Muslims in America.......

How could I not publish THIS INFORMATION?    Do I believe most of it? ...maybe not.  Do I want to?  You bet.  This sentence in the article popped at out me:

"Forty-eight percent of Muslims Americans said that they don’t believe that American Muslim leaders in the U.S. have done enough to speak out against Islamic extremists."  (Z: where are the other 52%?)

Get a load of this:  "Sixty-six percent of Muslims Americans said that the quality of life in America is better than the quality of life in most Muslim countries, with only 8 percent indicating it is worse."   (Z:  ya THINK?! Look at the image...)

Then there is this:

"While 49 percent of Muslim Americans said that either negative views about Muslims or discrimination were the greatest problem facing them in America, 80 percent of respondents said the American public at large was either friendly toward Muslim Americans or neutral."

Well, there goes the leftwinger rant that Americans (on the Right, of course) HATE and behave badly toward all Muslims.   Gad, shine some light on the truth and all kinds of things get straightened out, huh?
  
So, what do you think?  There are many stats in the polls mentioned in the article......do you disagree with some or think they're truthful, or..........?    Let us know!
By the way, I thought it slightly odd that Yahoo ran this article under a column entitled 9/11 REMEMBERED....know what I mean?
z

Holder : GIVE ME A CAPTION :-)

PLEASE check out THIS BLOG: Sam from Praesidium Respublicae has opened up a truth that's very hard to read.  You'll be shocked, but you will finally be well informed.  "Operation Fast and Furious" has become "Operation False and Spurious"..........awful.
God help America..  I wonder when the media will expose this, too.

And, I wonder if you've got a caption for me in Comments...for that picture of Holder?  Thanks!
Z

Democrat Media COMPLEX? Fakery? (you bet)

HERE is an excellent article about the Democrat Media Complex........if you're as interested as I am in the lies and distortions and even faking the news by the Leftwing media, please read this really good piece by Joe Newby of the Spokane Conservative Examiner.

A note to my leftwing commenters:  Check the information out before dismissing this.   HERE is only one link proving that the points are correct.  I did the homework.  Enjoy. 
By the way...this post dovetails with the one below........take a look;  pretty amazing media fakery there, too.

(thanks, Imp)
z

The media is starting to actually SCARE ME now

A little history before I get to the scary part of this story:  I sent a link to our friend and fellow blogger Mustang Monday morning.   My commentary to Mustang on it was about how Yahoo had misleadingly featured a headline that read simply "Michelle Bachmann : Hurricane is God's message to politicians"  Obviously,  the headline made her look like a total nut.  When you clicked on that headline link, you found THIS ARTICLE with the text of what she said and a very different story.  In that article, there was embedded a video from CNN.  Believe it or not, the CNN news readers were actually (gasp) on Bachmann's side.  They admitted that "to read what she said came off very differently than how it sounded when you watched the video of her saying it, you can see she's joking!"...one CNN woman even added "...and, really, didn't some of us also jokingly think the same thing about God causing this stuff?"  I was pleasantly surprised at the fair handling of Bachmann by the CNN people.

Here is the unnerving part:.  Later in the afternoon, I saw the headline again..  I clicked on it again in the hopes of blogging this to show you all exactly how misleading that abbreviated headline was, that I thought it was done purposefully, and how pleased I was with the CNN video embedded in the article.  That's when I found out that  THE VIDEO HAD BEEN REPLACED BY ONE FROM MSNBC (click on underlined words) UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY MOCKING BACHMAN.  CNN's video, in that very SAME ARTICLE,  same site, etc., was GONE.  No more truthful, sane surmisal about Bachmann's words.........it was all back, basically, to "WHAT A NUT!"

The disappointing thing is I'd hoped YouTube might still have CNN's coverage of it, the good, honest coverage but it's not at YouTube.  I'd have loved to have shown you the difference.

Should anybody be truly 'scared' of the media these days?  We all know there's misinformation and insult to the Right in the mainstream media.....but to CHANGE A VIDEO from complimentary to terribly misleading and condemnatory?    The article is under THE TICKET, and I see it is a Yahoo imprint...so this was Yahoo's doing.   So, what do we do....sit around and hope this changes.......that we get a country back which doesn't have a dishonest media?

Media: TELL THE TRUTH.  STOP the misleading in the mainstream media........this is ridiculous.

z

Sunday Faith Blog

I have a very dear friend named Nancy.  Her 98 year old husband died Friday night.  They would have been married 69 years in February.   They were very much in love all these years and, as with any marriage, there were difficulties; theirs included the death of two children.  They enjoyed the beach and they traveled and adore their family. Through losing children and other rather tough times, Nancy remained steadfast in her loyalty and affection and I believe her deep faith and reliance on God, through which her husband also became stronger in his faith, is what kept her so loving and true in spite of the difficulties.  I believe their last 25 years together were the best.  And now he's gone.

Please pray for Nancy.  She has told me a lot about their 68 years; the happy times and tough times.  Just know that faith can move mountains and it can change people and it can keep a marriage together.   I hope and pray this helps someone reading about Nancy now.  I know she'd like that, too.


¹⁰A wife of noble character who can find?
   She is worth far more than rubies.
¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her
   and lacks nothing of value.
¹² She brings him good, not harm,
   all the days of her life.......Proverbs 31

That was my friend Nancy.

Please do say a prayer for her today, and for her family.......thanks so much.
Z

Bookish...................are you?

I thought I'd take a turn away from politics and culture and do a post like I used to do quite a lot:

BOOKS:  The President, on vacation, bought two books for himself: “The Bayou Trilogy,” a collection by Daniel Woodrell, and “Rodin's Debutante” by Ward Just.   With him, he brought three books: “Cutting for Stone,” a novel by Abraham Verghese; “To the End of the Land,” a novel by David Grossman; and “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which was described as the "epic" story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson.    I heard a Republican pundit criticize Obama for reading crime stories and other novels.  I figure vacations are vacations and that's when we ought to be reading fiction for a change, don't you?

Have you read any of the books he read?  If so, how'd you like it?  But, most importantly:

WHAT ARE YOU READING NOW?   Do you keep one book going at a time, or do you read two or three at the same time?  (so to speak)

I'm reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.. the Lutheran Pastor who stood up to the NAZIs and lost his life for it, as so many Germans did at the time.  I highly recommend it, especially for the amazing accounting of the times before and during WWII.   I also am surprised to have got caught up in a book called Michael Vey  The Prisoner of Cell 25 (a friend had bought 2 copies and they arrived when I was at her home and she said "Here, you read this copy!" and here I am reading it)   And, I'm also enjoying The Gospel According to Coco Chanel, a charming book about Chanel, France and fashion.    (but, there's NOTHING like a Martha Grimes murder mystery....sadly, I've read them ALL :-(  )

So, how about you?  Thanks!

By the way...today would have been Mr. Z's birthday.......if you have the time, please read THIS, in his honor!  Thanks.
Z

Hurricane Irene

To our East Coast friends.......hang in there, we're praying for you and we hope you and your families and friends come out just fine.   Let us know.  If you've been advised to evacuate, I hope you do.....don't take chances.....God bless you all.

z

Military "Buildup".....

 










We are being warned about the build-up of China's amazing military......

Meanwhile, our Marines are being warned about a private "buil-up"..they're being told that they can't FART, you should pardon the expression (I hate that word) used in THIS article............

I don't know...the juxtaposition of these two articles got me to thinking.......and the thoughts aren't inspiring.......Would China actually tell their soldiers anything like this to please their enemies? Can American soldiers ever do enough to appease their enemies?  GeeeeZ

z

A Puppet we can believe in?

I've rarely seen this much in one article which so well encapsulates all that we bloggers have TRIED to get Americans to wake up to, so I had to post it here:  Please, if you have the guts, send it to people still believing in the "dummy"(and I use this term because of the terminology in the article) and still not at least wondering who his "ventriloquist" is.  Thanks.

This is an article which has different attributions, so I hesitate to credit one or the other, but it looks like someone named Alan Caruba from THIS BLOG did write it.  Whoever wrote it deserves credit:

"I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he's led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group (George Soros anybody?) took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? "Dreams of My Father" was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The "Audacity of Hope" followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a "communist with a small 'c'" was the real author.

 

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial.. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley's formidable political machine at his disposal.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital.. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed "cool" in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole; and then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska . It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984's Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat.

The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.

Now, nearly a full 2 years into his first term, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.

Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to "wish away" some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain ..

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign "world tour" were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.

Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party's hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.

Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an "obstreperous" Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against "jumping to conclusions" about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted "Allahu Akbar." The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber "an isolated extremist" only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.

He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

 

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.

Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual's life.

When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.

We laugh at the ventriloquist's dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America ?

Z:  And, believe me, it gives me NO pleasure to feature an article which uses the term 'dummy' for a president of these United States.     But, so many questions..

z

"Cash Under The Mattress"

Dear friends of mine, Sally and Philip, have written a book called "Cash Under The Mattress".........Please check it out HERE!    Amazon.com says this about it:

Yes, you can be prepared to handle potential disasters for yourself, your kids, and your aging parents.

• Your vital records in one "Grab and Run" book.
• Easy fill-in checklists including:
• Who to Call
• Care for Your Pets
• Where's Your "Stuff"?
• Funeral Checklist
• Medical / Long Term Care
• Gifts and Heirlooms
• Save time in an emergency when minutes count.
• Learn ways to dispense of family heirlooms.
• Learn ways to avoid inheritance conflicts.
• Write down the wishes of your aging parents while you still can.
• Gain the positive feelings that come from knowing you have handled unavoidable issues in a straightforward manner.

I think it's a fabulous Christmas present......STOCK UP!   Everyone needs a place to write in all the important things about heirlooms, last wishes, information from aging parents about how they'd like their estates or last days handled, etc, etc.    Please check it out and consider buying some.   I really think it's a grand idea. 
My friends have gone through loss and I believe they experienced the reality that they were not quite as prepared as they'd thought;  it's an important subject and one we should all consider.........all wrapped up in one book of great suggestions, etc.

Put your CASH under your MATTRESS into something that'll make your life easier in difficult times!

Thanks!
z

OBAMA: absolutely NOTHING HAPPENED......

This is long but EXCELLENT;
What Happened to Obama? 
Absolutely Nothing.
He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president.

By NORMAN PODHORETZ   
WSJ August 13, 2011

It's open season on President Obama. Which is to say that the usual suspects on the right (among whom I include myself) are increasingly being joined in attacking him by erstwhile worshipers on the left. Even before the S&P downgrade, there were reports of Democrats lamenting that Hillary Clinton had lost to him in 2008. Some were comparing him not, as most of them originally had, to Lincoln and Roosevelt but to the hapless Jimmy Carter. There was even talk of finding a candidate to stage a primary run against him. But since the downgrade, more and more liberal pundits have been deserting what they clearly fear is a sinking ship.

Here, for example, from the Washington Post, is Richard Cohen: "He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is." More amazingly yet Mr. Cohen goes on to say of Mr. Obama, who not long ago was almost universally hailed as the greatest orator since Pericles, that he lacks even "the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians." And to compound the amazement, Mr. Cohen tells us that he cannot even "recall a soaring passage from a speech."

Overseas it is the same refrain. Everywhere in the world, we read in Germany's Der Spiegel, not only are the hopes ignited by Mr. Obama being dashed, but his "weakness is a problem for the entire global economy."
In short, the spell that Mr. Obama once cast—a spell so powerful that instead of ridiculing him when he boasted that he would cause "the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal," all of liberaldom fell into a delirious swoon—has now been broken by its traumatic realization that he is neither the "god" Newsweek in all seriousness declared him to be nor even a messianic deliverer.

Hence the question on every lip is—as the title of a much quoted article in the New York Times by Drew Westen of Emory University puts it— "What Happened to Obama?" Attacking from the left, Mr. Westin charges that President Obama has been conciliatory when he should have been aggressively pounding away at all the evildoers on the right.
Of course, unlike Mr. Westen, we villainous conservatives do not see Mr. Obama as conciliatory or as "a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election." On the contrary, we see him as a president who knows all too well what he believes. Furthermore, what Mr. Westen regards as an opportunistic appeal to the center we interpret as a tactic calculated to obfuscate his unshakable strategic objective, which is to turn this country into a European-style social democracy while diminishing the leading role it has played in the world since the end of World War II. The Democrats have persistently denied that these are Mr. Obama's goals, but they have only been able to do so by ignoring or dismissing what Mr. Obama himself, in a rare moment of candor, promised at the tail end of his run for the presidency: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."

This statement, coming on top of his association with radicals like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi, definitively revealed to all who were not wilfully blinding themselves that Mr. Obama was a genuine product of the political culture that had its birth among a marginal group of leftists in the early 1960s and that by the end of the decade had spread metastatically to the universities, the mainstream media, the mainline churches, and the entertainment industry. Like their communist ancestors of the 1930s, the leftist radicals of the '60s were convinced that the United States was so rotten that only a revolution could save it.
But whereas the communists had in their delusional vision of the Soviet Union a model of the kind of society that would replace the one they were bent on destroying, the new leftists only knew what they were against: America, or Amerika as they spelled it to suggest its kinship to Nazi Germany. Thanks, however, to the unmasking of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian nightmare, they did not know what they were for. Yet once they had pulled off the incredible feat of taking over the Democratic Party behind the presidential candidacy of George McGovern in 1972, they dropped the vain hope of a revolution, and in the social-democratic system most fully developed in Sweden they found an alternative to American capitalism that had a realistic possibility of being achieved through gradual political reform.
Despite Mr. McGovern's defeat by Richard Nixon in a landslide, the leftists remained a powerful force within the Democratic Party, but for the next three decades the electoral exigencies within which they had chosen to operate prevented them from getting their own man nominated. Thus, not one of the six Democratic presidential candidates who followed Mr. McGovern came out of the party's left wing, and when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (the only two of the six who won) tried each in his own way to govern in its spirit, their policies were rejected by the American immune system. It was only with the advent of Barack Obama that the leftists at long last succeeded in nominating one of their own.

To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

And so it came about that a faithful scion of the political culture of the '60s left is now sitting in the White House and doing everything in his power to effect the fundamental transformation of America to which that culture was dedicated and to which he has pledged his own personal allegiance.
I disagree with those of my fellow conservatives who maintain that Mr. Obama is indifferent to "the best interests of the United States" (Thomas Sowell) and is "purposely" out to harm America (Rush Limbaugh). In my opinion, he imagines that he is helping America to repent of its many sins and to become a different and better country. 

But I emphatically agree with Messrs. Limbaugh and Sowell about this president's attitude toward America as it exists and as the Founding Fathers intended it. That is why my own answer to the question, "What Happened to Obama?" is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind.

Do you agree? Z
Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary from 1960 to 1995. His most recent book is "Why Are Jews Liberals?" (Doubleday, 2009).

This one just cracked me up!

Give the image a click if you can't read it easily........:-)

Earthquake

Did any of my East Coast readers feel the quake?
You all okay?  Blessings to you.
AOW....how are you two?
z

Obama's WAR ON FOOD

Here's a president who doesn't like the term WAR ON TERROR, something to really worry about, but he'll back a WAR ON FOOD, as headline in the following underlined link suggests; a war against US.   THIS is a rather perfect example of the sneaky freedom-snatching ways of the Left.  WHAT CHILDREN EAT should not be a GOVERNMENT DECISION.   PARENTS make those decisions.  And LEAVE MY GIRL SCOUT COOKIES ALONE!

Remember when McDonald's had to acquiesce to giving APPLES in Happy Meals?  The threat was "no apples, no toys can be given away" if they didn't.  Have you any idea how many perfectly good apples will be thrown in the trash when they start this practice?  Have you ever heard a kid say "Mommy!  I just have to have an APPLE!" as they drive into McDonald's, or EVER, for that matter?

But, you see, the sneaky part is that the Left can say "Really....?   You don't WANT your children to be HEALTHY?  WHY NOT?"  ("Really, you don't want abortion on demand? You don't care about a woman's 'right to her own body'?"   "Really?  You don't want 'undocumented workers' coming into America, are you RACIST?"   "Really?  You don't believe gays should marry, are you a HOMOPHOBE?"     REALLY?   REALLY?)


EDUCATE the parents and the children.  EDUCATE them, give them choices.  Put an apple in their lunch they take to school but let them have a small burger and fries once in a while!  I stood up here at geeeZ for Michelle Obama when we all heard she'd had a cheeseburger and fries in a place that has particularly good ones.  I got creamed by my rightwing friends who thought she was hypocritical, but her eating a hamburger wouldn't have been like if Nancy Reagan had done CRACK when she pushed  "Just say no" to drugs!    It's a BURGER!  This is a normal woman of normal weight and normal health just wanting a delicious cheeseburger ONCE IN A WHILE...what's the big problem?  I eat very healthily but, I have to say, once in a while my car just drives itself to KFC or Carl's Jr or I find myself ordering macaroni and cheese in a favorite spot for it.   It's not ME, it's the car, it's my cravings :-)  (that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!)  I know better; but I'm HUMAN.

STOP taking away our freedoms, please.  Obesity's apparently on the rise, young children are getting diabetes, nobody wants that, but EDUCATE THE PARENTS......most parents know what's good for their children, anyway.  If your kid's fat, have them eat better, take him for a walk, but let US have the option of treating normal children to something delicious and supposedly so bad for them just once in a while, OKAY?   And please don't start counting how many times I slip up....that'll be the next thing; wait for it.


z

Illegals: An opinion regarding how to solve the problem

Below is a fascinating comment by Bob (see his new BLOG "Gonna Say it") , something he left on THIS post of mine about Illegal Aliens.   I thought it was an interesting comment and wanted to blog it as a post...I hope you weigh in on it with your opinions.  Sometimes, my (conservative) blogger buddies are smarter than I am on a subject and I like to highlight their thoughts...please add yours to them!  Thanks:

The simple solution is usually the best for most problems, the illegal immigrant problem is not a conceptually difficult one to handle.

The Problem: Millions of illegal aliens are taking millions of jobs that should be filled by US citizens. Millions of illegal aliens are burdening the US social structure with additional costs in medical and educational demands.

The Solution: Since the problem is illegal aliens, the obvious solution is to prohibit illegal aliens from the US proper, and to eject those currently in the country. Conceptually, and realistically, we can take care of 80% of the problem with little trouble.

1. Announce that immigration laws will be upheld, and that the US border will be sealed as much as possible. Dedicate the manpower to do the job.

2. Build the wall. It is not a big deal, and a couple of jobs might be created in the process. Defensive walls like Hadrians Wall and the Great Wall in China were effective as long as the builders had the political will.

3. Punish US employers that hire illegal aliens. These are the people that are taking advantage of the illegals, and making money because they pay less than legal wages.

Partial Example: In Georgia tens of thousands of jobs have been taken by illegal aliens. These are good jobs in construction, food processing, and other factory type work that most people would like to have. Recently, something has happened to cause a shift in this area. (Z: many Americans in L.A. who've worked construction have been threatened and contractors are threatened if they don't hire Hispanics here, with guns; I know this for a fact)

Recently, laws have been enacted that allow local law enforcement to take action when finding illegal aliens, and the illegal community has gotten the message.

At the car wash, most of the employees were Hispanic, and could not speak English. They were probably illegal aliens. Ditto at McDonalds, Burger King, and other fast food chains.

Now, when visiting the car wash, or going to a fast food restaurant I see smiling white and black faces. These people are happy to be working, and the illegals are disappearing.  (Z: there is not ONE white or black worker at my local car wash)

It's not hard to get rid of most of the illegals.

It is red herring, myth, or just plain lie that mass deportations will be necessary to rid the country of these people.

These illegals know when the gravy train has stopped, and will feel the pressure to leave. (Z: immigrant numbers are going slowly down since our economy has suffered)

All it takes is the political will to make it happen, but Obama wants Hispanic votes. That is the extent of his will power.  (end of comment)

Z: What do you think?  Thanks, Bob...that paragraph about smiling legal Americans with jobs again was very moving and I keep wondering what this administration doesn't understand about that.   Don't they WANT Americans working?  

geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeZ

MORE Sunday Faith Blog? :-)

A friend had an amazing thing happen very early this morning.   She couldn't sleep and she turned on TV.   Sometimes, she tells me, she puts on some of the Christian TV channels hoping there's something more interesting than some overbearing nutty evangelist telling folks they're healed if they'll only buy his latest book (!)....  What she landed on was a Catholic channel showing a very old nun praying in honor of  Mary, the mother of Christ.  This friend's not a Catholic but it intrigued her and she's never thought Protestants are right in their indignation that "Too much attention's given Mary in the Catholic church"......Seems to her, she told me, that you can't honor too much the one woman in the whole world God chose to bear His Son.  Seems that way to me, too, frankly.

So, my friend found herself praying with the old nun for a minute or two, got bored and changed the channel.  Something caused her to turn her night table lamp on and she noticed the oddest thing:  a lady bug was standing on her night stand.   A lady bug in the HOUSE? Upstairs in a bedroom with no windows open? 

This friend got up, remembering that they're supposed to be a lucky sign, and Googled LADY BUGS (Coccinellids) to see if others think they're good luck, and to see if she should worry about some infestation or something.  As she read, she told me her eyes bugged out (pardon the expression) because Lady Bugs "In Christian areas, Coccinellids are often associated with the Virgin Mary." 

How weird is THAT, folks?  Total coincidence?  Maybe, but........
geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeZ!!!

Sunday Faith Blog ....

"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul........." Matthew 10:28

Everyone I know is suffering in some way these days;  financially, health-wise, fears of the future....I'm not sure there's been a worse time in my lifetime and I don't see things getting better any time soon.
It's a great comfort to be a believer and know that, even at the worst, we have real hope, real salvation, a real future, the best kind of future.

"For fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe."  Proverbs 29:25.
That doesn't mean, of course, that believers will not suffer...far from it. But the real hope, the trust in God, is such a comfort throughout the worst of times.  He does get us through the troubles, or leads us to a better place when it's time.

"So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?"  Hebrews 13:6

I hope some of you find solace just in reading the scriptures above again and again;  they helped me as I typed them and I hope they help you, too.   Believers have a lot to be thankful for no matter what's going on in their lives.

Happy Sunday......Z
*top photo by Mr. Z

Illegals.........aren't they STILL illegal? Why not?

This morning, the headline reported by the news reader on CNN was:

"...and criminal UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS are the most likely to be deported, according to Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security."

First of all, the term 'undocumented workers' instead of 'illegal aliens' is a familiar whitewash, then the fact that the criminals amongst the 'undocumented workers' might be deported isn't quite the obvious bigger story that the vast amount of illegal aliens are going to be able to stay, supported by Obama's ignoring the law and circumventing Congress.  Glad there's no bias at CNN, right? :-)   If he had to say 'illegal', what kind of conscientious news reader COULD read that story without asking "WHA...?"

Here's the truth:
The White House announced that the U.S. government will immediately halt the deportation of undocumented immigrants that do not have criminal records or pose a security risk to the United States on a case-by-case basis. According to Carlos M. Colombo, an experienced immigration lawyer at Colombo, Hurd & Brandt, PL, many undocumented immigrants including those who entered the U.S. illegally could qualify – especially those who would benefit from the Dream Act. These individuals may be eligible to apply for work authorization, allowing them to work, obtain driver’s licenses and social security cards immediately.  (Z: think voting fraud)

Mr. Obama........."....called on Congress to reform the immigration system in a manner that would encourage skilled and motivated immigrants to participate in American society while ending what he called an underground economy that preys on low-wage illegal immigrants."  (Z: is there ever any concern given to the illegals who are financially preying on our community hospitals, city budgets, federal  budgets, etc.?)

And then, Mr. Obama, ever the campaigner and Chief INSULTER goes on:
"But even though we've answered these concerns, I suspect there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time... Maybe they'll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat."

So, that's that!  The laws are circumvented, these people are not illegals anymore, they're undocumented people being preyed upon and, odd, but my own Hispanic friends are angrier about this than most non Hispanics I know.

But, what happened? From the Washington Times:  "The move marks a major step for President Obama, who for months has said he does not have broad categorical authority to halt deportations and said he must follow the laws as Congress has written them.
But in letters to Congress on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she does have discretion to focus on “priorities” and that her department and the Justice Department will review all ongoing cases to see who meets the new criteria."   I guess Obama suddenly decided have broad categorical authority on something...again.  And, of course, Congress will be cowed now in speaking up against this, as if speaking against it means you hate Hispanics;  not that laws are being BROKEN:  wait for it.  And, if the Republicans do balk, the leftwing media will cover it as if they are being hateful, not lawful.
Does something have to be done?  Yes.  Should it be done with Congress?   Don't ya THINK? When did THAT stop in our government?


Then there's THIS......oh, NOW WE UNDERSTAND.
geeeeeeeeeeeZ

"Are you a FLAKE, Mr. Obama?"

This video can be viewed as mean spirited......it's difficult to watch because everybody should be scared when we've got a president who thinks a country like Venezuela can't be a threat to us because it's a small country (I swear, wait till you hear the video).........but I want one thing real clear here:   Would this video even have been put together were it not for the incredible flack Mr. Bush had to take every single time he just slurred a word (and brother, did he)?   I'm pretty sure he never said anything quite as silly as getting the amount of States in America wrong, nor did he bungle the sentences like Mr. Obama does here, but you all remember the headlines for every slightest imperfection.  All people make mistakes in speech, especially when they're doing public speaking nearly every day......But,  my point in posting this is FAIRNESS.....Leftwing media HYPOCRISY:  Take a look..........

What else can it mean when nobody in the mainstream media has capitalized on these huge, ridiculous things Obama's said?  And, really, can you stand watching Obama blame his inability to get himself out of what he'd started to say on someone in the audience?  horrible.

another occasion to use my blog title in frustration............."GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ"
z

How old is the earth, Governor Perry?

From Yahoo, we read:
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry fielded a few questions from a child in New Hampshire about evolution Thursday--a topic the outspoken Christian governor was sure to encounter on the campaign trail sooner or later.
"How old do you think the Earth is?" the child asked, who was being coached by his mother behind him for each question.  (Z: no criticism from Yahoo's author on that, of course)
"How old do I think the earth is? You know what? I don't have any idea," Perry responded. "I know it's pretty old. So it goes back a long, long way. I'm not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how old the earth is."
Meanwhile, the mother whispered to her son to ask about evolution.
"I hear your mom was asking about evolution and, you know, it's a theory that's out there," Perry said. "It's got some gaps in it, but in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools. Because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

There is little, if any, disagreement within the scientific community that the Earth is about 4.5-6 billion years old and that evolution is responsible for the range of species on the planet today.

Perry walked away before the kid could ask his mom's next question, "Why don't you believe in science?"

Did any of you know the age of the earth?  I didn't.  I figured it is "pretty old," too.   As for evolution, saying that it's "responsible for the range of species on the planet today" is kind of a broad way of the author not having to field that question himself, huh?  :-) 

Here's our media today:   SCIENTISTS say something, though not all scientists DO reflect that thinking.......and, if a Christian doesn't, he's........what..............STUPID?  SO, only scientists who believe solely in evolution  are smart, is that the inference of the leftwing media?  Of course it is.   America, wake up;  this country's founded on everyone's opinions being respected........when that's lost, look out.    What's going to change in the winning of the Evolution and Intelligent Design?  Why's the Left so afraid of allowing all opinions to be voiced?    And how's this reflect on Rick Perry?

z

Breakfast is important........

Do you eat breakfast, and what do you usually eat?

Join us at Mac 'n GeeeZ and talk about the first meal of the day!  Thanks

Now go see that Archie video you missed, down below;  you'll like it, I swear :-)

Check out the OBA-MAO Chinese goods below!

Oba-MAO??

My wonderful Connecticut cousins went to China this Spring and wait till you hear what they saw!  Their college-going son lived there for four months studying Mandarin along with a bunch of other American kids.  He said it was one of the best times of his life.  His parents loved their two-week visit with him there, too.  The stories were amazing, like the fact that it takes about 30 minutes up an extremely steep and rotting stairway to get to the top of the Great Wall!     But, something really perked my ears up:

In a shop in Beijing  (a city in which guides tell you NOT to talk politics), they saw row upon row of T shirts and coin purses that have a picture of Obama on them and the words OBA-MAO!  My cousins asked how they heck they could do that and WHY?  They said people in CHINA say that Obama's "MAO'S MOST FAMOUS STUDENT".......My cousins were stunned.  The shop owner said "We here in Beijing think America's more Communist than we are now...we get to keep some of our money now."

I thought that was pretty surprising, especially for a city in which discussion of politics is pretty verboten (for lack of the word in Chinese, I'll throw in some German!).....Apparently, they have no problem talking AMERICAN POLITICS.   My cousin's wife showed me photos in that shop ........OBA-MAO things for sale all over the place!

Who'd have thought .........  Even the CHINESE get Obama.  Who knew?  They're going to get me a coin purse and I can't wait to bring it out from time to time with liberal friends :-)

z

What's 'WORSE?'

The Miami Hurricanes have a scandal on their hands; many of you might have heard about it.  I just heard about it on CNN.  Something their news reader said jumped out at me and I had to post it and ask what you thought:

A big booster of theirs had apparently offered players on the Hurricanes things like cars, cash, rides on his yacht and pricey evenings out on the town.   They were also given "bounty money to injure players"!   As the CNN news reader said, "Nevin  Shapiro offered bounty money to injure players and, "what's WORSE....Prostitutes were offered to the players"

I thought to myself "prostitutes given as bribes to young guys" is "WORSE" than giving them money to injure other players, perhaps injuring their bodies permanently and, thereby, their whole futures?  

Which seems worse to YOU.........prostitutes or injuring others?   I'd like to know..........thanks!

z

Political Science..............all of these are SO GOOD!

DEMOCRAT	You have two cows.  Your neighbor has none.  You feel guilty for being successful.  You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.
REPUBLICAN	You have two cows.  Your neighbor has none.  So?
SOCIALIST	You have two cows.  The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.  You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST	You have two cows.  The government seizes both and provides you with milk.  You wait in line for hours to get it.  It is expensive and sour.
AMERICAN CAPITALISM	You have two cows.  You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
AMERICAN BUREAUCRACY	You have two cows.  Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pour the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION	You have two cows  You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.  You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.  You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.  Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORATION	You have two cows.  You go on strike because you want three cows.  You go to lunch and drink wine.  Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION	You have two cows.  You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.  They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.  Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION	You have two cows.  You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.  Unfortunately, they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION	You have two cows but you don't know where they are.  You break for lunch.  Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION	You have two cows.  You drink some vodka.  You count them and learn you have five cows.  You drink some more vodka.  You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.  The Mafia shows up and takes over all cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION	You have all the cows in Afghanistan . Exactly two.  You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.  You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.
IRAQI CORPORATION	You have two cows.  They go into hiding.  They send radio tapes of their mooing.
POLISH CORPORATION	You have two bulls.  Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
BELGIAN CORPORATION	You have one cow.  The cow is schizophrenic.  Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.  The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.  The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.  The cow asks permission to be cut in half.  The cow dies happy.
FLORIDA CORPORATION	You have a black cow and a brown cow.  Everyone votes for the best looking one.  Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one.  Some people vote for both.  Some people vote for neither.  Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.  Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best looking cow.
CALIFORNIA CORPORATION	You have millions of cows.  They make real California cheese.  Only five speak English.  Most are illegal.  Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

Nice, huh? thanks, Mustang, for sending this to me.
If you all have a minute, watch the video below...it is SO good!

z

Archie had it RIGHT after all :-) THE most fun video I've seen in a long while...

Scotty (whose blog you ought to visit!) had this video up and I had to borrow it ......  SO much fun to watch (except having to see Obama)........  give it a look, it's short and it is fun!  ARCHIE was a prophet! :-)
z

Warren Buffett...."We rich don't pay enough taxes...Darn it!"

The Real Reason Warren Buffett's Taxes are Low

By Peter J Reilly

Warren Buffett was in the New York Times  today bragging about his low effective tax rate and saying how he would like to be paying more.   Fellow Forbes contributor Tim Worstall weighed in quibbling about Mr. Buffet not factoring in the corporate taxes on Berkshire Hathaway's earnings.  I'm just a simple CPA, whose firm won't even let him sign audit reports anymore. (That's true of all tax partners here by the way.  I don't take it personally).  I don't want to quibble with a quibble but apparently economists have a hard time figuring out the incidence of the corporate income tax (i.e. who is really paying it), so I think we can let go of that piece of the analysis.

Still Mr. Buffet is not sharing the real reason that he doesn't pay much in the way of income tax relative to his great fortune.  The secret is hidden in plain sight.  Mr. Worstall alludes to it when he mentions that Berkshire Hathaway does not in fact pay dividends.  Mr. Buffet's secret which you can find blasted all over the Internet is one of his famous quotations:

Our favorite holding period is forever

You only pay income taxes at any rate on realized appreciation.  An investment with a holding period of forever incurs a capital gains tax of 0%, while all along the holder can be getting wealthy from appreciation.  That's the real reason Mr. Buffet does not pay a lot of income taxes. (end of article)
  
 Z: This fascinated me because I heard what Mr. Buffet said on Monday about how he only pays 17% in taxes and the rich need to pay more, when most of us know the 'rich' pay the huge bulk of American taxes.
By the way, if Mr. Buffett wants to pay more, what's keeping him from it?

Z

Real ENTITLEMENTS...

How Australia straightened up their S&P rating......listen up

Australia lost and then finally recovered its AAA rating ...
From THIS site, we get the following article: 

EVEN though Standard and Poor's downgraded the US credit rating, Americans may be cheered by the examples of Australia and Canada, which both managed to restore their lost triple-A scores.

S&P revised the nation's rating downwards to a AA+ with a negative outlook, despite a push back from the White House which said the agency's analysis of the US economy was deeply flawed.

While some nations have managed to climb back again to the top notch rating, others have found it extremely difficult to recover the coveted crown.

S&P removed Australia's AAA in 1986 and only gave it back 17 years later.

During that time Canberra adhered to strict budgetary discipline and even capped its debt in 1997.

It also benefited from rapid growth and a broad transformation of its economy, modernising its financial system and deregulating uncompetitive sectors. Meanwhile, demand from a resurgent China drove a boom in the Australian mining industry.

S&P took away Canada's AAA rating on debt denominated in foreign currencies in 1992.

But Ottawa recovered the grade in 2002 after reducing government spending as a fraction of GDP by more than 8 per cent, through a series of stringent spending cuts. (Canada's sovereign debt as denominated in Canadian dollars was never downgraded.)

S&P cut Japan's AAA rating in 2001, and since then the debt-ridden country has descended to AA-.
But Japan's borrowing costs did not rise immediately after the first cut -- suggesting a US downgrade might not be catastrophic.

Tokyo's lenders -- who are mainly domestic -- continue to buy its debt today even though Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is a colossal 225.8 per cent, the largest of any country.

More recently, three European countries were in the AAA club before being booted out: Ireland from 2001 to 2009, Iceland from 2005 to 2008 and Spain from 2003 to 2010.

All three benefited from speculative real estate bubbles that swelled tax revenues, until the bubbles popped. Ireland, rated BBB+ by S&P, has not been able to tap credit markets since 2010. Iceland, at BBB-, successfully issued bonds only in June after three years of no access to commercial credit markets.

Madrid retains a respectable AA rating, but jitters in the bond markets over its debt load has sent the risk premium on Spanish bonds -- the extra return demanded by investors compared to safe-bet German debt -- to a euro-era record of 407 basis points.  (end of article)

Z............pretty interesting stuff;  and look what Australia and Canada had to do to get back into shape.    Will we?  Of course not.   We've got people who won't listen to anybody but Geithner and Krugman!!  What a joke.

z

Sunday Faith Blog................by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I am reading the biography BONHOEFFER, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy....by Eric Metaxas.  It's a very good biography about a German pastor who fought for the Jews and was killed for it.....It's a book I highly recommend.  I ran across the following words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer about reading the Bible and found it so profound I wanted to share it with you.  Those of you are not believing Christians will probably not read it, but those of you who are will get a lot from it, I know.  
Please give it a go, read it.........I think it's compelling and important:


First of all I will confess quite simply---I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer.  One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books.   One must be prepared really to enquire of it.  Only thus will it reveal itself.  Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it.  That is because in the Bible God speaks to us.  And one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of him.  Only if we seek him, will he answer us.

Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that.  Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, "pondering them in our heart," so it will be with the words of the Bible.  Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this god were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible...


If it is I who determines where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature.  But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me.  This place is the Cross of Christ.  And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands.  This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it.  But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament...

And I would like to tell you now quite personally:  since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way---and this has not been for so very long---it becomes every day more wonderful to me.  I read it in the morning and the evening, often during the day as well, and every day I consider a text which I have chosen for the whole week, and try to sink deeply into it, so as really to hear what it is saying.  I know that without this I could not live properly any longer.

...............Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

"Where a people prays, there is the church, and where the church is, there is never loneliness"....Dietrich Bonhoeffer.


""If any of you lacks of wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."  James 1:5


Have a wonderful Sunday.........that old Bible's in your drawer or on a shelf, give it a try.

Z    (if you're at all a fan of Ann Coulter's, you might want to read my take on having attended a luncheon at which she spoke yesterday...just below this post...enjoy)