Current Event Ramblings, June 18

Not a lot to ramble about lately, or at least nothing that's interested me much.  A bit on the BP oil spill.

I just want to remind my readers that Obama LOVES this thing, and the longer it goes on, the better he perceives it.  He's hoping to blacken big oil so bad as to get Congress to pass his cap-and-trade legislation.  He knows he needs to get that done before November, because the Democrats are going to take a beating then and he won't get much of substance passed after that.  I don't expect the Republicans to win either house of Congress, but they'll make major gains.  Unlike some "conservatives," I tend to think this is an anti-incumbent, "throw all the bums" out mood in the country, not just anti-Democratic party.  But they'll suffer the most, obviously, because they control the White House and both houses of Congress.  Look for a major push on cap-and-trade before the summer is out.  The Dems will have to do it by September, because Congress will go into campaign mode after that.

The fact that Obama is taking a hit in the polls over the BP oil spill is no big deal to him.  He knows how short the public's memory is, especially when the major media, in order to defend him, will drop the whole thing after the leak is sealed and the spilled cleaned up (how much have you heard from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. about the health care bill lately?).  This isn't Bush and Katrina; the media wasn't about to let us forget that, but they won't do that to Obama.

Does anybody in America know what the World Cup is?  Does anybody care?  Quick--name me one person on the U.S. team.  Or is it just me that believes that that sport is just a brawl in the stands where a soccer game breaks out?

Current Event Ramblings, June 9

As noted on my last "Ramblings," I didn't think I'd get much posting done for the next few days, but things worked out to where I got a lot of blogs written today.  Check "Mark's Bible Blog" for all the different posts.  Should keep you busy reading for awhile.  Haven't had a chance to change the "Quote of the Day" for a few days, but I think I'll leave that one up there for awhile.  It's a classic.

My good buddy, Gary, sent me an email a little while ago which I forwarded on to a lot of you.  It was incredible.  It contained five pictures, each of the last five Presidents at a press conference--Obama, Bush, jr., Clinton, Bush, sr., and Reagan.  In each picture of the previous four presidents, the American flag can be seen in the background.  In Obama's picture--no American flag.  It is utterly impossible to believe that was by accident, though if anyone calls their hand on it, I'm sure that's what they'd say.  Even I was shocked--for a moment.  It didn't take me long to remember, however, that Barack Obama hates this country and everything it has stood for.  He wants to "change" it, and that probably means the flag, too.

Benjamin Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, says that the economic "recovery" is widening.  The Dow shot up initially today, but then investors realized who was speaking and so selling began and the Dow closed down about 40 points and remains under 10,000.  Don't believe anything Bernanke says, folks.  The Federal Reserve is one of the major causes of the current economic crisis, and as long as Bernanke keeps up his inflationary policy, the American economy will struggle.  You simply cannot print and spend your way to ultimate prosperity.  It's like giving someone a credit card, and when they've maxed that out buying stuff, give them another one.  And another one. And another one. Oh, yes, they'll end up with a lot of items, but someday those creditors are going to want their money back.  And that's what America will some day face.  What will we do?  I don't know.  Declare bankruptcy?  Nobody will loan us money any more.  And that might not be a bad thing.  Living within our means is a novel concept to politicians.  And to the people whose votes they buy. Both of them, for the survival of the country, are going to have to do it.  But that will also mean abolishing the Fed, whose chairmans apparently know no policy except artificially low interest rates and printing greenbacks--both of which are horribly destructive to an economy.

Incidentally, I agree with Helen Thomas.  If the Jews would get out of Palestine, land that they've been stealing for the last 60 years, and go back to where they came from--Poland, Germany (Hitler's dead, folks), Russia (so is Stalin), the USA, Mexico--wait a minute, Mexico probably wouldn't let them in...shucks, they could come to America illegally and get free everything....anyway, if the Jews would get out of Palestine, that would solve about 90% of the Middle East's problem.  At least, as far as the US is concerned.  There will always be problems over there; as long as there are 2 Arabs in the world, they are going to fight.  They've been doing it for thousands of years, and they'll keep doing it until the Lord comes back.  That's why I'm not terribly concerned about Islam, though we certainly need to keep an eye on them and our nukes primed.  Islam is almost as divided as Christianity and they fight about it--each other.  But there would be no reason for us to stick our noses in it.

Especially, if we'd send Obama and all the environmental wackos to...Palestine?...so that we could drill for oil here.  As soon as we become energy independent, we won't need to bother with the Middle East any more.  Let bin Laden and Ahmadinejad fight it out amongs themselves.  And may the worse man win.

Current Event Ramblings, June 7

     I'm going to be traveling for the next few days, so if I don't get a whole lot of posting done, that will be the reason.  There's not much new on the world scene at the moment anyway, except for Urine Van Der Snot, or whatever his name is.  Can't figure that one out.  Guy kills 2 women in 2-3 years and it's headline news for days.  We've got people in America that kill that many every day.  But the Van Der Sloot story is a pretty good indication of how dry things are, news-wise, now.  Everybody is tired of the oil spill, and people are SURE tired of seeing Barack Obama's face on TV.  I was tired of in January 21 of last year.

     Keep checking back.  I'll post when I can.

Current Event Ramblings, June 3

     That mess over Israel and Hamas and that ship approaching Gaza is still hot stuff today.  I have some views on the subject that no conservatives seem to agree with, but that's neither here nor there.  If you're interested in a Biblical perspective, go to "Mark's Bible Blog" and read the article on Israel that I posted today.

      Should there be instant replay in baseball, covering more than just home runs?  I really have no strong views about it; I can see it both ways.  An unlucky pitcher last night lost a perfect game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning when an umpire blew a call--and later admitted he did.  That's a tough one, because that poor pitcher will probably never come close to pitching a perfect game again; not that he's a bad pitcher, but a perfect game has only been done 20 times in all of baseball history (though, curiously, it's been done twice so far this season).  I don't know about instant replay, but I do know that that pitcher, Armando Galarraga, has an awful lot of class.  Today, before his team's game, he took the lineup card out to home plate, shook hands with the offending umpire, and patted him on the shoulder.  Now, that's class, and you gotta respect and admire a man that will do that.  If only sports had more people like him, instead of the whiners, punks, druggies, and babies that populate most of today's professional sports.

     I'm in Oklahoma at the moment, and my good buddy, George, and I were talking politics today.  "Oklahoma has done everything it can to stop this mess," he said to me.  "We've got 2 Republican Senators, nothing but Republicans in the House, and every single county went Republican in the 2008 presidential election.  What else can we do?"
     Secede?
     When more Americans finally wake up and realize what this country was founded to be--a confederation of sovereign states that gave very limited power to the entity it created--the federal government--then we might have a chance to restore the United States to greatness.  Without Abraham Lincoln, Oklahoma might very possibly be the best state in the country to live in.  But Lincoln destroyed what the founders created and he put in place an all-powerful federal government that can no longer be controlled by the states.  I'll hammer that point till I die.  I've made a few converts along the way.
     George, methinks you are not far from the kingdom of God....

Current Event Ramblings, June 2

Not a lot worthy of comment lately, but here's a little bit.

Al and Tipper Gore are getting a divorce.  Bummer.  I don't like Al Gore's politics, but I don't like to see anybody get a divorce.  The breakdown of the family is probably the number one cause of collapse in this country.

I can solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem--and most terrorism--in a heartbeat.  All that needs to happen is for Israel to give the land back they've stolen from the Palestinians over the last 60 years--and pull out.  That would solve the problem immediately.  Not going to happen, of course, any more than the United States is going to give land back to the Indians and Mexico that we stole from them in the 19th century (however, it looks like Mexico is about to steal it back).  "Might makes right" in historical politics.

They are saying now that the BP oil spill might go on until August, and if the currents hit just right, the oil might sweep up the east coast.  Obama, wrongfully, will get much of the blame, except he's now taking much of the responsibility for doing something about it.  But then, he doesn't know the purpose of government, either.  Read my earlier post on the inability of the federal government to handle such matters.  I won't repeat my comments here.

"Shouldn't the federal government at least regulate the building of oil rigs, pipelines, etc. to make sure this sort of thing never happens?"  For the most part, no.  All the government (and this is mostly a state matter) should do is pass stringent liability laws--you hurt somebody, you're going to pay, big time.  Other companies will get the message, and if they don't, then they can pay super-fines for disasters as well.  We don't need bureaucrats telling private business how to build its buildings, etc.  Just fry them if they cause damage to people or property.  Companies will then set proper buiding codes themselves.  Make this oil spill so financially painful for BP that they'll make sure, as best as humans can, that another one never occurs.  Or, better yet, totally ban them from the country.  "If you can't do business in this country without destroying lives and property, then you aren't going to do business here, period.  You want access to our markets, make sure you don't damage people and property."  That would rattle a few cages.  Accidents can happen.  Negligence and incompetence should be severely punished.

But, government regulation?  Remember, folks, it was the Army Corps of Engineers that build the dikes that busted that created the flooding and catastrophe after hurricane Katrina.  Do we really want people like that overseeing building projects?  "Negligence" and "incompetence" are two very good words describing most government agencies.

Oh, and somebody else to fry:  the wacko environmentalists who demand that oil rigs be built so far from land that disasters like this truly become disasters.

Current Event Ramblings, May 27

Obama is not going to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, which is a tradition for Presidents.  Not surprisingly, many in the military are irked by the shunning.  Instead, he is going to the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery outside Chicago.  Vice-President Biden is going to Arlington.  It's not surprising Obama is skipping Arlington.  He hates the U.S. military; all liberals do.  It's been one of the major tools of American "oppression" throughout the world.  Obama fancies himself another Abraham Lincoln so he'd rather show up there, I guess.  He isn't winning any more friends in the American military by doing this.  He doesn't have very many to begin with.

A Zogby poll which came out yesterday indicates that only 16% of Americans approve of the way Obama has handled the BP oil spill.  I don't approve, either, but if you'll read my "Ramble" of a couple days ago, you'll find out one reason why he's been so incompetent in the matter.  It's not really his fault.  He is simply at the head of a machine that is inherently incapable of handling such matters effectively.  But, again, I've heard no one--outside this blog, though I haven't read every blog, of course--mention that the Constitution nowhere gives the federal government the right to intervene in disasters, natural or man-made.  Conservatives are too happy with the government's incompetence to ask the question.  Yet, they'll screech about "limited Constitutional" government.  Methinks most conservatives have never read the Constitution, either.

While BP is given much of the blame for the oil spill, a huge portion of culpability also resides in the federal government for allowing wacko environmentalists to dictate environment policy.  That oil spill begins 5,000 feet under the sea, which is why it has been almost impossible to cap it.  But the fruitcake environmentalists won't let us drill on dry land or close to the coast where such disasters could be minimized.  And, again, the liberals in Congress, who are in the lap of the leftist enviornmentalists, have much to answer for in this matter.  Don't expect CNN to mention that.

In 1887, President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill that would have provided money for drought-stricken farmers in Texas.  He said, "I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit...The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune.  This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated.  Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood."

Grover Cleveland is one of my favorite Presidents.  Abraham Lincoln, to whose cemetery Obama is going on Memorial Day, is my least favorite and our worst President.  If somebody had buried him four years earlier, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today.  Lincoln is the reason we have Obama, and I don't mean because of the ending of slavery.  I mean that it was Lincoln who gave the federal government sovereignty over the states (something the Founders did NOT do), and left the states with no way to control the entity (the national government) which they created.  When the feds run roughshod over the states nowadays, what can the latter do?  The South tried to prevent that, and Lincoln killed and wounded 1,000,000 Americans to stop them.  The South was right, folks.  Slavery was dying anyway, but the federal government is alive and well, thank you, and about the destroy this country. 

If Not For Slavery...

Here's an excellent article by Pat Buchanan.  It's about time somebody said all this.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation.. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.... This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.  ["Reverend" Jeremiah] Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks--with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas--to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances.

Where is the gratitude??

Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona. And Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids. Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

Current Event Ramblings, May 26

Did the Obama administration offer Joe Sestak a job not to run against Arlen Specter in the recent Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary?  Probably.  He said they did, and he has no reason to lie about it.  If the Obama people did offer Sestak a job, it's a criminal offense.  Obama certainly would have known about it, but rumors are floating that he may throw Rahm Emanuel under the bus to save his own hide.  The story will get hot, however, only if the liberal media smells some Pulitzers in it, so don't expect much action on the matter.  Democrats will certainly rally around their Messiah.

The BP oil spill. Even the liberal press is beginning to question the Obama administration's incompetence in the matter.  Nobody, of course, is pointing out that the Constitution nowhere gives the federal government the right or authority to intervene in such disasters.  Our Founders knew that such was not the purpose or nature of government and that, if such involvement took place, government would only screw things up and almost assuredly make things worse.  You don't break eggs with a sledge hammer, folks, that's not what its for.  And you don't use the federal government to solve catastrophes.  Government is the nationalization of force, and force is not benevolence or repair.  The only thing government can do in this situation is tell BP they will blow up the oil company if they don't get the leak fixed--and government could do that very well, because the one thing government is VERY good at is destroying things (people, economies, countries, etc.).  Don't criticize Obama for something government isn't given the authority to do (in our Constitution) and is constitutionally incapable of doing.  We should have learned that lesson with Katrina (government caused the disaster in the first place), but very few people ever learn anything from history.

The Houston Astros are in last place and have the worst record in the National League.  I'm probably the only person who cares.  I don't even think the players do.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure I do, either.

Current Event Ramblings, May 25

I haven't done a lot on this blog recently, mainly because I've been working mostly on my Bible blogs.  But this is, by far, my most popular blog (check the numbers at the bottom), so I reckon I'll bless my readers with more of my wisdom and less of others.

A few thoughts on today's news:

--The Dow is down (as I write this) by almost 120 points, below 10,000.  This is either a correction to a too-rapid rise over the past year or so, or more than likely, fear that the failed socialist economies of Europe might drag the U.S. down with them, especially if Obama and Congress keep spending like a drunken sailor.  This spending, folks, is NOT by accident; it is completely deliberate and designed to destroy the American capitalistic economy so that we'll have to turn to government for our salvation.  It's what Obama, Pelosi, et al believe, and they are doing it on purpose.

--Report is that Obama is going to send 1,200 troops to the border.  Finally he does something the Constitution authorizes him to do.

--North Korea and South Korea are threatening to go to war.  Won't happen.  We won't let it.  We'll kiss North Korea's feet and tell the southerners to cool it.  Some day, the South Koreans are liable to tell us to go fly a kite and decide to try to unite their country by themselves.  I wonder if anybody will care.

--Oops, Dow just shot up to over 10,000.  Maybe I ought to wait till it closes before I write this.  Well, you can check it out yourself.  The Euro is dropping again, Newsweek said we did a good thing in bailing out Greece (I mean, we've got all kinds of money to waste, don't we), and apparently Obama is going to let the queers take over the military.  What a country.  And before I finished this paragraph, the Dow dropped under 10,000 again.  This yo-yo act is not good...

This Isn't Difficult To Understand

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."


Theodore Roosevelt 1907