America and Resolutions

If you were a resolution maker, what would be your wish for America in 2014?

Z


("Fresh Start!"?   Would that we could..........)

Obama and friends "just happened to.........WHAT?" WOW

Mustang "just happened to" find this and wanted you to read it...I've seen so many "just happened to's" like this that I haven't posted, I figured  it was probably time I did.   I don't know who wrote it, but here it goes: 

For those of you who enjoy mathematical challenges, what do you think the chances are that the following is mere coincidence? Then try to assess the likelihood that these events are simply inadvertently linked to Obama’s Marxist policies, his anti-American foreign policy, and the behavior of his administration relative to Operation Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS debacle, and revelations about the NSA.

Shall we begin?

Obama 
just happened to know 60s far-left radical revolutionary William Ayers, whose father 
just happened to be Thomas Ayers, who 
just happened to be a close friend of Obama’s communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who
  just happened to work at the communist-sympathizing Chicago Defender with Vernon Jarrett, who
 just happened to later become the father-in-law of Iranian-born leftist Valerie Jarrett, who Obama 
just happened to choose as his closest White House advisor, and who 
just happened to have been CEO of Habitat Company, which
 just happened to manage public housing in Chicago, which just happened to get millions of dollars from the Illinois state legislature, and which 
just happened not to properly maintain the housing —which eventually
 just happened to require demolition.

Valerie Jarrett also 
just happened to work for the city of Chicago, and
 just happened to hire Michelle LaVaughan Robinson (later Mrs. Obama), who
 just happened to have worked at the Sidley Austin law firm, where former fugitive from the FBI Bernadine Dohrn also just happened to work, and where Barack Obama
 just happened to get a summer job.

Of course, Bernadine Dohrn
 just happened to be married to William Ayers, with whom she 
just happened to have hidden from the FBI at a San Francisco marina, along with Donald Warden, who
 just happened to change his name to Khalid al-Mansour, and Warden/al-Mansour 
just happened to be a mentor of Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and a close associate of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and al-Mansour 
just happened to be financial adviser to a Saudi Prince, who
 just happened to donate cash to Harvard, for which Obama
 just happened to get a critical letter of recommendation from Percy Sutton, who just happened to have been the attorney for Malcolm X, who 
just happened to know Kenyan politician Tom Mboya, who 
just happened to be a close friend of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who
 just happened to meet Malcolm X when he traveled to Kenya, and who also happened to be an avowed communist.

One may recall that Obama Sr 
just happened to have his education at the University of Hawaii paid for by the Laubach Literacy Institute, which 
just happened to have been supported by Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, who 
just happened to be a friend of Malcolm X, who
 just happened to have been associated with the Nation of Islam, which was later headed by Louis Farrakhan, who
 just happens to live very close to Obama’s Chicago mansion, which also 
just happens to be located very close to the residence of William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who
 just happens to have been occasional baby-sitters for Malia and Natasha Obama, whose parents 
just happened to have no concern exposing their daughters to bomb-making communists.

After attending Occidental College and Columbia University, where he 
just happened to have foreign Muslim roommates, Obama moved to Chicago to work for the Industrial Areas Foundation, an organization that
 just happened to have been founded by Marxist and radical agitator Saul “the Red” Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, who
 just happened to be the topic of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s thesis at Wellesley College, and Obama’s $25,000 salary at IAF 
just happened to be funded by a grant from the Woods Fund, which was founded by the Woods family, whose Sahara Coal company 
just happened to provide coal to Commonwealth Edison, whose CEO just happened to be Thomas Ayers, whose son William Ayers
 just happened to serve on the board of the Woods Fund, along with Obama.  

 (Z: you remember Ayers, who hosted Obama's first election 'coffee' in his home, sat on the same Bd of Directors and whose wives knew each other,  but Obama "just happened" to forget he knew him and told the world he didn't?)

Obama also worked on voter registration drives in Chicago in the 1980s and
 just happened to work with leftist political groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Socialist International (SI), through which Obama met Carl Davidson, who 
just happened to travel to Cuba during the Vietnam War to sabotage the U.S. war effort, and who 
just happened to be a former member of the SDS and a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which
 just happened to sponsor a 2002 anti-war rally at which Obama spoke, and which 
just happened to have been organized by Marilyn Katz, a former SDS activist and later public relations consultant who 
just happened to be a long-time friend of Obama’s political hatchet man, David Axelrod.  

(Z:  And you might know that Michelle Obama just happened to earn $250K at a Chicago hospital  but, when she left, nobody was hired to replace her, so I'm wondering what she did for that much money 10 years ago that they didn't need to get anybody to continue the work?)

Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), whose pastor was Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a fiery orator who just happened to preach Marxism and Black Liberation Theology and who delivered anti-white, anti-Jew, and anti-American sermons, which Obama
 just happened never to hear because he 
just happened to miss church only on the days when Wright was at his “most enthusiastic,” and Obama
 just happened never to notice that Oprah Winfrey left the church because it was too radical, and 
just happened never to notice that the church gave the vile anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award.

Although no one had ever heard of him at the time, Obama
 just happened to receive an impossible-to-believe $125,000 advance to write a book about race relations, which he 
just happened to fail to write while using the cash to vacation in Bali with his wife Michelle, and despite his record of non-writing he just happened to receive a second advance, for $40,000, from another publisher, and he eventually completed a manuscript called Dreams From My Father, which
 just happened to strongly reflect the writing style of William Ayers, who
 just happened to trample on an American flag for the cover photograph of the popular Chicago magazine, which Obama
 just happened never to see even though it appeared on newsstands throughout the city.

Obama, of course, was hired by the law firm Miner, Banhill and Galland, which
 just happened to specialize in negotiating state government contracts to develop low-income housing, and which 
just happened to deal with now-imprisoned Tony Rezko and his firm Rezar, and with slumlord Valerie Jarrett, and the law firm’s Judson Miner
 just happened to have been a classmate of Bernadine Dohrn, wife of William Ayers.
 In 1994 Obama represented ACORN and another plaintiff in a lawsuit against Citibank for denying mortgages to blacks (Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank), and the lawsuit
 just happened to result in banks being blackmailed into approving sub prime loans for poor credit risks, a trend which 
just happened to spread nationwide, and which
 just happened to lead to the collapse of the housing market, which just happened to help Obama defeat John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.

In 1996 Obama ran for the Illinois State Senate and joined the “New Party,” which 
just happened to promote Marxism, and Obama was supported by Dr. Quentin Yong, a socialist who 
just happened to support a government takeover of the health care system.

In 2003 Obama and his wife attended a dinner in honor of Rashid Khalidi, who
 just happened to be a former PLO operative, harsh critic of Israel, and advocate of Palestinian rights, and who Obama claims he does not know, even though the Obamas just happened to have dined more than once at the home of Khalidi and his wife, Mona, and just happened to have used them as occasional baby-sitters. Obama reportedly praised Khalidi at the decidedly anti-Semitic event, which William Ayers
 just happened to also attend, and the event Obama pretends he never attended was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network, to which Obama 
just happened to have funneled cash while serving on the board of the Woods Fund with William Ayers, and one speaker at the dinner remarked that if Palestinians cannot secure a return of their land, Israel “will never see a day of peace,” and entertainment at the dinner included a Muslim children’s dance whose performances
 just happened to include simulated beheadings with fake swords, and stomping on American, Israeli, and British flags, and Obama allegedly told the audience that “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine” and there has been “genocide against the Palestinian people by (the) Israelis,” and the Los Angeles Times has a videotape of the event but just happens to refuse to make it public.

In the 2004 Illinois Democrat primary race for the U.S. Senate, front-runner Blair Hull just happened to be forced out of the race after David Axelrod just happened to manage to get Hull’s sealed divorce records unsealed, which just happened to enable Obama to win the primary, so he could face popular Republican Jack Ryan, whose sealed child custody records from his divorce just happened to become unsealed, forcing Ryan to withdraw from the race, which just happened to enable the unqualified Obama to waltz into the U.S. Senate, where, after a mere 143 days of work, he just happened to decide he was qualified to run for President of the United States.

Z:  Please supply links if you disagree with any of these and please remember that if one of the smaller points isn't 100% correct, that doesn't negate the rest of them, okay?  We' d like to discuss the various points but, mostly, the BIG PICTURE implications in this article.  Thanks!

Hat tip: Old NFO

~discovered by Mustang

Sunday Faith Blog

¹⁸ This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot. ¹⁹ Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. ²⁰ They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart."  Ecclesiastes 5.

I believe "Gifts of God" are everywhere.....and once we start looking for and recognizing them, they become more and more apparent and frequent.   Be glad in your heart.........

Have a beautiful Sunday.........enjoy your 'toil' of the week; be happy in that toil for what you and yours gain from it.  I hope you find a minute to read all of the Ecclesiastes chapter; there's a lot of good stuff in there...

Blessings, Z

Robertson to Columbia U?

Let's face it, we all know that the only way Robertson would be invited to Columbia U is so they could insult and jeer him.  Here's a guy who voiced his own opinion, whether we like it or not, and he gets creamed by the leftwingers.  By the way, why can't leftwingers just take it?  Man up, ignore people who don't agree with them?  Why do they always have to try to shut them DOWN?
So, Robertson would never get invited to Columbia except for insults, but then consider Ahmadinejad and how he was invited to Columbia and treated like an intellectual curiosity they needed to know better, to have dinner with him, remember?  The plans for dinner were cancelled abruptly, but they tried!    I'm wondering about the difference here.  One American voices his own opinion and is roundly censored and demonized.  An Iranian punk dictator is a muslim who orders gays hanged, beheaded, stoned, etc., and he's someone leftwingers wanted to dine with?  And, let's face it, it wasn't the Young Republican Club at Columbia who invited Ahmadinejad to speak or dine with them, right?

What's WITH leftwingers?  Why the hypocrisy?    Let's not reinvent the wheel on what Robertson said;  we all know what he said and we can agree or disagree,  but let's discuss the difference in how these two are treated.

What do you think's the reason?  Or, better said:  how can the left live with their own hypocrisy?
Z

Presents........

Did you give or get a gift that made your Christmas?   I'll tell YOU if you tell US!


Trip?  Food?  Time?  Book?  Clothing? ??

Z

Merry Christmas!

Christmas has changed since the days of Bethlehem and the manger, but the manger is remembered in profound, life-changing ways and celebrated in beautiful places all these many, many years later....


 I hope you're having a beautiful, happy Christmas.

This is me, singing and playing, recorded about six years ago with a small and not very good recorder in Mr. Z's lap........I hope you enjoy it and are blessed by it.
AND, I found this quote at Angel's blog and thought it was fabulous...I hope you do, too: "He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree." The Presbyterian Lexionary, which I highly recommend, has this amazing foreshadowing of Jesus Christ in THE OLD TESTAMENT!

Isaiah 60:1-6
1Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. 
2For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. 
3Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 
4Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms.
 5Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. 
6A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.

 Fondest wishes to you all, Z xx

Wise up!

Who's ONE POLITICIAN you would KEEP in D.C., and ONE POLITICIAN you'd definitely rid D.C. of?   (other than Obama)

z

Sunday Faith Post

Would that those of us who'd want to could go together into that Christmas-ready church.......what hymn do you wish they were playing as we entered?

A scene from the past....peace, happiness, and excitement about Christmas coming.....something beautiful to ponder.    Enjoy this last Advent Sunday.

Blessed is
The season which
Engages the whole
World in a
Conspiracy of love.

-Hamilton Wright Mabie

 Have a wonderful Sunday! Z

"Bush reached across the aisle....

..............and got his fingers chewed off,"  they say about President George W. Bush when he attempted to work with the other party.    Reagan and Tip O'Neil worked well together, both showing respect even when they differed.  Clinton did quite well with the economy because he worked with the Republicans.  The Lewinsky affair didn't help his relationship with the Republicans, but it wasn't near as divisive as it is now. 

Tell me, what ONE THING do you think really drew the line in the sand between the Democrats and Republicans?  You could say it's become worse and worse over time but, suddenly, it's so bad that nothing's getting done and the rhetoric is painful. 

What do you think the Democrats and Republicans disagree with THE MOST:  the one thing they could NEVER see eye to eye with?  

And do you think we can ever come to an impasse and get things done for the good of the country again?

Z

Obamabiden Caption, anyone?

I'm so sorry there is a caption on this picture.........I'd love YOU to write one, too!  What do YOU think they're laughing about?   Fire away!

z

Healthcare.gube

Even if you're unrealistic enough to think Obama Care is going to work, you've got think this is funny!

-Z and Mustang

Change...what's your input?

If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that human behavior changes over time. If our individual behaviors change then so, too, does our culture. The older we get, the more likely it is that we have experienced significant societal changes in the period of our lifetimes. America today is not the same country as it was in 1960.  It is almost not the same country it was in the year 2000.

It is an interesting study. Automobiles made people more peripatetic; in a land where most people died within 25 miles of where they were born, ours has evolved into a migrating society. Automobiles made us less reliant upon the earth, and so we moved away from the farms to find other activities by which to earn our livelihood. The automobile even gave us some of these activities, such as new demands for glass, rubber, wood, leather, felt, plastic, and other petroleum products. We not only needed people who could make the parts and assemble them, we suddenly needed people to maintain or repair them. People moved from southern climates to take advantage of automotive jobs in the northern regions.

Along the way, they needed a place to rest and refresh themselves. A trip from Tennessee to Michigan couldn’t be made in a single day, so someone came up with the idea of motor hotels, or motels: a new industry with new demands for labor, and a convenience place for other activities. It didn’t change our morals necessarily; motels just gave us other options for cloaking our decadence.

Like the automobile, the Internet has offered yet another change in direction for humans. While some people continue to appreciate the convenience of local stores, others prefer Internet shopping. It is convenient, hassle free, and efficient. Of course, there is a cost to this convenience … it is driving the small convenient neighborhood merchants out of business. One day, these shops will be gone —and they won’t be coming back. The people who made a living as small merchants will have to find some other way of earning an income. Maybe they will find work with UPS or FedEx making deliveries of goods shipped from Internet retailers.

The Internet also makes us wonder whether we need a very expensive government post office. The number of people who write checks and pay their bills through the mail is rapidly dwindling. Who sends handwritten letters any more?  Who sends handwritten thank you notes anymore?  Z likes to, but do most people?  Notsomuch, sadly. (as an aside, kids aren't even taught cursive anymore, so any kind of writing is going along the wayside!)  Similarly, fewer people are reading newspapers; they get their news from online versions of the print media. The people who now advertise in local newspapers are moving away to what many people call junk mailers. I suppose that stuffing unsolicited advertisements into our mailboxes gives the postal worker something to do —but we wonder, for how long?  And, for heaven's sake, could it stop soon, please!?

Changes within human societies always produce casualties. People lose their jobs, but they find new ones. Enrolling in courses to retrain is an income-producing venture, too. God forbid that we suddenly realize that we have more college professors than we really need. Too many lawyers is bad enough! Change is not only constant —it is inevitable.

We wonder … what are the biggest changes to society in your lifetime? How did they affect you personally?

Do you like change?  Do you dream of days gone by, an easier, calmer, sweeter life?   If so, then we have to remember that the easier life involves no aspirin, no ice cubes, no elevators....  Are we ever completely satisfied?  And will that condition ever change!?
 
-Mustang and Z

Shopping............

..........What percentage of your Christmas shopping are you doing on line and what percentage are you doing at 'brick and mortar' stores?   I'm curious.

And I want to leave politics for at least a day.  

z

Good cartoons...............from "Imp!"

                                                                                .....PERIOD!

And I hope you can watch the video in the post below because it is going to cheer you UP!

Z

Sunday Faith Blog

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!"

You will be SO sorry if you don't watch this video..........Talk about getting in the Christmas Spirit!
This is giving at its best........commercial?  Maybe.  Great advertising for the airlines?  Oh, ya.
Who cares?    If you don't think those employees were having great fun doing all they did for others, you need to look closer.  Enjoy!

"Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."   2 Corinthians 9:7

Help someone you don't know.........give from your heart.

Z

Obama's buddy Karl Marx...sign the petition~!

They don't know who KARL MARX is?  But they're obviously Obama voters because they're presented with a pen and a petition which they are told "supports Obama's good friend, Karl Marx!" and  "supports Obama'a communist agenda..."  and they SIGN :-)

I think this is the key to all of our questions like "How could anybody vote for Obama?"   
Hint:  They don't seem to know much or THINK.

OY.

z

Do you put up Christmas lights?

THIS cracked me UP.................enjoy!

Z

ONE CITY............

..........you can leave tomorrow, all expenses paid, first class, to any city of your choice.

So, what is it? 

Why?  AND...who would you want to RUN that city?  The person doesn't have to be the nationality of the country your city's in...be imaginative!



(I'd post an image of a city to go with the post but I'd hate to influence anybody that way!)

I'm singing this morning...pray all goes well..thanks!

Z

The Left and Nazism....by Dennis Prager

This is one of the most interesting pieces I've read in a long time and it goes along with a lot of what I've hypothesized here at Geeeez.  I urge you to read it and send it along to friends/ family.  This piece by Dennis Prager is truly worth considering,.  The thinking which he exposes here must be stopped:

The Left Learned Wrong Lessons from Nazism

Tuesday, Dec 10, 2013

The only way to understand what is happening to America in our time — and for that matter, in Europe since World War II — is to understand the left.
And one way to understand the left — and its enormous appeal to many decent people — is to understand what it learned from World War II and the Nazi experience. The lessons people draw from history go a long way toward explaining how they view the world and how they behave.
Unfortunately, virtually everything the left learned from the unique evil known as Nazism has been wrong.
The first lesson was that the right is evil, not merely wrong. Because Nazism has been successfully labelled “right-wing,” virtually every right-wing position and leader has been either cynically or sincerely characterized by the left as a danger to civilization. That is why the right is so often labelled fascist and compared to Nazis. Vast numbers of people in the West truly believe that if the right prevails, fascism will follow.
Of course, Nazism was not right-wing — certainly not in American terms. How could it be? Right-wing means less government, not more. Nor was it left-wing, even though “Nazism” was an abbreviation for National Socialism.
Nazism was sui generis. It was radical racism combined with totalitarianism; and racism as a doctrine is neither right nor left.
We have no contemporary movement of any major significance that is Nazi-like. The closest thing we have is Islamist hatred of non-Muslims — but even that is mostly religion- rather than race-based.
The association of Nazism with right-wing is one reason many Jews loathe the right. In the Jewish psyche, to fight the right is to fight incipient Nazism.
The second lesson the left learned is directly related to the first. If the right is so evil that, if allowed to prevail, Nazism will follow, then surely the left must be beautiful and noble. And that, of course, is how the left sees itself — as inherently beautiful and noble. After all, how can the opposite of Nazism be anything but noble?
The third erroneous lesson is a deep fear and loathing of nationalism. Since the Nazis committed their crimes in the name of nationalism (race-based nationalism, to be precise), nationalism must be curbed. That explains much of the left’s contempt for Americans who wave the flag — indeed, the left has rendered the term “flag-wavers” a pejorative term.
How else to explain the fact that on American national holidays one finds so many more flags displayed in conservative areas than in liberal ones? The trauma of World War I had already killed nationalism in much of Europe. And World War II did that for the left in America.
The left regards any assertion of American national identity — not merely flag-waving — as chauvinism bordering on fascism. When the left charges Americans who fear the dilution of American national identity that could follow citizenship for tens of millions of illegal immigrants with “xenophobia,” and “racism,” it is not only a cynical attempt to cultivate Latino votes for the Democratic Party. It is also a sincere belief that conservative concerns about American national identity are reminiscent of chauvinist bigotry.
The most obvious example of left-wing opposition to American nationalism is its cultivation of “multiculturalism” as a replacement for American national identity. For the left, American citizens are no longer Americans first and foremost; we are African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic- or Latino-Americans, Native-Americans, etc. The left celebrates what precedes the hyphen far more than the “American” that follows it. As a result, America no longer instills traditional American values and an American identity on either those born here or in its immigrants, which is the reason for the right’s concern over illegal immigration, not bigotry and xenophobia.
A fourth lesson the left learned from Nazism has been that no judging of cultures is permissible. Because the Nazis deemed Jews and others as inferior, we are no longer allowed to judge other cultures. In the post-World War II world of the left, all cultures are equal. To say that the contemporary Islamic world, or that black inner city culture, has serious moral problems that these cultures need to address is to be labelled dangerously racist — again reminiscent, for the left, of the Nazis who declared other groups (inherently) defective. For the left, the only cultures one may judge adversely are white American and religious Jewish and Christian.
Fifth and finally, the left has affirmed pacifism as an ideal. One would think that the most obvious moral and rational lesson to be learned from the Nazi experience is the need to fight evil. After all, if decent nations were not as militarily strong as they were, and were not as prepared as they were to use that might, the Nazis would not have been defeated, and many millions more “non-Aryans” would have been enslaved and murdered. But the left, including, sad to say, Germany, did not draw that lesson. Instead of learning to fight evil, the left has learned that fighting is evil — and it has taught this to two generations of Americans.
To amend Santayana’s famous dictum, it is those who learn the wrong lessons from history who are condemned to repeat it.

HOW many lies, distortions and corruption?

UPDATE:  Please add THIS to the list linked  below...Seymour Hersh is now informing America that Obama lied regarding Syria.  
Oh, and another update;  To my leftists denying the list, we welcome a list showing the 'truth.'  Thanks.

Commenter and Friend "IMP" sent me THIS PIECE via email.  I couldn't resist posting it.  And I am hoping you'll send it to your friends, conservative and liberal.

It's pretty straightforward, with links proving each incident that they cite is true.

So, if all, or even half, or a third, of these things that show Mr. Obama's lies, corruption or law breaking, what now?

Have you ever heard of any country other than a dictatorship where a leader could pull this stuff off and not get nailed? 

IS there anything Americans can do other than totally worthless congressional hearings, a term I now call "code for doing NOTHING?"

I mean, this is ridiculous.................ISN'T IT?

I don't bring this up just to lather everybody up again, really not...I'm posting this because I'm legitimately curious as to how much he can do before people wake up?  Sure, they're waking up to Obama Care because it's hit their pocketbooks, but what about this other stuff?

Z

Mandela and my newer viewpoint

While we're on Mandela (see post below), let me just add that I have been disappointed with him for many years because of the negatives he brought to the once-thriving and safe South Africa...It's become a mess and I partly blame him;  I blame, mostly, EDUCATION.  How could people in Soweto know how to start a business, how could they find the money to start a business, what did they know how to DO? Nothing!  But, I see now that Mandela did strongly believe in education, he just couldn't educate those people who thought pillaging was okay and I'm not sure he could have done that any easier than we can teach Los Angeles or Chicago or New York gangs to straighten up.  Sadly, these S Africans haven't stopped pillaging since Apartheid ended.

Mandela obviously loved his people (or why would he spend almost 30 years in prison?!), particularly loved children (the first person he touched upon exiting prison was a white woman's baby when he asked if he could hold her child), was a very sweet man, and had some humility, according to a few men who knew him well and who were interviewed by Charlie Rose.

And, of course, Mandela chose S Africa's last white president during Apartheid, de Klerk, as one of his Deputy Presidents, which was an admirable thing. Here's the rub;  the leftwing media's been treating Mandela like God because he picked deKlerk, as if de Klerk, because he was white, hated blacks and wanted Apartheid to stay as it was, when he was one of the hardest workers against Apartheid.
Do you see what the media's doing?  Why wouldn't Mandela pick a white man who understood the importance of the end of Apartheid?    Also, Mandela insisted that his African National Congress be multiracial;  I believe that says a lot.

So, I've softened on the subject of Mandela, though I do believe South Africa would still be a great place had the whites (who'd lived there for years and made it a great country), not had to leave once they knew what was coming (and they did, some thirty years ago, in scared and disillusioned droves), and had the black Africans been told to stop robbing, raping, etc., and start working.  I knew a couple of white families (one is related) myself who knew exactly how bad it would be when Apartheid ended.  Not 'bad' that blacks would have freedom!  but these whites had enough experience to realize what the more dangerous of those blacks would do with their newfound freedom.  My in-law relatives left thirty years ago for fear for their four young daughters and made a huge success here in Los Angeles.  Yes, families left with their money, knowing how bad it would get and it did.  This is also a story.  Nobody's covering that.   Sad.

I have somewhat changed my opinion of Mandela.. To understand his "Communism" you're all mentioning on the post below's comments,  please read the link HERE, an excellent piece on Mandela and Communism. I believe it's true.  Probably a little on the soft side, but true.  

Some of you will be irate when you read this...I've called Mandela a Communist for years, too.  But please comment after reading the article I linked.   I think this is a worthwhile discussion.  I hope you do, too.

Z

Mandela but not Thatcher?

So, Obama and others are going to the Mandela funeral this week.........He even invited George and Laura Bush along, isn't that nice? :-)  After all, a man as famous as Nelson Mandela should have a country as big and influential as America represented by AMERICA, not one political party, right?

If you follow that logic, it pains me (and did many British and other Americans) that Mr. Obama saw fit to ignore Mrs. Margaret Thatcher's funeral, considering she was famous and instrumental in ending the Cold War and very popular among many.   Her American funeral attendees were former Vice President Dick Cheney and two other veterans of Republican administrations, George P. Shultz, 92, and James A. Baker III, 82.

Sad. I keep wishing America was represented with dignity and class again.  I would have thought that an ex Prime Minister of Britain was as important as a president of South Africa.



Do you share my feelings about this?  I want an American president to represent ME, too.  You know?

Z

Sunday Faith Post

"In life, we are given two options and, from there, a million possibilities can sprout.  Sometimes, our choices are influenced by the things around us.  This is true about a novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, which I read last summer.   Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, had depression similar to mine.  My depression influenced my choices.  I was raised by a single mom who also suffered from depression.  I remember two things from my early childhood;  my mom worked late hours and I was bullied at school.  I was different from the other students;  I didn't speak English and I was one of only a few kids with divorced parents.  My mom was almost never home and, when she was home, she was very tired.  I had transferred recently to my school so I had no friends.  I felt unfit for life.  Much like Holden Caulfield, my family was too busy and I had to find a way to relieve the stress.

I didn't read the book until I was recovering from my depression.  During my sophomore year, I was put into a mental hospital, much like Holden's experience, and I was resistant to treatment. I was let out by the end of a month.  That's when I started to read The Catcher in the Rye.  It wasn't until I read the novel that I saw just how much depression had shaped my life.

Holden looked at life as a big disappointment, a common sign of depression.  I didn't want that for me.  I was stuck between being a Holden and being happy.  The more I read the book, the more I realized just how similar Holden and I were.  It wasn't until the end of the story that my life began to change.  I wasn't Holden anymore.  Holden was a melodramatic teen who was desperate to keep life the same.  So was I.  But something changed when I read the book.  I realized I had two choices; shy away from God or follow Him and be happy.  From there, came a million possibilities."

Z: I know the girl who wrote that.  I had to share it with you...... and the fact that she's taking advantage of every positive possibility that comes her way............she's come a very long way in an amazingly short time.

"What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways."  Job 22:28

Decide on something positive today.  "Be happy, not Holden."

I'm "beholden" to her for her inspiration...I hope you are, too. 

Z

HILARIOUS...if you don't laugh at this, you've passed away!

:-)

Z

"...it never rains in sunny California..."

...but we're getting RAIN today....and it's very unusual to have weather as cold as in the high forties here......BUT..........I hear it's really cold out there in America.

How is it where YOU ARE?  Talk to us!

Z

Samuel Adams.........and a great quote

Check out THIS BLOG...it's terrific.  Kid turned me onto it.  What I loved right away was her masthead quote by Samuel Adams (the patriot, not the beer maker ... no matter what the picture implies!:-):

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." 

My question is why it seems that Liberals are willing to risk this here in America.
Are they too scared of true freedom?  Are they afraid of not getting things they're entitled to? 
What IS it?

Z 

Bashir....down the toilet

I guess the toilet was the best place for this man, considering what he said ought to happen to Palin.  You all know I'm no fan of Sarah Palin's, but what this guy said, and has said in the past, was beyond the pale.
The only place, frankly, that I'd have thought wouldn't fire someone for such hideous, low life language is MSNBC. So, bravo, MSNBC.   Oh.  Wait....before I applaud MSNBC...I just remembered:  He 'resigned.'

Do you think he ought to have resigned?   Or think he should have been fired way before now?  Think he'll work again?

Z  (and thanks for the tip, Imp!)

Reading.........Books....

I loved these:

- "Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting"  Edmund Burke

- "The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries."  Rene Descartes

- "A house without books is like a room without windows"  Heinrich Mann

- "No one can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books."  E. B. Browning

And my personal favorite:

- "Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside a dog, it's too dark to read."  Grouch Marx

:-)

What are you reading NOW?

Z

Welfare abuse by Lucy; Enjoy

The DRAFT: Bring it back?

Dana Milbank Opinion Writer 

SAVE AMERICA;  RESTORE THE DRAFT

By Dana Milbank, Published: November 29

At this time of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the U.S. military — not just for the usual reason that it protects us from our foes but also because it has the potential to save us from ourselves.

As I make my rounds each day in the capital, chronicling our leaders’ plentiful foibles, failings, screw-ups, inanities, outrages and overall dysfunction, I’m often asked if there’s anything that could clean up the mess.

My usual answer is a shrug and an admission that there’s no silver bullet. There are many possibilities — campaign spending limits, term limits, nonpartisan primaries, nonpartisan redistricting, a third party — but most aren’t politically or legally feasible, might not make much of a difference or, as with Harry Reid’s rewriting of Senate rules, have the potential to make things even worse.

But one change, over time, could reverse the problems that have built up over the past few decades: We should mandate military service for all Americans, men and women alike, when they turn 18. The idea is radical, unlikely and impractical — but it just might work. 

There is no better explanation for what has gone wrong in Washington in recent years than the tabulation done every two years of how many members of Congress served in the military.
A Congressional Quarterly count of the current Congress finds that just 86 of the 435 members of the House are veterans, as are only 17 of 100 senators, which puts the overall rate at 19 percent. This is the lowest percentage of veterans in Congress since World War II, down from a high of 77 percent in 1977-78, according to the American Legion. For the past 21 years, the presidency has been occupied by men who didn’t serve or, in the case of George W. Bush, served in a capacity designed to avoid combat.
It’s no coincidence that this same period has seen the gradual collapse of our ability to govern ourselves: a loss of control over the nation’s debt, legislative stalemate and a disabling partisanship. It’s no coincidence, either, that Americans’ approval of Congress has dropped to just 9 percent, the lowest since Gallup began asking the question 39 years ago.
Because so few serving in politics have worn their country’s uniform, they have collectively forgotten how to put country before party and self-interest. They have forgotten a “cause greater than self,” and they have lost the knowledge of how to make compromises for the good of the country. Without a history of sacrifice and service, they’ve turned politics into war.

Compulsory military service, as old as Athenian democracy and common in countries such as Israel that live under threat, has been in decline in Western Europe since the end of the Cold War. But an exception, Switzerland, is instructive: On Sept. 22, the Swiss voted 73 percent to 27 percent to keep their conscription army. It has less to do with security than with national identity in a land of 26 cantons and four official languages. The government argued that military service teaches people “how to live and work with compatriots from all regions, all linguistic groups and all social strata,” which “contributes enormously to the national cohesion.”

In Switzerland, the sons of bankers and farmers alike do basic training for several months and then are recalled to service for brief periods. But the structure is less important than the service itself. My former colleague Tom Ricks proposes bringing back the draft in the United States but allowing for a civilian national service option — teaching, providing day care and the like — for those who don’t want to join the military.
There’s no mass movement for mandatory service, but the idea has gained a diverse group of supporters, including retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y). Gun-rights groups would cheer an armed citizenry, and an article published by the libertarian Cato Institute argued that compulsory service “can be a pillar of freedom.”

The costs would be huge. But so would the benefits: overcoming growing social inequality without redistributing wealth; making future leaders, unlike today’s “chicken hawks,” disinclined to send troops into combat without good reason; putting young Americans to work and giving them job and technology skills; and, above all, giving these young Americans a shared sense of patriotism and service to the country.
It would take some time, but this new generation of Americans, once again asking what they can do for their country, would undo much of the damage today’s crop of self-interested leaders is doing to our politics.  (end of article)

Z:   Imagine those PUNKS pushing the elderly over and how they might benefit from the military?  They should be the first ones in;  Let's get our kids back to unlearning what they learn at home and school;   that we owe them a living.  Bravo, Mr. Milbank

What do you think?

Z

Sunday Faith Post

It's December today, the month of Christmas.   The first Sunday of December, which brings the season of Advent, the time of waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus again.  Today, millions of Christians will light the first advent candle, which some call the candle of Hope.


The message of Christmas never changes;  it's inclusive, it's loving, it welcomes all.

 "Behold, a virgin shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."   Isaiah 7:14, Old Testament

Rejoice today at the beginning of this beautiful, sparkling, cheerful time!  Start saying MERRY CHRISTMAS!  Christmas is so, so, so much more than Black Friday or Cyber Monday.  Christmas is love, Christmas is Christ, Christmas is goodness and happy traditions and the ultimate in love for anyone seeking it.  Anyone.

Enjoy the season!

God bless..

Z

ONLY in America...some new ones

First, let me mention that a lot of you asked about the food pictures I usually post from my holidays and I did just post Thanksgiving 2013 at my FOOD BLOG.   Enjoy!

Now to more important and kind of IRONIC FOOD FOR THOUGHT :-)

Canadian's Version of David Letterman's Top 10. This is Canada's Top Ten List of America's Stupidity:

10) Only in America ... could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000.00 a plate campaign fund-raising event.

9) Only in America ... could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when they have a black President, a black Attorney General and roughly 20% of the federal workforce is black while only 14% of the population is black. 40+% of all federal entitlements goes to black Americans 3X the rate that go to whites, 5X the rate that go to Hispanics!

 8) Only in America ... could they have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner (the head of the Treasury Department) and Charles Rangel (who once ran the Ways and Means Committee), BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

7) Only in America ... can they have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

6) Only in America ... would they make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege, while they discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just 'magically' become American citizens.

5) Only in America ... could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."

4) Only in America ... could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

3) Only in America ... could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company
(Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).

2) Only in America ... could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a Trillion dollars more than it has per year - for total spending of $7-Million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

1) Only in America ... could the rich people - who pay 86% of all income taxes - be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.

Z:  Can anybody argue any of these?   Pretty sad, huh? Or "EH?" as they say in Canada...........

Question:

Regardless of the fantastic Thanksgiving dinners I'm sure you all had, I thought of a fun question for you all:

IF you could choose..........WHAT FAMOUS CHEF'S HOME WOULD YOU HAVE LIKED TO HAVE EATEN IN YESTERDAY?  ANYBODY..JULIA CHILD, JACQUES PEPIN, OR ANY OF THE FOOD CHANNEL CHEFS LIKE BOBBY FLAY, GIADA DE LAURENTIIS, EMERIL,  PAULA DEEN, INA GARTEN, GUY FIERI....ANYBODY AT ALL!

I'd love to know which you think would have made THE best ever Thanksgiving dinner and WHY!  What do you like about their cooking?

Let's have fun today talking FOOD and CHEFS!

Thanks!

Z  (and I do hope you ALL had fantastic food yesterday....and counted your blessings!)

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