Cell phone and tobacco addictions

Dr. Helen Smith wonders if cell phones are the new cigarettes. Yes, people do seem addicted to them, but tobacco addictions do not seem to be subsiding. My observation is that more women than men seem to be addicted to their cell phones, at least as many women as men seem to be purchasing cigarettes, but chewing tobacco seems to be almost exclusively a male addiction.

Are you suffering from microaggressions?

Hamas on Campus

ISIS terrorists at our southern border

Did you know that within the last week four ISIS terrorists have been captured after coming across the southern U.S. border from Mexico? Did you know that

Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED).

Once again it is Judicial Watch providing the information.

It matters

Seth Godin offers some encouraging words for those us us who like to write:

Do the word

It's possible to bend language to your will, to invest extraordinary amounts of effort and care to make words do what you want them to do.

Our culture celebrates athletes that shape their bodies, and chieftains who build organizations. Lesser known, but more available, is the ability to work on our words until they succeed in transmitting our ideas and causing action.

Here's the thing: you may not have the resources or the physique or the connections that people who do other sorts of work have. But you do have precisely the same keyboard as everyone else. It's the most level playing field we've got.

The first step is to say it poorly. And then say it again and again and again until you're able to edit your words into something that works.

But mostly, you need to decide that it matters.

Sacrificing the American population on the altar of political correctness.

How long will it be before trains of illegal aliens carry people infected with Ebola? Read more here.

Cream of the crop?

Moonbattery asks:

Did anyone think Guatemala is sending the cream of the crop to sneak into our country illegally? Wrong. It is sending people like this:

Police say the two Guatemalans, 16 and 17, escaped a facility in Des Plaines around 6 this morning, hijacking a car there and making their way to Moline and Walmart.

Officers say that’s where they ordered a 91-year-old veteran out of his car and took off in it, ramming another car on the way out of the parking lot.

Iowa officers initiated a short pursuit this afternoon, deploying stop sticks on Interstate 80 near Iowa City, arresting the teens.

Read more here.

Lego surrenders to Greenpeace

From Fox News:

Danish toy maker Lego says it won't renew a deal allowing Shell to hand out Lego sets at gas stations in some 30 countries, following a viral campaign protesting Arctic drilling.



In July, Greenpeace launched a video showing an Arctic landscape with a Shell drilling platform made of Lego bricks covered in oil.

Read more here.
Thanks to Moonbattery

A game of dodge

Making rape victims pay for their own forensic exams

Did you know that in states all across the country

rape victims are forced to shoulder the cost of their own forensic exams?

Read more here.
Thanks to Instapundit

Which one is "America's biggest hypocrite?"

What to do about China?

General Wesley Clark writes:

As China presses its territorial claims on the South China Sea and East China Sea more forcefully — including even a claim, in some quarters, of jurisdiction over Okinawa, where American forces are based — the United States is being drawn into regional controversies. In the past few years we have found ourselves courted by Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries in the region, which are anxious for reassurance and support against China’s new assertiveness, but also wary of provoking it. It will be in China’s interest to force us progressively to choose, on issue after issue, between China and the interests of our allies in the region.

If we are to retain our global leadership, and be a constructive, countervailing force as China rises, America needs a long-term strategic vision of our own: a strong, growing economy built on a foundation of energy independence; a vibrant, effective democracy; assertive, patient diplomacy backed by supportive allies; and a military capable of standing toe to toe with China in a crisis. With these pieces in place, we can succeed in helping China assume its rightful place as a global leader, and perhaps an equal of the United States, in a manner that promotes global prosperity and stability. Perhaps then China’s leaders will feel secure enough to grant real democracy to its people. But it will be a long journey.

Read more here.

It's the vibration

Nobody knows what they are, but they will probably vote in Colorado this fall for an amendment to require GMA labels on all foods, because, "you know, they're bad."

"I'm sure reality used to be great."

Have you chosen your gender identity yet?

Let's be who He made us to be

Do you know people who apologize a lot? People who feel they are never enough? Can we thank God for how he created us? Can we trust that what we have to offer is good? Kimberley D. Henderson writes:

Let’s be who He made us to be.

With joy.

With celebration.

With purpose.

And without apology.

Read more here.
Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Relying on each other

Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Benefits of walking

Ferris Jabr asks:

What is it about walking, in particular, that makes it so amenable to thinking and writing? The answer begins with changes to our chemistry. When we go for a walk, the heart pumps faster, circulating more blood and oxygen not just to the muscles but to all the organs—including the brain. Many experiments have shown that after or during exercise, even very mild exertion, people perform better on tests of memory and attention. Walking on a regular basis also promotes new connections between brain cells, staves off the usual withering of brain tissue that comes with age, increases the volume of the hippocampus (a brain region crucial for memory), and elevates levels of molecules that both stimulate the growth of new neurons and transmit messages between them.

Read everything you ever wanted to know about the advantages of walking here.
Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Yesterday my car would not start, so I walked to work. It was such a good experience that I am thinking of doing it regularly. It helped my mood for the rest of the day. It had rained throughout the night, and I have no garage. It was cold. Those are the conditions my car does not react well to. Is it time to trade it in, spend lots of money on finding what the problem is, or just take advantage of the opportunity to walk to work?

Running down back roads for prodigals

Are you the only mom who has ever lost it with her kid? Does your anger ambush you? Are we time bombs that must be defused with regular rest, food, and space? Lisa-Jo Baker has written "10 Things to Do Differently *Before* You Lose Your Temper" here.

“By God’s marvelous design, few life experiences humble us quite as effectively as parenting. …This tiny tyrant is providentially placed in our house with one grand program: to mold his or her parents into the image of our Lord. The way up spiritually, is by looking down physically.”~Gary Thomas, Devotions for Sacred Parenting.

Thanks to Ann Voskamp

You go, brother!

Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Accomplishing

FOX 26 News | MyFoxHouston
Thanks to Ann Voskamp

The place to go for political junkies

Open Blogger has written two of the most comprehensive posts I have seen yet on the potential GOP candidates for president in 2016 here.

Gender pandering

Betsy Newmark points out that

Republicans don’t have near as big a woman problem as Democrats have a man problem.

As for that GOP problem, it is more complex than Democrats would concede. A late-August generic battleground poll from George Washington University had Republicans winning married women by 16 points; white, married women by 23 points. They were losing white, single women (most susceptible to the Democratic theme) by just two points.

The GOP’s overall woman deficit is caused primarily by minority women—losing by 85 points among black women and 57 points among Hispanic women. The GOP’s task in changing those numbers likely has far less to do with reproductive rights as it does immigration reform and outreach.

Democrats are too invested in this strategy to let up now. But if they lose the Senate in November, it will be in part because voters—men and women alike—expect more from a party than gender pandering.

Read more here.

We have a choice

I like this post by Seth Godin:

Make two lists

One list highlights the lucky breaks, the advantages, the good feedback, your trusted network. It talks about the accident of being born in the right time and the right place, your health, your freedom. It features your education, your connection to the marketplace and just about every nice thing someone has said about you in the last week or month.

The other list is the flipside. It contains the obstacles you've got to deal with regularly, the defects in your family situation, the criticisms your work has received lately. It is a list of people who have better luck than you and moments you've been shafted and misunderstood.

The thing is, at every juncture, during every crisis, in every moment of doubt, you have a choice. You will pull out one (virtual) list or the other. You'll read and reread it, and rely on it to decide how to proceed.

Up to you.

Found here.

Where are the jobs?

The oil and gas industry is big in Colorado. Mark Jaffe reports that

The 31,900 direct industry jobs support 61,600 secondary jobs around the state.

You probably think most of the jobs are in rural counties where most of the production is occurring. Nope, Jaffe reports that

The biggest concentration of oil industry jobs in Colorado isn't in the Front Range or Western Slope oil and gas fields. It is in the office towers of downtown Denver.

Read more here.

Caving in to Islamist threats

David Foster reports:

The Dutch government has told its soldiers to refrain from wearing the uniform in their own country. The reason? A series of tweets from a single jihadist, who warns of forthcoming attacks against Dutch soldiers in revenge for Holland’s participation in the military operations against ISIS.

It should be obvious that this policy of caving in to a threat will lead directly to more and escalated threats in the future.

Read more here.

Friends of Obama. Friends of America

Is Turkey's Erdogan following in Stalin's footsteps? And, is Obama enabling the mass slaughter of Kurds?
Read more here.

Prostitution scandal

If you are a member of the U.S. Secret Service, you will not be treated as well as a White House staffer who is the son of a rich donor. Read about it here.

Another day, another fundraiser

Gwyneth Paltrow, who makes $16 million dollars per movie, hosted President Obama in a fund raiser today out in California. Gweneth is the Hollywood star who said in an interview with E Magazine it was more difficult being an actress and a working mother than it is to be a 9 to 5 working mother in an office job. Today she urged her guests (who paid $32,400 per person) to give President Obama all the power he wishes, gushing to him "You're so handsome I can't speak properly." Well, the last part was true. I'm sure Michelle won't mind Gwyneth's gushing.

Liberal Denver Post endorses Republican Cory Gardner for Senate

The Denver Post made news today. They came out with an editorial endorsing Republican Cory Gardner over incumbent Democrat Senator Mark Udall.


Apparently the Post was not impressed by Udall's war on women script:

Rather than run on his record, Udall's campaign has devoted a shocking amount of energy and money trying to convince voters that Gardner seeks to outlaw birth control despite the congressman's call for over-the-counter sales of contraceptives. Udall is trying to frighten voters rather than inspire them with a hopeful vision. His obnoxious one-issue campaign is an insult to those he seeks to convince.

Read the entire editorial here.

Let's all be gender inclusive

You don't think people are pushing insane ideas? Think again. Katherine Timpf writes:

A Nebraska school district has instructed its teachers to stop referring to students by “gendered expressions” such as “boys and girls,” and use “gender inclusive” ones such as “purple penguins” instead.

“Don’t use phrases such as ‘boys and girls,’ ‘you guys,’ ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ and similarly gendered expressions to get kids’ attention,” instructs a training document given to middle-school teachers at the Lincoln Public Schools.

“Create classroom names and then ask all of the ‘purple penguins’ to meet on the rug,” it advises.

Read more here.

Show those unfashionable and backward Republicans what a 21st century metrosexual looks like.

Manhattan Infidel has another scoop:

As his presidency winds down and looking to the future, President Obama signed a long-term endorsement deal with clothing and accessories retailer Banana Republic. Glenn K. Murphy, Chairman of the Board of The Gap, owners of Banana Republic, announced the deal at a press conference today.

“When one thinks of a Banana Republic one thinks of political instability, the rule of one man and massive corruption” said Murphy.

And who better to represent our brand name than the man who has done more to turn the United States into a Banana Republic than Barack Obama himself. Banana Republic and Barack Obama are a perfect fit. We feature stylish and witty clothing with a hint of third world exoticism. Barack Obama is from Chicago, a third world city filled with violent crime. Banana Republic is a progressive clothing line. Barack Obama is a community organizer. May he organize our wardrobes stylishly and with third world flair.

Read more here.

Not enough data?

Cully Stimson reports:

A definitive study published this week by the Journal of Addiction by Professor Wayne Hall of Kings College London, shows that marijuana is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and is a gateway drug to other illegal dangerous drugs.

Hall’s research, conducted over the past 20 years, confirms what other studies have shown: that regular adolescent marijuana users have lower educational attainment than non-using peers, that they are more likely to use other illegal drugs, that adolescent use produces intellectual impairment, doubles the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia and that, not surprisingly, increases the risk of heart attacks in middle-aged adults.

Read more here.

What do women find attractive in men?

Dr. Joy Bliss takes a stab at it:

The traits I find quickly appealing and charming in men are courage, honor, manliness, humor, shyness, but a confident attitude towards life and an easy, relaxed deportment which says that they are comfortable in their skin. They like to play sports and to play with power tools, books, and guns. Those things are instantly appealing to women like me, chemically. You do not have to mate with them, but I can just like it the way you like that chocolate dessert that you do not need and will not eat. We are not animals, but we do enjoy some people more than others. Decent men are the same way with the charming women they meet and enjoy. Normal guys who are out in the world develop instant crushes several times daily just from a chemical reaction.

Read more here.

Counting blessings

Ann Voskamp returns to her favorite theme today:

The life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it seems.

Why don’t I want to know that even though it doesn’t seem like there’s been enough rain, He reigns and He is enough and the bounty is greater than it appears?

That the thin places might be the places closest to God and the skinny places might be fuller than they seem and who isn’t full with Christ?

After 1970: The dividing line

Chateau Heartiste writes:

1970 appears to be the foremost dividing line between “good, functional, beautiful America” and “bad, dysfunctional, ugly America”.
So many social ills explode with a ferocity sometime around 1970, and continue exploding right to the present day. Count them out.

Single momhood.
Obesity.
Male unemployment.
Divorce. (Appears to have plateaued recently, thanks in part to fewer marriages.)
Total marriage rate.
Alternative mating arrangements.
STDs.
Abortion.
Low White fertility.
Astronomical debt.
Crime. (Though crime began a long decline in the 1990s, thanks in part to mass incarceration and internet porn.)
Feminism.
Equalism.
Multiculturalism.
PC neoPuritanism.
Anti-white and anti-free association Acts.
Wiggers.
SJWs.
Slut parades.
Fat acceptors.
Credentialism.
Bryan Caplan.
$22 trillion wasted in malign “war on disparate outcomes”.
Hijacking of every major public institution by the Left.
Diversity graft.
Welfare replacing workfare.
Parasite shamelessness.
Surveillance nation.
Manboobery.
White population displacement.

It all seems to have started around 1970. Read more here.

What hope is there for the rest of us?

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says,

“I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful in doing so.”

Read more here.

I am glad he didn't sneeze

Did you know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed by a black woman while he was signing copies of his first book in a Harlem bookstore in 1958? He mentioned it in his Mountaintop speech in Memphis the night before he was assassinated in April, 1968. Read about it here.

Clear and present danger

Daniel Henninger writes:

Ebola’s spread in West Africa was predicted. Government agencies responded late. Now it’s here. The Secret Service is so disorganized it can’t protect, of all things, the White House. Veterans died waiting for admission to VA hospitals. The CDC lost track of anthrax, smallpox and H5N1 bird-flu samples. At the State Department, no one seems to quite know why a U.S. ambassador died in Benghazi. The 9/11 Commission explained in detail how the attackers evaded the bureaucracies. Add to this list the Internal Revenue Service, an agency of extraordinary power that has forfeited the public’s trust.

It is past time to start thinking about how much could be going wrong at so many federal agencies. Watchful waiting isn’t the cure for the next bureaucratic meltdown.

Suddenly, the federal bureaucracies look like a clear and present danger to the American people. Even progressive defenders of the administrative state must be getting nervous at the disarray in the response to Ebola.

Read more here.

Big time changes in China

Lorraine Luk and Chun Han Wong at the Wall Street Journal believe

the closing of the world’s cheap labor frontier is at hand.

Chongqing (China) may be far away and hard to pronounce. But the workers striking there are actually marking a crucial inflection point. It is one that denotes the world’s central banks have painted themselves into a corner and that the global economic and financial game of the last two decades is about to change. Big time.

Read more here.

Mosquitoes

Who knew that one of the wonders of the world is the mosquito? Really!

"Checking a box"

Paul Mirengoff is concerned that

Obama’s “war” against ISIS may represent no more than an unserious attempt to “check a box” for political purposes before the upcoming election. In any event, Obama’s decision not to deploy ground troops makes his “war” on ISIS problematic enough. If, in addition, his air campaign is to be half-hearted, the effort becomes a bad joke

Read more here.

O'Reilly: State Department is an acute embarassment to America

Video here.

Mid-term elections

Bloomberg has a really interesting series of graphics here showing the eight states whose election results will determine which party controls the US Senate.

Demographics

Chateau Heartiste shares with us some demographic information one of his readers shared with him.

Racial Breakdown of Major Parties
1976 vs 2012
Based on Presidential Preference

Democrat Republican
1976 2012 1976 2012
85 56 White 94 88
15 24 Black 3 2
2 14 Hispanic 1 6
N/A 4 Asian N/A 2
N/A 2 Other N/A 2

Source: Roper

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_76.html

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_12.html

PS: Demographic breakdown of voters then and now (in percent):

1976 2012
White 89 72
Black 9 13
Hispanic 1 10
Asian N/A 3
Other N/A 2

He then goes on to make some doomsday predictions here.

Strength

Please read more here.
Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Climb up the stack!

Seth Godin's latest:

The full stack keeps getting taller

The bottom of the stack is essential, but it always gets easier to take for granted.

Of course electricity comes out of the little hole in the wall when you plug something in.

Of course the email engine works every day.

Of course the chipset returns the right calculations.

Of course the webpage loads quickly.

Of course the car starts the first time.

Of course the fax machine always works with other brands.

Of course you can call someone across the world for ten cents...

All of these things used to be really hard, random in their reliability, precious when they worked. Today, for most of us, they're a given (but still important).

Value is created as you work your way up to the newer, harder, scarcer parts of the value creation process. And then we'll figure those out and the stack will get taller still.

When the stack catches up, when the work you do is work that's taken for granted, climb up the stack.

Half-truths, innuendo, falsehoods, intentional omissions and pure ignorance

My friend Col. Curt Dale was recently asked to speak at the Colorado Board of Education meeting on the AP History curriculum. Here reproduced are his remarks:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was invited to come as a Veteran of 27 years in the Air Force and opine on the Advanced Placement College Board History curriculum. Holding a BS, Masters and PhD, all in the field of Education, wasn’t a factor. But that background helped me evaluate this flawed effort. I’m insulted, disappointed, even infuriated at this attempt at what I’ll call “ADVOCACY HISTORY.” Advocacy Journalism is when supposedly unbiased, balanced, and evenhanded in reporting, instead, become advocates of personal agendas. This AP History Curriculum is a perfect parallel to Advocacy Journalism. It is bias against America, finding fault and ignoring its best. It finds American Exceptionalism repulsive.

When I found the efforts of millions of comrades to arms in the Korean War, and my Brothers in the Vietnam War reduced to ONE SENTENCE in the curriculum, I was insulted. I am no hero. But I flew 153 Combat Missions in the course of 3 Combat Tours in the Vietnam War. Further, I helped fight the Cold War those 27 years We won it? Is that in this curriculum? Hardly! That would be unseemly, given the faultfinding in the curriculum.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream Speech” is omitted, as is Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” In City Park we have a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Monument. There’s a Martin Luther King Blvd. What would be the hue and cry if we just removed that monument and those signs? The “I have a Dream Speech” is one of the greatest speeches ever given in America? That speech should be timeless to Americans. These historians tore it down. The monument may fade and crumble. If not taught the essential reason Dr. King is admired in his fight for justice and freedom, these inept histories will have robbed Dr. King and the youth.

Do we want the importance of the American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen of World War I and WWII to fall by the wayside? Do we want to teach that Washington did NOT cross the Delaware? This reduces the battles, ultimate sacrifices and victories of our wars to just reasons to find fault with America?

It ignores the Founding Fathers. But it praises inane figures who contributed nothing to make it and keep America secure and safe. Recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor are ignored. I’ve had the great honor of meeting Medal of Honor Recipients General James Doolittle, Corporal “Woody” Williams, and Colonel “Bernie” Fisher and others, including a squadron mate, Captain Gerald O. Young. Yet, their bravery and willingness to give all to preserve this Republic aren’t even worthy grist for this curriculum.

I say, scrap this feeble effort at revisionist history. It’s unworthy for our brightest students. They deserve knowing what really happened in building this great nation, of its wars, and the real heroes and heroines. This collection of half-truths, innuendo, falsehoods, intentional omissions and pure ignorance does not pass muster. It is advocacy history for political correctness. Thank you!

Who is Curt Dale?

Curtis D. Dale is retired in Parker Colorado, has been married to Pat for over 57 years, has 7 children (3 homemade and 4 adopted), 8 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. He is a Colonel, USAF, Retired. He holds a BS in Education from West Virginia University, a Masters Degree in Education from Pepperdine University, and a PhD in Educational Management from Angeles University. He is a graduate of the Air Ward College (twice: correspondence and in residence) and Command and Staff College. He served 3 Combat Tours in the Vietnam War, two of them in reconnaissance flying B-47s and one flying electronic warfare in EC-47s. He served on tour as a Crew Commander in Atlas D and Atlas E ICBMs. He was Commander of Task Force Alpha in Panama, flying RB-57Fs on the edge of space, above 70,000 feet altitude, a spacesuit operation. He also commanded both the BMEWS site at Clear, Alaska, and the PAVE PAWS site at Beale AFB, California, both in Space and Missile Warning and Space Track operations. His final command tour was as Commander AAFES Philippines and Thailand. His last tour was working with the Space Shuttle. Upon retirement from the USAF, he was an Astronautic Planner for Martin Marietta in the Titan IV Space Launch System. Adopting children later in life kept him active in their schooling. He served on the Douglas County, CO, Accountability Committee as member, chair elect, chairman, past chairman and again as member. He taught as a substitute teacher in the school for 2 years. He voluntarily spent months preparing a comparison of Dr. Bill Spady’s Outcomes Based Education and Standards Based Education and was asked for his recommendation. His recommendation was Standards Based. He subsequently sat with Governor Roy Romer and two others for an entire Sunday afternoon, presenting that comparison and discussing the reasoning. Colorado adopted Standards Based Education shortly therafter. He then worked with DCSD in developing Standards, then with Senator John Evans and ultimately the Colorado Department of Education in developing standards.

Ban airline passengers from West Africa!

Epidemiologist Dr. David Dousey urges the United States to stop all flights to America from the countries impacted by the Ebola virus:

Bodily fluids including vomit spread Ebola, and Duncan — who presented himself to a Dallas hospital only to be misdiagnosed and sent home — vomited on the sidewalk outside of his home. It took days before a properly trained Hazmat crew was sent to the apartment to clean it. The human errors in this single case highlight why it is urgent that we ban all commercial flights from the impacted countries to all non-affected countries until the outbreak is contained.

The incubation period for Ebola is up to 21 days, so a person could get on a plane the day he or she is exposed and spend three weeks in the United States or elsewhere before exhibiting symptoms. Then he or she could potentially infect any number of people here before the disease is properly diagnosed, and they are isolated or quarantined.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been compared to a war zone. The disease is now being viewed as a national security threat on par with nuclear weapons. The United States has committed nearly 4,000 troops to impacted countries. It’s time to take security precautions that align with the gravity of the threat. That means doing whatever it takes to keep infected people from coming here.

Read more here.

Project Veritas report number two

You're kind of a big deal

Tens of trillions of cells in your body.


I found this at American Digest, where Gerard recommends you view it full screen.

Times have changed

Women students are now in a distinct majority on college campuses. However, Chateau Heartiste writes:

today’s paper pushing woman with a communications degree was yesterday’s equally competent secretary with a high school degree, and perhaps even yesteryear’s farmhand mother with sharp instincts for survival.

He also points out that women are marrying later and later in life, late 20s to early 30s.

it’s no coincidence that charismatic jerkboy game rose to prominence at the same time female college attendance and credentialism skyrocketed.

Read more here.

Missionaries of unhappiness

Daniel Greenfield believes that

Leftists are missionaries of unhappiness.

The simple joy of others turns out to be only a cover for monstrous abuses that they are determined to make everyone else see. If it’s an object, it was made by oppressed workers. If it’s a social group, it’s discriminatory. If it’s food, it makes you sick. If it’s a sport, it’s abusive. If it’s art, then it’s escapism from the misery the left creates.

To be of the left is to confuse perpetual outrage with righteousness. The professional leftist believes that the path to utopia on earth lies in constantly denouncing thought criminals until they have all been unthought so that only their kind of ethical and empathetic people walk the earth.

Does that remind you of the Ben Affleck video posted below?

The perpetually aggrieved deeply resent those who are oblivious to their anger. It is the theme that dominates the literature, the music and the political writings of an infuriated left throwing its anger at a mindless mass that is perfectly happy collecting paychecks, living in the suburbs and watching television. It is not their prosperity that the left hates, but their uncomplicated happiness.

The left’s greatest vulnerability is its meanness of spirit. It has suffered its worst defeats at the hands of the happy warriors of the right. Its defeat comes when its malaise is contrasted with happiness, when its deep suspicion of humanity is met with patriotic optimism and when its alarmism is met with laughter.

Read more here.

Need a free lunch today? Try Costco!

Paul Sakuma/AP
Joe Pinsker writes:

Families often go to Costco warehouses for a cheap lunch, and sometimes don’t do any shopping.

Read more here.

Undercover

A Kentucky Democrat explains to James O'Keefe's undercover journalists: "Politics is a game. You do what you have to do. It's a lying game, unfortunately." Truer words were never spoken, were they?

Hollywood crybaby

Ben Affleck likes to interrupt people. He also doesn't like the fact that our government has fought wars against Islamists. Watch his temper tantrums as people tell the truth about Islam. Nicholas Kristof defends Affleck.

Hillary: I'm not a replay of Obama

Jonah Goldberg writes:

The idea that all the answers to all our problems can be solved with enough data is deeply seductive and wildly popular among journalists and intellectuals.

In line with that, Hillary Clinton has come up with a new slogan: "Evidence-based optimism."
Read more here.

Let's hope jihadists don't get creative

Jonah Goldberg hopes al-Qaeda doesn't get creative:

If I were in charge of overseas contingency operations at the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, I would send as many suicide-bomber types back to America (and France and Britain) with a new weapon: Ebola. Airport scanners don’t pick it up. The incubation period is long enough to get the human biological weapons past screeners without detection. I’d tell them: Take as many connections as you can on the flight home. Help people with their luggage whenever possible. Leave a mess in the plane bathroom and a paper trail of your travels that will foment panic when ultimately revealed.

And, if you do get stopped by security officials en route, so be it. There’s lots of gloveless manhandling of suspected jihadis, which brings ample opportunities to infect interrogators, guards, FBI agents, etc. And every one of those infected Americans or Westerners furthers the cause.

But assuming you make it to Cleveland or Spokane or Washington, D.C., the only order of the day is: Have fun for as long as you can and maybe share your spit, sweat, and other stuff in as many creative ways as you can. See a show. Go to a water park and just hang out in the lazy river all day. Eat at a nice restaurant, leave a messy napkin. Don’t bother to wash your hands — and never flush (or if you do, make sure the toilet overflows!). Why, we’ll even give you all the fatwas and cash you need to hit the strip clubs and see a hooker or two. It’s all for the greater good. And when, alas, you start to feel really, really sick and you are at your most infectious, it’d be great if you could blow yourself up at a mall, or at least pass out at a McDonald’s or maybe in the middle of the F-train. If you opt for blowing yourself up, great. If not, try to tell the EMS team that you have something other than Ebola. The aim here is to keep the responders from treating you and the scene as a biohazard for as long as possible. And if you blow yourself up, don’t worry too much about killing a lot of bystanders, just make sure it’s really messy and there’s a lot of splatter.

Read more here.

"I don't want her in my house!"

The left's jihad against home-schooling

Kevin Williamson tells us that Connecticut Governor

Malloy’s committee on the Newtown shootings is recommending that Connecticut require home-schooling families to present their children to the local authorities periodically for inspection, to see to it that their psychological and social growth is proceeding in the desired direction.

The implicit rationale for the heavy regulation of home-schooling — that your children are yours only at the sufferance of the state — is creepy enough; in fact, it is unambiguously totalitarian and reduces children to the status of chattel. That this is now being framed in mental-health terms, under the theory that Lanza might not have committed his crimes if he had had the benefit of the tender attentions of his local school authorities, is yet another reminder of the Left’s long and grotesque history of using corrupt psychiatry as a tool of politics.

If people discover that they can live without overseers in the matter of education, who knows in which other of life’s endeavors they might be inclined to go their own way?

The Left’s war on school choice is mostly about money, but its jihad against home-schooling is about power.

Home-schooling isn’t for everybody, but every home-school student, like every firearm in private hands, is a quiet little declaration of independence. It’s no accident that the people who want to seize your guns are also the ones who want to seize your children. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s desire to imprison people who hold the wrong views on climate change and Harry Reid’s plot to gut the Bill of Rights are not aberrations in an otherwise genuinely liberal agenda; the Left desires to put every aspect of every human life under political discipline, from which history books your children read to what kind of cheese you eat.

Read more here.

Needed: priority shift

Are you failing to prepare your kids for the impending robot takeover? Sam Chaltain writes:

now, in the shadow of the technological singularity, there are a slew of movies about humankind’s desire to transcend the biological limits of body and brain.

Singularity is that moment when the whole game board changes, when artificial intelligence pulls even with, and then rapidly exceeds (or merges with), human intelligence.

Chaltain recommends that we should

Start focusing less on what we want kids to know and more on who we want them to become. And the good news is that lots of communities are already doing this — not by designing futuristic curricula or teaching kids how to build a better robot, but by recognizing that content is merely the means by which young people develop new skills and habits to carry them successfully through life and to equip them to solve problems we can’t even conceive of.

At the Mission Hill School in Boston, educators have decided four characteristics matter more than anything else: forethought, perseverance, production and reflection. At the MC2 School in New Hampshire, there are 18 habits to work toward, from critical thinking to self-direction. At the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia there are five — inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection; and at Indianapolis’s Spring Mill Elementary, it’s a set of 12, which includes traits such as empathy, integrity and cooperation. These qualities are timeless, as critical in an era of computerized knowledge as they are now. These schools demonstrate that our education system doesn’t need to aspire to a single, universal set of facts to impart. Instead, every school needs to decide for itself that, of all the characteristics the ideal graduates could embody, which ones must they hold to be successful in the world, no matter the decade?

The latest research about how people learn affirms the value of this priority shift. As Paul Tough writes in “How Children Succeed,” “What matters most in a child’s development is not how much information we can stuff into her brain in the first few years. What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence.” California State University’s Arthur Costa makes a similar point in “Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind.” “We are interested in enhancing the ways students produce knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce it,” he writes. “The critical attribute of intelligent human beings is not only having information, but also knowing how to act on it.”

Read more here.

Aspen's 1 inch rule

Aspen, Colorado is the beautiful Colorado mountain town where the beautiful people ski and party. Except the kids. Kids at the Aspen Elementary School must abide by a 1 inch rule when on their lunch break. Rick Carroll reports:

Parents have even said that children have been told to whisper by using the “1-inch voice” rule, meaning they can only open their mouth 1 inch and use a very clear voice.

One parent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she occasionally eats lunch at the cafeteria. She said it’s much different this school year than last, and expressed concern that children can’t speak openly after being in class all morning.

“Lunch is one of their only downtimes in the day,” she said. “You have to sit still in class and be good in class, and lunch is a social time. It’s a whisper-only policy, and they’re very clear about that.”

Read more here.
My kids play tackle football without pads during lunch hour.

What would Dwight Eisenhower think about this?

Sgt. Joe Friday comments on a discussion about what would George Washington think if he were to come to America today:

George Washington? Hell, imagine Dwight Eisenhower surveying the scene only 53 years after he left office:

Then: Operation Wetback.
Now: Repeated amnesties for illegal Mexican border-jumpers.

Then: The Gemini project, first manned spaceflight.
Now: Paying the Russians to put our stuff into orbit.

Then: Single motherhood strongly stigmatized, low rate of illegitimacy.
Now: Single mother a sort of secular saint, high rate of illegitimacy and climbing.

Then: Blue collar manufacturing jobs plentiful and well paid.
Now: Manufacturing jobs shrinking.

Then: Homosexuality considered abnormal.
Now: “You’re a homophobe.”

Then: Immigrants expected to make an effort to assimilate, learn English.
Now: “You’re a racist and a xenophobe.”

Then: Own a small business and you’re a respected member of the community.
Now: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that! Somebody else made that happen!”

Then: Traditional gender roles the norm, most believe men and women have different, biologically hard-wired natures.
Now: Women can do anything men can do, and do it more capably.

Then: High levels of trust between unrelated strangers, low rate of crime.
Now: Declining levels of trust more common, crime rate brought down through a combination of fudging the statistics, high rates of incarceration, and the rise of a “surveillance society.”

Then: Being in need of government assistance a source of embarrassment and shame.
Now: Gimmedat.

Then: Virginity or at least a minimal number of sex partners the ideal for women. Low threshold for being considered “damaged goods.”
Now: Promiscuity is praiseworthy; the idea of “damaged goods: is antiquated and misogynistic.

You get the idea.

Found here.

Racist Walmart employee confronts sisters who were just trying to look good

Nakia Sanchez, 18. (Longmont Police Department / Longmont Times-Call)

Isabel Sanchez, 21. (Longmont Police Department / Longmont Times-Call)

A Walmart loss prevention employee confronted these two lovely sisters who were stuffing a purse with cosmetics and jewelry. Naturally, the sisters dragged the Walmart employee by her hair outside and beat her up. The Denver Post picks up the story here:

The employee told police she confronted the women about the merchandise in the purse but was then "jumped from behind" by one of the sisters, according to the police report. Nakia Sanchez then grabbed the loss prevention employee by the hair and dragged her outside the store while both Nakia and Isabel punched the employee repeatedly, police said. Isabel Sanchez held her 2-year-old daughter in one hand and punched the Walmart employee with the other, according to the police report.

Police found Nakia Sanchez in the restroom of a nearby business with the purse full of Walmart merchandise where she spat at an officer before being taken into custody.

Read more here.

Eric Holder, Federal Dick

Journalist wins lawsuit against Homeland Security

Rob Bluey writes:

Audrey Hudson, an award-winning journalist most recently at the Washington Times, told The Daily Signal she was awoken by her barking dog around 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 6, 2013, to discover armed government agents had descended on her property under the cover of darkness. The agents had a search warrant for her husband’s firearms. As they scoured the home, Hudson was read her Miranda rights.

While inside Hudson’s house, a U.S. Coast Guard agent confiscated documents that contained “confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials” that Hudson never intended for anyone else to see. The documents included the identities of whistleblowers at the Department of Homeland Security. The Coast Guard is part of Homeland Security.

At the time, Hudson was investigating and reporting on Homeland Security, specifically its Federal Air Marshal Service and the Transportation Security Administration.

Read more here.

Higher insurance premiums, fewer health care choices, and less economic opportunity

FreedomWorks' Julie Borowski explains here how Obamacare is making everyday life more difficult for millions of American women.

There is one thing he won't risk

Peter Kirsanow writes:

At the very time that the terrorist threat has never been greater — when a rabid, well-financed terrorist army proclaims its intent to strike on U.S. soil — this administration opens our borders to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and refuses to tell us where they’re being resettled — by our own government, no less. It sends 3,000 troops to Africa to fight Ebola but rejects sending even three National Guardsmen to secure our southern border, and dismisses any suggestion of travel restrictions from Ebola-stricken West Africa.

The public’s anxiety levels weren’t quite reduced by the news that the commander-in-chief misses 60 percent of his intelligence briefings. Nor were they lowered upon learning that the administration rejected numerous pleas for additional security prior to the 9/11 attack on our consulate in Benghazi. But it’s unclear whether regular intelligence briefings would make any difference. This is a president so comfortable with risk that he would ignore the counsel of his top defense and intelligence advisers to retain a military presence in Iraq, gambling that the global goodwill engendered by his mere presence in the Oval Office was sufficient to forestall the implosion of the Middle East.

And a nuclear Iran? No worries. They can be contained. It’s those Jewish settlements we need to keep an eye on.

Even videotaped beheadings of Americans created no sense of urgency within the administration. Until, that is, polls emphatically showed the American people expected urgency from their government.

And therein lies the limit to Obama’s tolerance for risk. A nation imperiled is one thing; a president or party imperiled is quite another.

Read more here.

Do you trust them?

Ron Fournier observes that trust is what our government is asking from us in the Ebola crisis:

How much faith can the public summon toward an administration that used incompetence as a defense in scandals involving the IRS, Benghazi, and Obamacare; that lied about its surveillance of Americans; and that just recently acknowledged dangerous misjudgments regarding the Secret Service and ISIS?

Thanks again to new technology, Americans today are both better informed and subjected to more hype.

Ebola is a serious threat, but it's not the disease that scares me. What scares me is that fact that we can't trust the institutions that are supposed to deal with such threats, and we can't trust the men or women who lead them. Which means they can't help us.

Read more here.

Is addiction a disease?

Stanton Peele writes:

Those in the upper-middle class far more often drink (about 70 percent of college graduates) than those in lower socioeconomic groups (only 35 percent of those lacking a high school diploma do). But, of those who do drink in both groups, far more of the socially disadvantaged have drinking problems. They also smoke more—despite smoking’s now-exorbitant costs. For example, 12 percent of college grads smoked in the last month, compared with 34 percent of those without a high school diploma.

Peele hates the disease theory of addiction. Read more here.

I like these thoughts by commenter Assistant Village Idiot:

I earn my daily bread in mental health pretty close to these issues.

I have concluded I have little idea why some people get sober and some cannot. I have seen 12-Step work and not work, Antabuse and Naltrexone work and not work, high accountability work and not work. I have seen heritable susceptibility (even when the child does not know the bio parents), and addiction acquired from overprescription/overuse of legitimate pain medication. I have seen addiction begin at age 6 and as late as 71 (a Baptist who had never touched alcohol until age 68).

There is indeed a neurological/physiological aspect. Sometimes I think it's 90% of the game. Sometimes 10%.

If you were once an abuser of mood-altering substances and no longer are, be very, very grateful.

Another commenter named Kevin Bush says:

"Disease Theory" or not....yes my body can't handle alcohol and I go into immediate "craving" or alcohol withdrawal on the first drink ...so yeah 'disease' ..but so what ..

"The Steps" however (process of repentance) are to cure the obsession..and they're all about responsibility ..in that they require us to become responsible for our very thoughts ( steps 4 & 10 ) by challenging their validity ..daily ..hourly ..minutely.. always checkin for BS

In that light I could never figure out how anyone in A.A. could be "liberal"..

Another commenter writes:

I use them as tools to modify my behavior. They helped me learn to take responsibility for my actions, not my thoughts, and to see the possible consequences of my actions before I act out. I don't know anyone who can control their thoughts, only people who choose to act - or not - upon them.

Protect or control?

Is Homeland Security more interested in controlling law-abiding Americans or protecting law-abiding Americans? Mark Steyn believes it is the former.

The issue is settled

Daniel Greenfield writes:

The easy way to tell real religion from fake religion is that real religion doesn’t make you feel good. It doesn’t assure you that everything you’re doing is right and that you ought to keep on doing it.

The same holds true for science. Real science doesn’t make you feel smart. Fake science does.

Real science tells us that we are basically stupid. A close study of history proves it. And that’s a good thing. Stupid people can learn from their mistakes. Self-assured elites convinced of their own superior intelligence can’t. Everyone makes mistakes. The future belongs to those who recognize them.

Intelligence as ideology is at the heart of the left. Its Orwellian twist discards the need for using intelligence to question its ideology by asserting that the issue is settled. To be smart is to be left and to be left is to be smart. And only stupid people would question that.

There is no need to think about anything because the smart people have already done all the thinking. You can show you are smart by accepting their conclusions or show your stupidity by questioning them.

Science and skepticism are the tools of stupid people. As Socrates put it, I know that I know nothing. We have the most to fear from the smart people who don’t know and will never admit how little they know.

Good always necessitates long waiting

Ann Voskamp is planting bulbs with two of her children in today's post at A Holy Experience:

We kneel down, drop a bulb into opening earth, then wait “for the forces above and below and beyond our control to work upon” all these things. The boy pats the earth down and over and the Girl, she watches.

We bury hope in a tomb of its own.

Like the faith diggers do every day. We bury our swollen prayers in Him who’s raised from the tomb.

We lay our hope, full and tender, into the depths of Him and wait in hope for God to resurrect something good.

Good always necessitates long waiting.

Every tulip only blossoms after cold months of winter wait. Every human ever unfurled into existence through nine long months of the womb waiting. And the only kingdom that will last for eternity still waits, this millennia-long, unwavering-hope for return of its King. Instead of chafing, we accept that waiting is a strand in the DNA of the Body of Christ.

Then, Ann surprises a friend. Read more here.

Complicity through complacency

Tom Tancredo challenges us to get involved in the fight over AP US History curriculum:

We can put the issue of the AP US History curriculum in proper perspective by asking and answering this question: Is the College Board acting as a rogue elephant in rewriting American history to reflect a neo-Marxian worldview of America’s accomplishments and sins --or is it simply codifying and institutionalizing the conventional wisdom in the academic community?

If you believe the former, then you can look upon these battles as local eruptions and passing irritants. But if you understand that the College Board’s redesign of American history instruction is actually representative of the intellectual worldview of America’s higher education establishment, then you understand that this is a battle for America’s soul.

Read more here.

Also, read Stanley Kurtz's analysis here.

Temporary Band-Aid

Victor Davis Hanson writes:

It is popular to think that America’s threats can be neutralized by occasional use of missiles, bombs, and drones without much cost. But blowing apart a problem for a while is different from ending it for good. The latter aim requires just the sort of unpopular occupations that calmed the Balkans, and had done the same in Iraq by 2011.

Obama now promises to destroy the Islamic State in Syria, solely through air power. And he assures that he will safely pull nearly all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan at the end of the year.

More likely, Syria will remain a dangerous mess like Libya, and Afghanistan will end up like Vietnam or Iraq.

Victory on the ground and occupations can end a problem but are unpopular and costly.

Bombing is easy, forgettable, and ends up mostly as a temporary Band-Aid.

If we cannot or will not solve the problem on the ground, end an enemy power, and then reconstitute its government, then it is probably better to steer clear altogether than to blow up lots of people and things — and simply go home.

Read more here.

It's al-Qaeda

Andrew McCarthy reiterates:

It was all al-Qaeda. Khorasan, al-Nusra, and al-Qaeda are one and the same.

The administration does not like to admit that al-Qaeda is still a formidable enemy because President Obama has made a habit of falsely claiming to have defeated it. That is why we are hearing about the “Khorasan Group.”

the administration had a motive to exaggerate the threats as “imminent.” A president is not required to seek congressional authorization in order to respond militarily to threats of imminent attack. Obama did not want to ask Congress’s approval. Doing so would have launched a potentially embarrassing examination of (a) the president’s claims to have defeated al-Qaeda, and (b) the fact that the “moderate rebels” Obama proposes to aid in Syria work arm-in-arm with al-Qaeda.

By claiming to act against an imminent threat, the president sidestepped that problem. Of course, there could still have been an imminent threat — that an assertion is politically convenient does not necessarily make it untrue. However imminent the threat, though, its source is al-Qaeda.

Read more here.

Let's name her Monica

Thanks to My Underwood Typewriter

The Impulse Society

Are we becoming an Impulse Society? Paul Roberts thinks so:

A century ago, economic activity occurred primarily in the physical world of production. People made things: they farmed, crafted, cobbled, nailed, baked, brined, brewed. They created tangible goods and services whose value could be determined, often as not, by the measurable needs and requirements of their physical, external lives.

That relationship changed with the rise of the consumer economy. Sophisticated, large-scale industrial systems assumed the task of making many of the things we needed, and also began to focus on the things we wanted.

By the 1980s, computer speed was doubling, and computer costs were halving, every two years—a trend, known as Moore’s Law, that quickly transformed every sector of the consumer economy. Business processes, from design to marketing, could now be supercharged and accelerated. (In Detroit, for instance, the time needed to bring a new car from drawing board to showroom fell from four years to 18 months.) By cutting the time between investment and profit, computers gave business a potent new tool to generate the faster returns that Wall Street was demanding—but also to deliver the gratifications consumers were now coming to expect.

Humans, it’s safe to say, were not designed for a world of such easy gratification. Decades of research suggest that our brains, adapted for a prehistoric world of scarce resources and infrequent opportunities, are wired to prioritize immediate rewards and costs and to disregard rewards and costs that occur in the future. This natural bias against the future, so essential for our ancestors, is an Achilles’ heel in a modern economy built around immediate pleasure and deferred pain. Nearly every consumer proposition today, from credit to fast food and entertainment to social media and online shopping, capitalizes on our anti-future bias: in all cases, we’re provided immediate pleasure, while any costs, whether financial, physical, or emotional, are deferred so seamlessly that they vanish from our perception. It’s almost as if the evolving marketplace, once a force for personal discipline and deferred gratification (think of the Protestant work ethic) has flipped. Now, we’re urged to focus only on the present moment, and on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain in that moment. The notion of future consequences, so essential to our development as functional citizens, as adults, is relegated to the background, inviting us to remain in a state of permanent childhood.

But humans aren’t meant only for dominance. We’re also meant to adapt to something larger. Our big brains are specialized for cooperation and for compromise—with other individuals and with the broader world, which for most of history did not cater to our preferences or “likes.” Daily survival depended on our ancestors’ capacity to conform themselves and their expectations to the world as they found it. It was only by enduring adversity, disappointment, and delayed gratification that humans gained the strength, knowledge, and perspective that are essential to sustainable mastery. Many traditional cultures regarded adversity as inseparable from, and essential to, the formation of strong, self-sufficient people. Yet the modern conception of character now leaves little space for discomfort or real adversity. To the contrary, consumer culture in the Impulse Society does everything in its power to convince us that difficulty has no place in our lives (or belongs only in discrete, self-enhancing moments, such as really hard ab workouts). Discomfort, anxiety, suffering, depression, rejection, delays, uncertainty, or ambiguity—in the Impulse Society, these aren’t opportunities to mature and toughen or become. Instead, they represent errors and inefficiencies, and thus opportunities for correction—nearly always with more consumption and self-expression.

To the efficient market, character is itself an inefficiency to be squeezed from the system. Once some new increment of self-gratifying or self-promoting capability is made available—a faster phone, more powerful car, quicker delivery service—the assumption of the consumer culture is that it must be put to use, whatever the consequences. The intensity of our self-centeredness is now being determined not by conscious decision but by the market.

Read more here

Rewards

The person I hang out with and enjoy most is a black man raised in the ghettos of Atlanta and Memphis. We frequently have to ask each other to repeat what we just said, because we speak different versions of the English language. He was raised with little contact with white Americans, just as I was raised with little contact with black Americans. Nevertheless we have forged a friendship that we both value highly.

My daughter is a black person raised in a white family. She and her two Causcasian brothers attend schools in New Mexico where all three are in the minority, although my daughter much more so than my sons. Here is how she explains it to me: "People can communicate with me when they're not mocking me or being racist. I earn it. God rewards you when you do something good. You are rewarded with people loving you."

Illusions

Jefferson County lies west of Denver. In the most recent school board election there, conservatives were elected to a 3 to 2 majority. They came up with a new pay plan to pay effective teachers more than ineffective teachers. They also are contemplating a look at how American history is being taught. You may have seen media attention to walkouts by students and teachers in protest.

Ross Kaminsky compares the teachers union to the magician who uses sleight of hand:

A skillful magician makes you look in one place while the real deception is elsewhere; his is essentially the talent of distraction. And so it is with the chaos, sick-outs and protests in Jefferson County, where high school teachers, spurred by teachers union leadership, wave around the shiny object of "censorship" — while being aided by manipulable students, incurious reporters, and gullible parents — when the real issues are financial.

Like the lady being sawed in half, Jeffco "censorship" claims are an illusion. But unlike a magic trick, the fraud being perpetrated on students, parents and taxpayers by the Jeffco Education Association and the National Education Association is truly harmful.

Censorship is what the school board is opposing, not supporting.

Isn't it a good thing that students are protesting? Kaminsky says no:

Some say that it's good for protesting students to have a voice. They are wrong. Jeffco teenagers are fertile ground for viral indignation based on gauzy whispers of wrongdoing.

They are also a naïve collective of "unknown unknowns." They don't know about the objectionable structure of the new AP U.S. History curriculum which emphasizes themes such as "the formation of gender, class, racial and ethnic identities" but excludes Benjamin Franklin, the Gettysburg Address and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

They don't know that the real issue in Jeffco is a union objecting to changes in how teachers get paid, because unions explicitly prioritize their coffers over your student's education. They don't know that the NEA has planned for months to manipulate them on to street corners because sign-waving students garner more sympathy than a union boss does. And they don't know that they're participating in an illusion at their own expense.

But where are the parents? Where is their outrage over their children being left without teachers, without learning, without adult supervision? Moms and dads should be furious with teachers and union leaders.

The illusion of a "censorship" controversy must end: Students should be punished for unexcused absences. Parents should be scolded for their complicity. The school district should educate families on the real conflict with the union. Teachers should have their pay docked for every day of school missed. And the board of education should take dramatic steps to minimize the malignant influence of teachers unions that are so willing to damage your child's future in order to protect their own cash flow.

Read more here.

Come out of the closet!

Dick Hilker has noticed that political party identity isn't hip any more. He surveyed 70 official Web pages of candidates running in three of the largest counties surrounding Denver.

Only seven put in big type that they are Democrats or members of the GOP.

Fifty-one (count 'em) made no mention of party. And a dozen made some kind of reference — usually vague — somewhere in the small print of their biographies.

Read more here.

The opposite is true where I live, which is farther south of the metropolitan area. Out here anyone who announces that he or she is a Democrat has little or no chance of winning. On the other hand, in Denver the same could be said about anyone running as a Republican.

Feeling threatened?

Rick Tosches writes today about how we in Colorado shoot dogs who threaten our own dogs, cats who claw up sofas, pet rabbits who lash out with deadly hind-leg kicks, and parrots who make fun of us.

Armed man with criminal record allowed on elevator with Obama in Atlanta

Details here.

Little has changed

A "workplace incident"

An Obi Gynee?

Eric Holder's wife is an OBGYN.

In twenty years I've never had occasion not to trust my wife's heart

Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Seeing what he's made of

Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Do nice guys finish last?

Is this true? Chateau Heartiste writes today:

Women love socially dominant men.
Socially dominant men have less empathy. They’re more self-focused and less concerned with the opinions and feelings of others.
A lack of empathy is a hallmark of assholes.
Being an asshole is attractive to women because they perceive it as the behavior of a socially dominant alpha male.

What do you think?
Read more here.
There is a young man where I work who is a real people person. He is one of my managers. He is unfailingly a nice guy, and always treats the employees he is managing with great respect and kindness.

He's quitting. He's going to work in a furniture warehouse for much better pay. However, his strengths lie in his people skills. He feels unappreciated by his fellow managers, all of whom are women, none of whom are people persons.

I am upset that this is happening. There was another guy who recently quit. He was also a people person, working with the same group of female managers. This is not a good trend.

The need for Israel to do public relations

Thanks to Webutante for posting this.

Why did Jesus die?

Caleb Flores writes about four things Jesus did not die for:

1. For Your American Dream
Jesus didn’t die to make you healthy, wealthy, secure, and comfortable. This may be your current state, but don’t let that to lead you to think it’s a promise. God blesses those who belong to him—sometimes with temporal comfort but spiritual chastening, and sometimes with temporal suffering but spiritual flourishing.

2. To Be the Poster Boy for Your Cause
Liberal? Conservative? Environmentalist? Homophobe? Jesus isn’t a conservative Republican. Jesus isn’t a progressive Democrat. Jesus is God.

3. So You Wouldn’t Have to Change
Jesus died so we could change. Will you still sin? Yes, until the day you die. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian believer will persevere. God will grow your love for him and his people and begin to kill off your love for sin and self. Salvation is both a radical recalibration as well as a slow, steady march, which allows us to be more and more like Christ each day.

Grace not only saves us, it trains us. It teaches us to take Jesus’ side against our sin. This grace brings you to repentance—not like a kid forced to eat his vegetables, but like a slave shedding his chains for the first time.

4. To Merely Raise Your Moral Standard
Our pride and self-righteousness are just as offensive to God as the sins of the prostitute and the pimp. A pastor’s sins are just as offensive as the addict in the front row. They both need redemption found at the foot of the cross. Jesus didn’t die so we could amass a spiritual resumé of good works but so that we could rest in his righteousness as we obey out of love and humility.

Read more here.
Thanks to Webutante for posting this.

Unfortunately, I don't think he is worried about the cost

Donald Trump has offered President Obama free golf for lifetime at any one of his courses if Obama resigns now.
Thanks to Webutante.

In perpetuity?

--
Thanks to Webutante for posting this video.

Under control

Webutante posts an interview Michael Loftis conducts with cartoonist Michael Ramiriez, who is clearly the best cartoonist drawing cartoons today. Ramirez says there are three extremely negative influences on children today: our education system, our popular culture, and the media. Ramirez says every time President Obama gives a speech, there are fifteen different cartoon ideas. Here is his latest cartoon, found here.

Go here to watch the video interview.

US troops to West Africa to contain the Ebola outbreak

While I was cutting my fruit and vegetables for tonight's meal I turned on talk radio, as is my custom. The news came on. The newsman said the Defense Department is sending 4000 troops to West Africa because of the Ebola outbreak. The newsman quoted some official as saying that the troops will not be anywhere near the virus. Do you believe that? Why are the troops being sent there?

Tasting the goodness of God in all things

Sara Hagerty writes about a question her adopted daughter asked her one recent afternoon:

I had just wrapped myself around her little frame, settling her in for her afternoon rest, when she pulled her head back and asked, almost wistfully, “Mommy, is Jesus beautiful?”

“Is Jesus beautiful?” I asked, repeating the question for my own benefit.

“Oh, Eden. Yes. Jesus is so beautiful. Sometimes, when you look into His eyes, in your mind, you feel like you could look for hours. He’s so safe and so full of life and so loving. God made Jesus’ beauty to be almost overwhelming.”

“Ask Him for yourself,” I said. “Ask God to show you what Jesus looks like. I’ll bet you’ll see His beauty.”

Oh this child, with an orphaned past that could leave her skeptical of God’s beauty, asking her mama this question without awareness of the years ahead of her when she’d have to face her life-grief.

She stared up at me with eyes that were hungry. I’d seen this hunger in her before.

The answer to her question might be the very thing that carries her through her own life’s pain.

It might be her entry into a life of finding Him as the Healer of her once-broken, once-bitter story.

It was – it is – mine.

I’m not sure I’d have ever asked to see His beauty if my life didn’t break.

Pain is an opportunity. An invitation.

It can allure us out of the sterile way we so often approach Him and away from our false view of a plastic God.

Pain invites us to see. Him.

Read more here.

What I believe

I was laying in bed this morning thinking about what I believe is important. I found that my strongest convictions are in four basic areas: spiritual/emotional, nutrition, rest, and exercise.

The most important of these is spiritual/emotional. Included in this are my relationships. First, to God, from Whom I have learned to love and forgive myself and others. Also included here are the ideas of freedom and liberty, and I believe I should stay away from addictions.

As for nutrition, I believe in eating fruits, vegetables and protein from meat and cheese. I believe in limiting sugar and sugar substitutes, and that's not easy in America, where the "food" companies flood our grocery stores with products containing sugar or sugar substitutes.

Having the discipline to get adequate rest each day is not easy for a guy who loves reading as much as I, but I know it is essential, and always am glad when I get the rest I need.

Just like our brains need to be used, so do the rest of the areas of our bodies. "Use it or lose it" is an important maxim.

Do I succeed in each of these areas every day? No, and that is why I put these paragraphs in the order I did. Falling down and getting back up to try again is one of the most important lessons I have learned.

How about you? How would you list your most important beliefs?

Quarantine them in the one place where they are most likely to get infected?

The Ebola-infected patient in Dallas is Thomas Eric Duncan. His girlfriend is named Louise. She and her 13-year-old child and two adult cousins have now been quarantined to their apartment, where Duncan got sick, vomited and soaked the sheets with sweat. She and her son left the apartment when they were under a mere advisory to stay in the apartment. Ace of Spades writes:

Now, this family may not be infected yet, but we're keeping them in a place where the chances of infection are Very High.

So of course they'd want to get out of there.

Why are we keeping them there, as opposed to moving them to a quarantine facility where they don't have to worry about ebola on the floor or on the sheets?

This apartment seems to me to be the exact environment where you can catch ebola pretty easily -- so why expect them to stay put?

It makes sense to keep low-chance-of-infection people in their own homes -- but not people with a high chance of infection. And not in homes that are themselves likely swimming with ebola virus!

Read more here.

"Operation Sensitive"

My two sons are obsessed with football. They play at lunch, at recess, after school, when they get home, and all weekend. What do you recommend I do? This obviously must be stopped as soon as possible, but how?

Luckily, Manhattan Infidel has written a blog post about "Operation Sensitive," which has given me some ideas. Read them here.

Do we no longer have freedom of speech?

From John Fund at National Review:

The White House’s contempt for the news-gathering process extends to the most petty incidents. On Monday, Michelle Obama came to Milwaukee to campaign for Democrat Mary Burke, who is challenging Governor Scott Walker. To the astonishment of reporter Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, aides to Obama and Burke told her she could not talk to the crowd at a Burke event in Milwaukee.

“Assigned to cover Michelle Obama’s speech today and was told by a Mary Burke aide and one for the White House that I could not speak to the people in the crowd,” she recounted on her Facebook page.

“To say that I was creeped out is an understatement. This is what reporters do in America: we speak to people. At least that’s how I’ve been doing things — at all kinds of political events — since 1979.”

Read more here.

Caring about something beyond yourself

Ann Voskamp writes:

If we go through the world with our ear to the ground, with our ear pressed up against people’s words, listening for heartbeats, listening for the heartbeat of stories, it could happen — Stories are keys that release you out of yourself and into the wide freedom of caring about something beyond yourself.

Ann is in Rwanda. She tells us about Agnes.

I touch her arm. She is warm. She was 18. When the genocide began it’s bloody howl, she heard they were coming for her, for all of them, coming with machetes glistening brazen in broad daylight.

“So we ran to the wilderness. We escaped to the wilderness. We could not make fires to cook food or they will find us and kill us.” Agnes’ eyes hold mine. It is a thing to be in a room and look into eyes looking back at you and feel the tremor of such words reverberate your bones.

“We hid in the grass. At night we scratch at the earth, to try to find roots to eat. Roots to fill our mouths. We cup swamp water to our mouths. There are 12 of us, 12 in our family. We dig at night for anything in the dirt to eat raw. But there isn’t enough food in the wilderness.”

Read more here.