our unique public-private partnerships across the generations. If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission. No American politician was more allergic to debt or taxes than Thomas Jefferson, but he also appreciated the need to have the resources to make the Louisiana Purchase and insisted that on his tombstone it be written that he founded the University of Virginia.” His full article here

Radical Leftist Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA):
“The current, so-called ‘debt crisis’ has been completely manufactured by House Republicans attempting to advance an extremist agenda. This should be a simple vote to allow the US Treasury to fund all of the programs and obligations of the entire federal government that are already in the law.”
 Leftist alleged reporter Margaret during a debate with Charles Krauthammer:
“I have to downgrade Charles here. You initially said why don’t Republicans, you know, take the victory. And it’s because there’s a nihilist caucus which is, “Listen, we want to burn the place down." I mean, they’re not, they’ve strapped explosives to the Capitol and they think they are immune from it. The Tea Party caucus wants this crisis, and do we want to do this again six months from now? This whole two-step process is another thing which is they like the drama. They want to do it again.”
 Alleged economist and Enron adviser Paul Krugman:
The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation.” Full article here.
 Ex-Obama czar Steve Rattner:
“You know, the problem with this is it's like a form of economic terrorism. I imagine these Tea Party guys are like strapped with dynamite, standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying, 'either you do it my way, or we're going to blow you up, ourselves up, and the whole country up with us.' So you tell me how those kinds of standoffs end.”
 Newsweek’s Tina Brown: … congressional Republicans are "suicide bombers" for not supporting tax increases.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer: Republicans "want to shoot every bullet they have at the president."

Huffington Post Business Editor Peter Goodman:
“The same Republicans who have so eagerly prosecuted the war on terror, running up huge deficits in the process, are now behaving like the enemies on which they have squandered so much blood and treasure: They are acting like terrorists. Yes, terrorists.”
Leftists and Dems, the people and Party of Peace. 

Paul Ryan on Washington's Fantasy Economics


http://www.mrctv.org/video/104131

Friday, July 29, 2011

John Boehner Tells It Like It Is Before House Vote on New Debt Ceiling Legislation


http://youtu.be/92CGtLcAdfY

Not only pieces of legislation sent to the Senate by the House, but at least three other plans Republicans have offered up, all of which Dusty Harry Reid said were dead, not acceptable, won't even consider. He and his Dem Senators have violated the law by not passing a budget for over 800 days, have not offered legislation or even a plan. They are indeed the party of no. 

Thursday, July 28, 2011

A non-Commercial Commercial...An Amazing Parable


http://youtu.be/Um9KsrH377A

Representative Allen West (R-FL) on the Debt Ceiling Debate

53 Dem Senators say Republican Debt plan dead on arrival. West tells it like it is, again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vPM_vgeXw7Q

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Alleged Journalist Contessa Brewer Gets Schooled by Mo Brooks


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5mtQyEd-zS4


Mo Brooks (R-AL) has degrees in political science, economics, and law. Alleged journalist and far Left radical Contessa Brewer has a Bachelors in broadcast journalism. At one time interviewers asked questions to get the ideas and viewpoint of the interviewee and were not there to debate and interrogate. They would also know the background of the interviewee; done a little homework. Jurassic Press journalists are just plain lazy. She’s just plain ol’ rude too. Not surprising…Leftists lack in social graces. That’s why all the violent protests, insults and name calling; they can’t win using the rules of debate and argument. 

Friday, July 22, 2011

RAPE JOKES! (Bill Maher and Sexism)

Alleged comedian and politically correct Bill Maher allows jokes about rape and other funny things on his hate speech show. Commentary by comedian Steve Crowder

http://youtu.be/_5iwnxrL3Nc

Jimmy Carter's "Malaise" Speech - Obama Remix

This is most amazing. Carter's infamous speech, played with Obama's utterances. Mirror Mirror

http://youtu.be/mWAdt07XPgY

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Margaret Thatcher Showing How to Talk to Liberals

Well said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8SQHwyNU1Q&feature=player_embedded

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Democrat and Businessman Steve Wynn on Obama and US Business

Business sitting on their thumbs. Obama worst ever. Truth.

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

Paul Ryan on the US Financial Crisis

Hard truth.

http://youtu.be/NddO5yMxicw

Non-Leading Leadership

"Leadership is not proposing a plan for the sake of having it voted up or down, and likely voted down because it is — look, you know how this town works and how Congress works."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Lxk0C2JJ8&feature=player_embedded

Obama during the rebellion of the citizens of Iran, "The Green Revolution" stood on the sidelines. The term "leading from behind"  from Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker was praised as foreign policy doctrine. Obama in Libya got involved illegally in a war and sits on the sidelines, resulting in a deadly, bloody stalemate. He didn't lead on the "stimulus package", Reid and Pelosi (the first female ex-Speaker of the House) did, and he didn't lead on Obamacare, Reid and Pelosi did. Now he holds a bunch of press conferences, words, saying we need leadership now more than ever. Well, how about some?

Two and a half years into his regime, it's still Bush's fault. Leadership.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Nope, Didn't Happen

Before lying to scare seasoned citizens that they wouldn't get their Social Security checks if the debt limit wasn't raised (they will get their checks) he lied about health care in America when promoting Obamacare.

http://www.mrctv.org/video/103791

Sunday, July 17, 2011

A Politically Incorrect View of the Homosexual Movement in America

We keep hearing the Jurassic Press and "diversity" advocates running out the stat 10% of Americans are homosexual. I've never seen a study that used standard methods to measure the homosexual population that has shown over 3% of the population to be so. UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute, which bills itself, as "a leading think tank dedicated to the field of sexual orientation and gender identity-related law and public policy," looked at four national and two state studies, with the conclusion 1.7% of the population is homosexual and 1.8% bisexual. That being the case, how is it that they have been able to set the cultural agenda regarding child rearing and marriage?


Pretty much who you're poking makes no difference to me, but when one's sexual preferences are used to intimidate and try to embarrass people that don't think alike, then something is amiss; especially in this case where the influencing population is so small. It's Fabianism, a process of taking little steps, being patient until the goal is met. For the gay and lesbian movement, it started out, just don't discriminate (granted for the most part), then civil unions (granted), then (openly) gay in the military (granted). Now, the final blow, the destruction of the traditional marriage and family by granting marriage, at one time a sacred covenant bound by God. Already, of course, polygamists are suing for their multiple spouse marriages, and it won't end there. Already, of course, the military is being pressed to admit cross dressers, transsexuals, transgenders, hermaphrodites, and whatever else. The culture doesn't want marriage redefined to anything the diversity crowed wants it to be. The vid below shows the progression quite clearly. Diversity applies only to what the diversity crowed wants. Beyond that, narrow-minded bigotry and intolerance. Even the word itself, homosexual, is politically incorrect. Plus, gays should be a little more respectful of hetero's; without them they wouldn't have even been born.


http://youtu.be/ZxQStDxtt6A

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Fr. Barron Comments on Movie "Of Gods and Men"

I watched this film last weekend. It speaks to the truth of Christianity and its meaning.

http://youtu.be/fWLTZqzK6XU

Racist Sheila Jackson Lee Brings Obama's Race Into Debt Ceiling Fight

The 'wascally 'wepublicans aren't really trying to be fiscally responsible, they're opposing raising taxes and increasing the debt ceiling because Obama is black. Really.

http://youtu.be/PRyqOg709fw

Friday, July 15, 2011

"Independence Day" Chip Murray

The day itself has passed; we should never forget the sentiment.

http://youtu.be/BPJ-aX3-2aY

Silly Symphony - Music Land (1935)


http://youtu.be/KBKmkbRLXGM

Three Bad Choices: Higher Taxes, Smoke & Mirrors, Default...Obama's Solution to Debt Ceiling

Republicans will not be reduced to being the tax collectors for the Obama economy.


http://youtu.be/DD--ZYHwFcc

Juan Williams on Debt Ceiling

Schooled.

http://youtu.be/ZMyQJjL9QcQ

Anyway, Dems played this shell game about spending cuts exceeding expenditures as a trade off, with Reagan and Bush One. Spending cuts didn't happen. Spending went up. Let's not do Peanuts and the football again.

Obama White House and Suppression of the Press ~~ Specifically Fox News

That the Obama White House and his Ministry of Propaganda, aka the Main Stream Press, aka the ‘lame stream press’, hates Fox News is no secret. The extent that they have actively engaged in lies and have tried to suppress Fox News has been revealed through a Freedom of Information Act filing by Judicial Watch.

Back in 2009 there were a series of events and interviews that Fox News was excluded from. The White House first said that the exclusion of Fox News was an oversight. As if not allowing an international new organization into a room for interviews and press conferences could be a mere accident. What happened behind the scenes then was ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN threatened to boycott interviews with TARP Special Master Kenneth Feinberg if Fox News was allowed in the room.

Fox News reporter Major Garrett was eventually let into the room when it was revealed the White House was specifically blocking Fox News, all the while denying they were. There were emails about this from the White House, which Judicial Watch was finally able to get showing and proving that these actions were deliberate, and not a ‘misunderstanding’.

At the time, Treasury officials claimed that there was no “plot” to exclude Fox News. In a January 2010 New Yorker magazine story, then-press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporter Ken Auletta: “This started over at Treasury, and when it got to the White House it was fixed."
That does not seem to be an accurate claim, given the paper trail. Indeed, it seems that Treasury Department officials wanted to include Fox News and the White House didn’t want the cable outlet included.
At 10:33 a.m. that morning Treasury Department official Jenni Lecompte emailed other Treasury officials with a plan for Feinberg to grant interviews to ABC, CBS, NBC and NPR. Treasury official Andrew Williams asked for time to fit in CNN and Bloomberg.
Lecompte emailed White House official Dag Vega at 11:10 a.m. noting that Treasury was trying to add more interviews for Feinberg to the schedule. She asked: “If we did do Fox in the mix, is that an issue? (understand you would not but if we do is that a problem on your end?)”
Vega wrote to her: “we’d prefer if you skip Fox please.”
Following that comes an eruption of emails after media writers heard that there was an attempt to exclude Fox News. White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki joked about “putting some dead fish in the fox cubby – just cause” and criticized a story on the ensuing kerfuffle by Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier saying “brett baier just did a stupid piece on it -- but he is a lunatic”.
Full article here.

Bret Baier a lunatic? Just how petty and thin skinned is this administration? Do we really want the President of the United States suppressing news, suppressing freedom of the press? Then of course they lie about it and try to cover it up. Bad.  

Charles Krauthammer on Bret Baier being a lunatic and the hatred of the Left for Fox News:  “For the White House to think Brett Baier, one of the most level-headed people I know, is a lunatic, shows a little bit about the psychology of the people in the White House… It shows you how much Fox News gets under their skin.”


Governor Chris Christie "Destiny Should Not Be Determined by Zip Code"

On Education. Truth

http://youtu.be/myWx7KmcPKg

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Esquire Magazine Sings Praises to the god Obama

This is the most amazing piece of political dribble and over the top gushing ever written about anyone. From Esquire Magazine:
"Before the fall brings us down, before the election season begins in earnest with all its nastiness and vulgarity, before the next batch of stupid scandals and gaffes, before Sarah Palin tries to convert her movie into reality and Joe Biden resumes his imitation of an embarrassing uncle and Newt and Callista Gingrich creep us all out, can we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we’re going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama."
There's a full page of this gushing goo. Esquire has had its up and downs, but...

Full article here if you can stand it. Good grief.  

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Information About Gonorrhea Lectim




Can click on to make larger.

Holding a Gun to the Head of Seasoned Citizens

Obama is using the violent language of the Left to lie and scare senior citizens and the military that they won't get their checks unless them 'wascally 'wepublicans let him take more money, increase taxes on the productive. Reminder, about 47% of Americans pay no income tax, they're the wards of the Democrat Party, raised to suckle at the teats of government. Here's the big lie. There are receipts coming into the Treasury every day. August 3rd, the day after the debt ceiling apocalypse, the Treasury will receive about $5-$10 Billion. The Treasury has about $20 Billion cash on hand. That's enough to send out the checks.
The debt ceiling goes up every year. Spending goes up every year. We all know the stupid stuff these politicians spend our money on. The term "spending like drunken sailors" is often used. It's an insult to drunken sailors, who are much more responsible. Here's the right language and the real truth.

http://youtu.be/itxfB3dN7ps

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Everything is Worse

Marco Rubio on the results of Obama's policies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRg1Yfwg0-8&feature=player_embedded

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Fast and Furious With Lies and Denials

An update on the "Fast and Furious" gunrunning program, run by Eric Holder, US Attorney General and his boss Barack Obama. Original post from this past March here.
The update:

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

Both Obama and Holder first denied knowledge of the program. Then they denied knowing of it until recently.

From my original post:
When the guns were sold the ATF could have just arrested the buyers at that point. Letting the weapons get smuggled into Mexico has resulted in an estimated several hundred deaths. Over a 1,000 weapons were smuggled into Mexico. About two-thirds of them have been found at crime scenes; crime scenes with dead people, crime scenes of robbery, crime scenes of rape. The Obama administration sold weapons to drug runners that killed innocent civilians and a US Border Patrol Agent.
Now it turns out that an estimated 1,000 more guns were sold to Mara SalvatruchaMara, best known as MS 13, in Tampa; arguably one of the most violent of the organized crime gangs in the world. Those went to Honduras.

Money for this seems to be some of Obama's and the Dems "stimulus money".

Making a Mockery of Journalism

Unprofessional at best, but truly despicable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCbn3fmKBqw&feature=player_embedded

This guy should have been fired for bigotry and intolerance. He should have been fired for a lack of professionalism. Mocking someone's religion, knowing he's scoring political points against someone, just for that reason is beyond the pale.

Exit question: If the candidate were a Muslim, would some of the odd ideas, or the advocacy of violence and murder, or the vile hateful way women are treated, be mocked in the same manner?

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Tax Cheat Thief and Liar Charlie Rangel Asks What Would Jesus Do About the Debt Limit? Really?

Enjoying his ill gotten gains
"What would Jesus do this weekend? Or Moses. Or Allah. Or anyone else."  "I don't want this book (debt negotiations) closed without the clergy having an opportunity to forcefully express themselves as well as I know they can do."

Why isn’t Washington  "besieged by spiritual leaders saying 'do what you have to do - but not to the homeless, the jobless and the helpless. Not to the sick. And certainly not to the aging that are sick or those depending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.'"

"I have not heard from those people who have been called by God to protect the poor. I haven't heard them."  "The issues that are going to be discussed this weekend involve spiritual, moral issues."

So call your religious leaders and ask…  "what is Medicare all about? What is Medicaid all about? Why do we have taxes?'"

This, from one of the most corrupt immoral men in Washington; a tax cheat, a proven liar, racist, and thief. He takes money from the citizens of America and becomes fabulously wealthy by producing nothing but laws to benefit the political class and impoverish the rest of us.

To answer his question. Jesus is not concerned with government social programs, governmental fiscal debates, and debt ceilings.

Jesus was about our Salvation.  He’s about how our behavior and thoughts.  He said:
  1. Travel lightly;
  2. Live simply;
  3. Trust that the Lord would provide; and
  4. Be concerned, not about money, but with doing the Lord’s work.

Maybe if Charlie knew a little scripture he wouldn’t have asked such a stupid question. This question is vile too. It demeans the Sacrifice He made for our Salvation.

Really? Putting Jesus into a political debate?

Owe no one anything, except to love each other... - Romans 13:8
and… The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UksfV5V7R20&feature=player_embedded

Rocky Roberts "Sono Tremendo" (1968)


http://youtu.be/h3KbdEI2CEQ

More On The Ever So Civil Left

Many times previously I’ve posted the incivility and lies of the Left, that they claim they’re the peaceful ones and the Right are the violent ones. This campaign of lies took off in earnest with the shooting in Giffords in Arizona. Conservatives made him do it! Of course he was a nut, and had no political agenda. The blasted Sarah Palin for using the word “target” when mapping out areas where Democrats are weak and beatable. They of course say the Right should not use such violent imagery.

Since then the Left has offered up these little words and phrases when talking about the Right.

Left Wing radical and alleged journalist/writer: “I think they’re the suicide bombers in all of this,” about Republicans refusing to raise taxes.

Left Wing radical Barak Obama: Republicans are “putting a gun against the heads of the American people” for not supporting tax increases. Obama regularly uses the language of violence when talking about Republicans here.


We of course hear all about Right Wing Extremists blowing up and attacking abortion centers. Here's a "civil" and peaceful Leftist at an abortion center assaulting pro life supporters; not to be seen in the Jurassic Press at all.

http://youtu.be/O8CxUtAKnxk

Left Wing radical Chris Matthews: "Well, the GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government, willing to risk bringing down the whole country in the service of their anti-tax ideology."

Those Republican Terrorists

http://www.mrctv.org/video/103449

"Peace Out" He Sung to the Rhythms of His Machine Gun

"Peace activists" recently tried to recreate the original flotilla experience which ended violently. It was of course funded and executed by anti-Semite Leftists (but I repeat myself), and that they were stopped by Israelis was bemoaned by the Islamist supporter Barack Hussein Obama. The new venture was a ship named after his book The Audacity of Hope, and was funded by lots of American Leftists, as well as being participants. List of them here.  

Here's a great vid, from the satire group "Latma", "The Audacity of Dopes Band" singing "Guns Guns Guns".

http://youtu.be/Y5CsGViY5JQ

Little Brother and Sister Being Watched Over By Big Brother

We've got Michelle tellin' us we're all fat and to eat our veggies and stuff while Barry, she and the girls stuff their faces with dogs 'n burgers, fries 'n ice cream. Schools districts are making potatoes illegal. Control control control. 

Upping the ante is Colorado Department of Human Services. Some rules for day care centers include television and computer time limited to twenty minutes a day, if you want your kid (if over 2 yrs) to drink whole milk you have to get a doctor’s note, if your kid is over a year old they’re only allowed six ounces of juice per day, and now, winning the political correctness award for the day, is three dolls must be present, representing three races. How come only three?

These are just a very very few of the rules that come down from on high from the national guidelines for daycare, the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale. This latest installment of governmental overkill, control and political correctness has been under review for a couple years and is to be finalized by mid 2012.

Why do parents put up with this? Mostly they have to because having the State raise their kids is more convenient while they work, and have been conditioned to believe that both parents must work to survive. I had read a study of family budgets a while ago, and for most families, after day care is paid for, fuel for travel to and from work, auto maintenance, taxes and the rest, net income was about the same as having one parent work.

Thinking of Orwell, when kids report their parents for violating Big Brother’s rules, I suppose it would be easier for them if their attachment and love is weakened when they’re trained from the very beginning that the State is their real parents. Takes a village you know.  The progression of progressivism is to destroy the traditional foundations of successful society, dissemble the family and get rid of religion so the State can control all.. I’d say, with this kind of thing, the indications are progressivism is ever so close to ruling the day. 

Friday, July 8, 2011

Henry James’ Venice

~ “LETTERS FROM EUROPE” - by Rob (Wind Rose Hotel) ~


My summer readings’ list includes re-reading Henry James’ Italian Hours, published almost exactly one hundred years ago, in 1909. It’s a classic collection of essays, three of which are about Venice—James had visited Venice for short periods in 1869 and 1872 but his first extended stay in the city took place in 1881—and the novelist’s “special relationship” to this wonderful city. As his biographer Leon Edel has written, “Venice was one of the greatest topographical love affairs of James’s life.” Apart from his hints to the “misery” of Venetian people in those times—a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, though changes are not always for the best…—what he wrote is surprisingly topical, and amazingly true. Take this statement for instance:

Venetian life, in the large old sense, has long since come to an end, and the essential present character of the most melancholy of cities resides simply in its being the most beautiful of tombs. Nowhere else has the past been laid to rest with such tenderness, such a sadness of resignation and remembrance. [“The Grand Canal”]

However, if what he loves most about Italy, as he wrote in another essay in the same collection (“Florentine Notes” Part I), is “the faculty of making much of common things and converting small occasions into great pleasures,” this is true a fortiori in the case of Venice. And that seems to be the leitmotif of the essays on Venice. The following two excerpts are fairly representative of the whole:

[Venice] is a city in which, I suspect, there is very little strenuous thinking, and yet it is a city in which there must be almost as much happiness as misery. The misery of Venice stands there for all the world to see; it is part of the spectacle--a thoroughgoing devotee of local colour might consistently say it is part of the pleasure. The Venetian people have little to call their own--little more than the bare privilege of leading their lives in the most beautiful of towns. Their habitations are decayed; their taxes heavy; their pockets light; their opportunities few. One receives an impression, however, that life presents itself to them with attractions not accounted for in this meagre train of advantages, and that they are on better terms with it than many people who have made a better bargain. They lie in the sunshine; they dabble in the sea; they wear bright rags; they fall into attitudes and harmonies; they assist at an eternal conversazione. It is not easy to say that one would have them other than they are, and it certainly would make an immense difference should they be better fed. The number of persons in Venice who evidently never have enough to eat is painfully large; but it would be more painful if we did not equally perceive that the rich Venetian temperament may bloom upon a dog's allowance. Nature has been kind to it, and sunshine and leisure and conversation and beautiful views form the greater part of its sustenance. It takes a great deal to make a successful American, but to make a happy Venetian takes only a handful of quick sensibility. The Italian people have at once the good and the evil fortune to be conscious of few wants; so that if the civilisation of a society is measured by the number of its needs, as seems to be the common opinion to-day, it is to be feared that the children of the lagoon would make but a poor figure in a set of comparative tables. Not their misery, doubtless, but the way they elude their misery, is what pleases the sentimental tourist, who is gratified by the sight of a beautiful race that lives by the aid of its imagination. The way to enjoy Venice is to follow the example of these people and make the most of simple pleasures. Almost all the pleasures of the place are simple; this may be maintained even under the imputation of ingenious paradox. There is no simpler pleasure than looking at a fine Titian, unless it be looking at a fine Tintoret or strolling into St. Mark's,--abominable the way one falls into the habit,--and resting one's light-wearied eyes upon the windowless gloom; or than floating in a gondola or than hanging over a balcony or than taking one's coffee at Florian's. It is of such superficial pastimes that a Venetian day is composed, and the pleasure of the matter is in the emotions to which they minister. These are fortunately of the finest-- otherwise Venice would be insufferably dull. Reading Ruskin is good; reading the old records is perhaps better; but the best thing of all is simply staying on. The only way to care for Venice as she deserves it is to give her a chance to touch you often--to linger and remain and return. [“Venice” Part I]

There is something strange and fascinating in this mysterious impersonality of the gondola. It has an identity when you are in it, but, thanks to their all being of the same size, shape and colour, and of the same deportment and gait, it has none, or as little as possible, as you see it pass before you. From my windows on the Riva there was always the same silhouette--the long, black, slender skiff, lifting its head and throwing it back a little, moving yet seeming not to move, with the grotesquely- graceful figure on the poop. This figure inclines, as may be, more to the graceful or to the grotesque--standing in the "second position" of the dancing-master, but indulging from the waist upward in a freedom of movement which that functionary would deprecate. One may say as a general thing that there is something rather awkward in the movement even of the most graceful gondolier, and something graceful in the movement of the most awkward. In the graceful men of course the grace predominates, and nothing can be finer than the large, firm way in which, from their point of vantage, they throw themselves over their tremendous oar. It has the boldness of a plunging bird and the regularity of a pendulum. Sometimes, as you see this movement in profile, in a gondola that passes you--see, as you recline on your own low cushions, the arching body of the gondolier lifted up against the sky--it has a kind of nobleness which suggests an image on a Greek frieze. [“Venice” Part IV]

Amazing Child Singer: Brandon MacFarlane


http://youtu.be/BRt7zu61Ovk

Marco Rubio fm Senate Floor on Jobs and Debt

"Let’s stop talking about new taxes and start talking about new taxpayers, which means jobs. This debt is the No. 1 issue on everyone’s minds and rightfully so. It is a major issue, but everywhere else, in the real world, the No. 1 issue on people’s minds is jobs. And I tell you, every other problem facing America — a mortgage crisis, a home foreclosure crisis, this debt problem — all of these issues get easier to deal with if people are gainfully employed across America. And the impact that unemployment is having across this country is devastating. …

Our job here [in Congress] is to do everything we can to make it easier for them to find a job, not harder. And I think that’s what we have to do when it comes to ‘a balanced approach’ and when we talk about revenue. We don’t need new taxes, we need new taxpayers, people who are gainfully employed, making money, paying into the tax system and then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again. …

So you look at all these taxes that are being proposed and here’s what I say: I say we should analyze every single one of them through the lens of job creation, issue No. 1 in America. I want to know which one of these taxes they’re proposing will create jobs. I want to know how many jobs will be created by the planes tax. I want to know how many jobs will be created by the oil company tax that I’ve heard so much about. How many jobs are created by going after the millionaires and billionaires that the president talks about? I want to know! How many jobs do they create? …

I traveled the state of Florida for two years campaigning. I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business. I’ve never met a single job creator who has ever said to me I can’t wait ’til government raises taxes again so I can go out and create a job. I’m curious to know if they say that in New Hampshire because they don’t say that in Florida. So my view on all that is, I want to know how many of these tax increases the president proposes will create because if they’re not creating jobs and they’re not creating new taxpayers, they’re not solving the problem."

About 47% of the population do not pay income tax. Everyone should have skin in the game. Top 1% pay 38% of the taxes. How much more of their income can they pay to the 47%? 

Flashback


http://youtu.be/ELcgS9gTKhU

Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the health summit: "It's about jobs. In it's life, it [the health bill] will create 4 million jobs -- 400,000 jobs almost immediately."


Unemployment today at 9.2%    If you a add underemployed and those no longer looking for work, it's about a 17% unemployment rate.



Joe Biden in April 2010: "All in all we're going to be creating somewhere between 100[,000] and 200,000 jobs next month, I predict," "Even some in the White House said, 'Hey, don't get ahead of yourself.' Well, I'm here to tell you, some time in the next couple of months, we're going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month."

9.2% and still waiting.

About raising the debt ceiling. Leftists all for it now. In 2004 it was a horrible thing.

ANDREA MITCHELL: But what is looking over his shoulder is history. He wants a legacy. He wants to be able to do something about Social Security. He knows he's got to do something about deficit reduction. That is the big embarrassment for Republicans. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, what the Hill Republicans have done. They've been worse than Democrats.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: They just increased the debt ceiling.
MITCHELL: Exactly.
Now the Republicans don't want to raise the debt limit, they're "terroists".

http://www.mrctv.org/video/103449

Santelli on a Roll Again

The Dems did not pass a budget for two years as required by law when they controlled both houses of congress and the White House. They have only mocked and lied about the Republican budget, saying it will starve old people, children will die, blah blah blah. Actual proposed spending cuts in the Republican budget here. Now Obama and the Dems are claiming it's crunch time, and it's the Republicans fault. Dems say Repubs have to compromise by increasing the debt ceiling and raising taxes. They said that if Repubs do that then they'll agree to spending cuts. They say that they have $trillions of spending cuts in their budget, but one, on paper, has yet to be produced by them. They promised Reagan that, saying they would give $3 spending cuts for every $1 tax increase. It was the opposite. They did it to Bush One and forced him to go back on 'no new taxes' which ended his presidency and brought down the Republicans. Compromise to the Dems and Jurassic Press means that the Republicans cave to the Dems. Let's hope the Republicans don't fall for that again. Charlie Brown has to quit trusting Lucy to hold the football.  


STOP THE SPENDING!


Monday, July 4, 2011

Didn't Know That: Oikophobia

Powerful and clear summation how cultural Leftist elites have gotten and maintained power.

http://youtu.be/mqNVpACRLaI

Sunday, July 3, 2011

4th of July As a Religious Observance (repost fm last year)

Today is one of those July 4th's that happen on a Sunday. Despite protestations to the contrary from Secularists, this nation was founded on Judaic-Christian principles. Saying anything other than affirming this truth, makes them willfully ignorant or liars. Worshiping on this Sacred Day gives yet more meaning to our celebration of it.

I loved our Responsive Reading this morning:


Worship Leader: Many years ago the founder of our great nation gathered to initiate a new experiment in government.

Congregation: They were people of faith - faith in the providence of God and the competence of all citizens to manage their own destiny.

Worship Leader: They possessed a vision of a land where the human spirit, created free and owing ultimate allegiance only to the Creator, would be free to reach its highest potential.

Congregation: We are heirs of that faith and vision. We therefore come to worship this day asking God to continue to bless this land of ours, to keep watch over it and to protect it from the power s of tyranny and all that oppresses the human spirit.


Below is a rather long speech to read, but should be read by both Secular and Religious people. Secular people must be intellectually honest, and recognize that all they claim they believe in, the values, The Bill of Rights, the rule of law, the institutions of freedom, all have at their core, Judaic-Christian tradition. If there is no religious freedom, then there is no freedom, because there is nothing else to challenge the State.

On 23 August 1984, President Reagan spoke to an ecumenical prayer breakfast in Dallas, Texas.


Part 2





"I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the political life of our nation — and always has — and that the church — and by that I mean all churches, all denominations — has had a strong influence on the state. And this has worked to our benefit as a nation.

Those who created our country — the Founding Fathers and Mothers — understood that there is a divine order which transcends the human order. They saw the state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral order is religion.


The Mayflower Compact began with the words, “In the name of God, amen.” The Declaration of Independence appeals to “Nature’s God” and the “Creator” and “the Supreme Judge of the world.” Congress was given a chaplain, and the oaths of office are oaths before God.

James Madison in the Federalist Papers admitted that in the creation of our Republic he perceived the hand of the Almighty. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, warned that we must never forget the God from whom our blessings flowed.

George Washington referred to religion’s profound and unsurpassed place in the heart of our nation quite directly in his Farewell Address in 1796. Seven years earlier, France had erected a government that was intended to be purely secular. This new government would be grounded on reason rather than the law of God. By 1796 the French Revolution had known the Reign of Terror. . . .

In 1962 the Supreme Court in the New York prayer case banned the compulsory saying of prayers. In 1963 the Court banned the reading of the Bible in our public schools. From that point on, the courts pushed the meaning of the ruling ever outward, so that now our children are not allowed voluntary prayer. We even had to pass a law — we passed a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already enjoy with no opposition.

The 1962 decision opened the way to a flood of similar suits. Once religion had been made vulnerable, a series of assaults were made in one court after another, on one issue after another. Cases were started to argue against tax-exempt status for churches. Suits were brought to abolish the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and to remove “In God We Trust” from public documents and from our currency.

Today there are those who are fighting to make sure voluntary prayer is not returned to the classrooms. And the frustrating thing for the great majority of Americans who support and understand the special importance of religion in the national life — the frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and openmindedness. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? [Applause] They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.

If all the children of our country studied together all of the many religions in our country, wouldn’t they learn greater tolerance of each other’s beliefs? If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in common, and would this not, indeed, bring them closer, and is this not to be desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue may not be tolerant at all. . . .

There are, these days, many questions on which religious leaders are obliged to offer their moral and theological guidance, and such guidance is a good and necessary thing. To know how a church and its members feel on a public issue expands the parameters of debate. It does not narrow the debate; it expands it.

The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the citizens, the more decent the state. If you practice a religion, whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or guided by some other faith, then your private life will be influenced by a sense of moral obligation, and so, too, will your public life. One affects the other. The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims.

We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions. . . .

Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we’re mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."


The Church, The Unchurched, and Social Decline

There was a time, even within my lifetime, that churches played a central role connecting people, transmitting values, helping others. There was a time when the tallest buildings in towns were church spires; those have been replaced by banks and government buildings.

I’m wondering if there’s going to be, if it’s even possible, to have another “great awakening” like we did in the 18th and 19th and 20th centuries, where the church and God was the centerpiece of our activities and thoughts. Governments now keep trying to tax churches, which is the best way to run them out of business or at least control them. Nevermind all the charity work, feeding the poor, taking care of the sick and prisoners, tending the dying and providing comfort to families that have lost loved ones, and burying the dead. All these take time and money. All these are ignored by government and secular cultural elites. They want more money to enrich and empower themselves and their contributors, and put the church out of business. Government cannot be fully in control if people put God first.

A side effect of this breakdown of the church in our culture is the wisdom, teaching of humility, patience, our religious history and its effects on what we consider most important, and generational segregation.

When I was growing up, we knew all the moms and dads, grandpas and grandmas, even great-grandmas and grandpas. We knew their music, their history, and their beliefs. We felt their love. We experienced and watched their actions, and knew to emulate them to become good adults.

Now when I talk to twenty-something’s, even thirty-something’s, they view anything outside their own time cocoon as ancient and not important. They don’t see any value in the values of anyone older than them. They have no sense of history. Nothing is being transmitted, and all cultural, political, and social continuity is being lost. Generational segregation like this can’t be a good thing. It’s even being reflected in the church.

Some churches are getting rid of traditional services and replacing them with youthful praise services. Mostly, older congregants don’t attend these, and vice versa. There is less and less a mix of generations. The irony is in a society of ever increasing ‘social media’ (Facebook, etc.) people are actually communicating less. People only select out people to ‘friend’ only like minded and like aged others.

I think I’m lamenting here the breakdown and even rejection of the spiritual and moral teaching and guidance of the church. It’s disconcerting the unchurched have moved from understanding the importance of the church’s contributions to being hostile; a hostility born out of lies and no understanding of the great teachings of religious leaders. It lends itself to anti-Semitism and anti-Christian bigotry, intolerance and hate.

C S Lewis, in his book The Great Divorce, describes Hell as a place where everyone can go anywhere, anytime. There doesn’t have to be getting along with any friends or neighbors or relatives. Don’t like what’s going on, move away. After awhile, everyone one there has moved away from everyone else. Really this is self imposed solitary confinement. In the religious community Hell is viewed simply as being denied, being separated, from God. Lewis points out it’s being separated from each other too. Now we’ve emerged as a society that we can move away by “unfriending”, and segregate others not of our age and belief system. Even in church.  


What he says is the government should live within its means and reduce spending.

http://youtu.be/V1fA9-SryzY

What he's done and will continue doing. He's been absent most of the budget talks. After excoriating Congress last week for not working hard enough, he went to a fund raiser. Since taking office he's played 76 rounds of golf, taken 48 days of vacation, and held 149 fundraisers. Bush quit playing golf in 2003 saying,  "I don't want to some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf... And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal." He was mocked at the time for being shallow. 'That's a sacrifice?' kind of response. Bush also spent time working at his working ranch and was mocked for that. Bush was a RINO, but at least he was engaged, and didn't say one thing and do another. Of course all this is still Bush's fault, two and a half years into the Obama regime.

After saying we need to cut spending etc., here's what we've got.



Our debt at this pace will soon exceed the value of all US assets and GDP.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Glass and the Future

An incredible vision

http://youtu.be/6Cf7IL_eZ38