Do we really need gun control? Get Serious!

Do we really need gun control? Yes to some extent, but how about regulating automatic firearms and BULLETS!

No, Really, Regulate the Bullets! 

We can and should regulate the sale of ammunition and the tools to make ammunition. 

One box per month per household! 

Seriously, if you need more than a half dozen rounds to bag that deer, moose, duck, pheasant or any other BIG game you are shooting at, you are a very poor shot. 
If you need to practice, go to a shooting range, which should be the only place you can buy more ammunition. Use it there, because you can't take it home. And it should be against the law to send guns and or ammunition through the mail, no online orders allowed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/12/no-really-regulate-the-bullets/266332/

Every citizen has near instant access to firearms and ammunition trough the Internet!
The United States is so saturated with guns that seeking to control them is futile. People own and use guns made in the early 1800s; guns made last month are on sale in stores now. We have a centuries-old accumulation of armaments that shows no sign of evaporating.

But there are two things that are needed for a gun to work: 

the gun and the ammunition.

Well, ok, actually three, but let's take the uncontrollable human out of the equation. Limiting guns may be hopeless. So why don't we focus on the bullets? A gun can be made from any number of common household objects. But making bullets is much, much trickier.

 Bullets are so easy to come by that that huge stockpiles exist throughout the country. But unlike guns, bullets are single use. While attempts to remove guns from the streets would either be incalculably slow or require heavy-handed, dangerous government action, curbing the ability to buy ammunition would mean a natural diminishment of the arsenal that remains. Every time a bullet is fired, that bullet is rendered useless forever.

Perhaps the best argument in favor of limiting ammunition, though, is this. The mantra of firearms advocates is the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

It doesn't say a single thing about the right to own bullets.

Bear all the arms you want. Make your own at home. Without a bullet to fire from it -- or, at the very least, far, far fewer bullets -- we can achieve what the Founding Fathers really sought: a stable & secure nation.

The future of Presidential Elections in America.

 In the future, all presidents will be elected by minorities, entitlements will be the law of the land, and entrepreneurship will be a thing of the past.

Obama and the Democrats believe demography is on their side. Census 2010 made abundantly clear that racial and ethnic minorities, especially Hispanics, are dominating national growth and will for decades to come. The Democratic agenda— favoring broader federal support for medical care, housing, and education seems designed to curry the favor of these groups, which played a huge role in tipping the balance in his favor in several key swing states.

In 2010, minorities were 26 percent of the electorate. Yesterday (Nov 7, 2012), 28 percent. A 2 percent bigger slice of the pie doesn't sound like much, but in a tight election it's everything. If conservatives want to win, we must broaden our appeal. But that doesn't mean abandoning our core principles. Assuming the country can survive another four years of Obama, Tuesday's loss might actually be good for the long-term health of the GOP, and thus, the nation. A victory would have allowed Republicans to sweep their problems under the rug — and postpone taking that long, hard look in the mirror. But let's face facts: Republicans simply must confront the fact that, at minimum, they need a makeover.

By next year, 500,000 more Latinos will have turned 18 in our country — and every year after that for the next two decades.
The irony, for those Republican primary voters who demanded tough stances on immigration, is that this is one problem Obama has inadvertently solved. The economy is so lousy under his stewardship that immigrants have stopped coming.

The Census Bureau also makes projections of the future population based on fertility rates, family size, immigration and other factors. Its latest estimate projects that by 2030 the black and Asian populations will be about unchanged in percentage terms, but the Hispanic population will rise sharply from 16 percent to 22 percent. On the question of whether they favor bigger government or smaller government, Hispanics favor big government by a 75 percent to 19 percent margin.

We must also address the issue of birthright citizenship or we will continue to have illegal immigration as far as the eye can see. Without changes in birthright citizenship, we will have future waves of illegal immigration looking to take advantage of the soon to be implemented plea for amnesty. The 14th amendment in its current form ensures birthright citizenship, automatic citizen status to anyone born or "naturalized" on American soil. Changing the Constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the US but to parents who are not documented citizens is the solution Graham and many in his party are advocating for.
The bill for the Social Security and Medicare alone will be over 500 trillion ANNUALLY, once amnesty is given to ILLEGAL immigrants.

The worst part is that the Democrats refuse to acknowledge the word ILLEGAL, since it can not even be found in any dictionary used by the Democratic Party.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/05/01-race-elections-frey
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/236006/what-the-election-means-for-minorities-the-supreme-court-the-gop-and-more
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election-2012/latinos-minorities-obama-win-election-article-1.1198477
http://www.hacer.org/usa/?p=1799

Media news bias is ratings driven

Just another reason I don't watch "Prime Time News" or nationally syndicated news shows like 60 minutes, they bend the news to drive up ratings, in some cases they will just make it up.

Why are the major media outlets content to manufacture or bend the hot news stories in order to drive up ratings?
It's because of the mentality of the old saying, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission"! Unfortunately the bastardized news stories last for days or weeks, if not months, and the asking for forgiveness by broadcast never happens, or in the case of printed news, it's relegated to the back pages or a footnote.

Trayvon Martin didn’t deserve to be lying mute in an underground box at the age of 17. Nobody does. He committed no offense to warrant such a fate. He was simply returning from the convenience store and chatting with his girlfriend on his cell phone, a scene that could be replicated a million times across America on any given evening. http://themoderatevoice.com/142893/pictures-and-prejudice-in-the-trayvon-martin-case/

Here’s all we know for certain about the killing of Trayvon Martin: Zimmerman noticed the black teen wearing a hoodie, tailed him as a suspicious character within the confines of the gated community, stepped out of his car to challenge him (despite instructions from police to keep on moving), exchanged words with Martin and ended up on the ground. Someone moaned for help around the moment that the gun went off, and Martin died on the spot.

Was the neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman out for blood or just taking his job a little too seriously? 

Why was the only picture used by ABC, NBC, CBS, the NY Times and every other major newspaper, from when Trayvon Martin was only 14 years old?
The contrasting photos of cute Trayvon and nasty George undoubtedly contributed to the call for vengeance.
Was the exposure on Zimmerman’s photo altered in some versions to make the half-Hispanic killer look “whiter”?
George Zimmerman is multi-racial. In fact, it’s said that he has black relatives.

For most of the black community and the left-of-center crowd, it’s an open-and-shut case of a light-skinned racist murdering an innocent African American kid for the crime of “walking while black.” The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton showed up to make racial politics, just to add fuel to the fire. The fact that Trayvon was wearing a hoodie has catapulted that essential item of hip-hop apparel to unprecedented glory as a political symbol of unjustly maligned black youth. By now, every Trayvon Martin sympathizer and his brother has been photographed wearing a hoodie. Congressman Bobby Rush was even kicked out of a congressional hearing because he showed up wearing a hoodie. He was kicked out because he did not adhere to the dress code for appearing before congress. Dress code, 'That' is a subject for another day.

NBC altered the 911 call by Zimmerman to make it seem as if Zimmerman was race obsessed, and every news story used it as part of their coverage. 

Photographs, videos, and recordings can be indispensable clues, but our biases, conscious or not, have a way of tampering with the evidence.
Neither man was all saint or all villain. Both should be given an equal chance to be vindicated or judged by proper authorities.

NBC News has since fired the producer who was involved in the production of a misleading segment about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. On April 6th, 39 days after the maelstrom, it appeared as a blip in the news, but not on any prime time news broadcast.
The action came in the wake of an internal investigation by NBC News into the production of the segment, which strung together audio clips in such a way that made George Zimmerman’s shooting of Mr. Martin sound racially motivated. Ever since the Feb. 26 shooting, there has been a continuing debate about whether race was a factor in the incident.

Of course the damage has been done in the wake of a rioting public driven to the media frenzy, just as they wanted.

Sometimes you just can't help but be BLUE!

Heroes, terrors and terrorism

A couple of notes on Heroes, terrors and terrorism.

March 29, 2012
US Soldier Killed Trying to Save Afghan Girl
Sgt. Dennis Weichel, 29, of the Rhode Island National Guard died saving the life of a little girl in northeast Afghanistan.

According to the report, Weichel was in a convoy in Laghman Province last week when he noticed some children were in the path of the moving vehicles. Weichel and other soldiers got out to move them out of the way. while most of the children scattered away, one girl went back to the road, as a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle continued moving toward her. Weichel saw the massive truck moving toward the girl and grabbed her out of the way. The girl survived, but Weichel died after the armored vehicle ran over him.

These types of stories go unreported everyday. Our soldier's heroic actions are unnoticed by most, if not all, of our major news stations. Certainly lost to the journalists of MSNBC and CBS, who most likely just throw the stories in the trash, deemed not worthy of the liberal rhetoric.

I found this story below and also decided to add it to the mix.

After reading the headlines today about the US soldier who shot up Afghanistan civilians, I couldn’t help noticing an irony.  There is all this clamor to try this guy quickly and execute him, never mind his having suffered a traumatic brain injury.
His actions were that of a disturbed mind and should be delt with by the harshest of penalties.

Yet (another soldier) Major Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood while screaming Allah akbar, still hasn’t stood trial, and they are still debating whether he was insane, even with the clear evidence regarding his motive: slay as many infidels as possible.

So we have a guy in a war zone who cracks, and he must be executed immediately.

But this Muslim psychiatrist who was stateside in a nice safe office all day, murders 13, wounds 29 of our own guys,and they try to argue the poor lad suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, from listening to real soldiers, and heroes, who had actual battle experience.

Two and a half years later, they still haven’t tried the murderous bastard.

Poor lad my ass, he murdered our own soldiers!

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph 

is for good men to stand by and do nothing.

Who wants to live forever? Scientist sees aging cured

The first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born.

Space Age Retirement Homes?

A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research,Aubrey de Grey, reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" aging -- banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.
De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular "maintenance," which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape.

That being said,
Does the government really want you to live, forever? Do you really want to live forever?
Retirement ages are getting longer, now it's 66, but in the next 20 years, will senior citizens be living in internment camps or dependent on their children? Social Security will not be able to keep up, but more importantly, Social Security will not be enough. What will the quality of life be like for the Old People? We may be able to advance medically to a point where many of the ailments that plague the aging are eliminated, but many people who retire, lose the willingness to continue. They don't really have a good reason to get out of bed.
We are rapidly getting to the point where the government takes all of your money and issues vouchers to pay your bills, especially if the redistribution of wealth programs become a reality. More to the point is that, if amnesty is given to illegal immigrants, our obligation to those who don't, or won't, or can't work, will quadruple our national debt.

What's your definition of "Millionaire"?

Obama: Anyone who makes over $200,000.
Wikipedia: an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency.
Merriam-Webster: A person whose wealth is estimated at a million or more (as of dollars or pounds).
Dictionary.com: A person whose wealth amounts to a million or more in some unit of currancy, as dollars.
Investopedia.com: It is important to note that paper millionaires are not the same as true millionaires, which generally refers to people who have more than $1 million in cash in the bank.
Urbandictionary.com: A person or organisation that is in possession of over one million of a pre-set currency in liquid assets, except property.

I don't know about you, but I have a great deal of diifficulty believing anything that comes out of the mouth of someone who makes-up definitions of the words they use.

In practically every speech on taxes, President Obama likes to pit the wealthier population against everyone else by using the term “millionaires” to pay their “fair share” of taxes.  Class warfare is unnecessary.  As you know, President Obama wants to raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 and families making $250,000.  First of all, how $200,000 + $200,000 = $250,000, instead of $400,000 as a couple, is beyond me.  Is one spouse supposed to suddenly make only $50,000 from $200,000?  Give me a break. http://www.financialsamurai.com/2011/08/17/how-long-does-it-take-to-become-a-millionaire/

One of the problems of taxation needs to also be applied to Social Security.  The maximum taxable earnings amount for Social Security (OASDI) taxes, 2012, is $110,100. True Millionaires don't have to pay any more into Social Security after they earn $110,100. Fortunately there is no cap on income and payments into Healthcare. However, both Social Security and Healthcare, as well as all government relief programs, are destined to bankrupt the United States, if illegal immigrants are allowed amnesty.

First we need to change the US Constitution to eliminate birth right citizenship for people who are born here, but neither of the parents are legal citizens. Then we need to establish a guest worker visa program that insures that only citizens can get any government relief.

The puzzle of poverty.

...it is a world where those without enough to eat may save up to buy a TV instead, where more money doesn't necessarily translate into more food, and where making rice cheaper can sometimes even lead people to buy less rice.
More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World
Oucha Mbarbk lives in Morocco without enough work, money, or food, but with a television, DVD player, and cellphone.
We asked Oucha Mbarbk what he would do if he had more money. He said he would buy more food. Then we asked him what he would do if he had even more money. He said he would buy better-tasting food. We were starting to feel very bad for him and his family, when we noticed the TV and other high-tech gadgets. Why had he bought all these things if he felt the family did not have enough to eat? He laughed, and said, "Oh, but television is more important than food!"

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink!

Shame on our own national news media! CBS NBC ABC

With all the news that's not fit to print or broadcast, why is the significance of Cordoba not getting out to the people?

I was watching the news the other day and noticed a familiar occurrence.

A reporter was talking about new parking meters in Los Angeles and that there would be tens of thousands of them going up in the next few months. His emphasis was on the technology; card readers in the machines, you don't even need cash or coins anymore and there is a sensor that will send a signal out to a central processor when the time expires that will get a parking enforcement officer over to write up a ticket.

What he failed to mention at any time was that right on the meter there was a big label, "$3 for each 15 minutes"! Nowhere in the story was there any mention about the cost to park. Luckily I don't need to go to Los Angeles and fight for parking. I don't really know how much it costs today or if the $3 per each 15 minutes is a new increase. It wasn't reported.

But it's what isn't mentioned in the news that is getting my attention more and more, especially when part of the story is right there in the background or foreground or hanging around in the ether. Not that some stories are not getting aired, but the stories are incomplete. I don't know if it's a carryover from the Dan Rather debacle where the news was being manipulated by the news organization or that there is still too much political correctness going on and they are just afraid to bring out the whole story. Most of the news on TV and in the newspapers is so skewed to the left, mostly, or at least leaning that way or over the top to the right, occasionally, that there are hardly any newscasts or newspapers worth watching or reading. The news should be balanced and fair, or maybe justified, but certainly not steered. That's mainly why I don't watch the national news broadcast on CBS, NBC, or ABC. They are not interested in both sides of the story. It's also why I don't read the Los Angeles Times or New York Times or any of the big newspapers. All of the current national newscasts and newspapers are blatantly biased. Those big stories will get out somehow, on the internet, where you can decide how much to read, but most of the real story on any national news broadcasts will be lost in the bias.

It's kind of ironic that when an event happens that will impact not only the local region but broad reaching enough to tug at the heartstrings of America and possibly the world, the national news stations will broadcast those stories all day, every day for a week or more, until the next "big headline news event" comes up. Even news stories like the oil spill in the gulf, airplane disasters, the kidnapping of a child or finding the kidnapped child, trapped coal miners, devastating storms and the downing of the World Trade Center in New York City, are "sold" to the audience in how they are told, or not told. Questions go unanswered by both the news media and the government. It's so very interesting that with all the competition for the audience of viewers and readers that the news media is trying to attract, they don't even understand how to make shock media work for them. They certainly know how to make it work against them. How many times do you see the nauseating effort the media takes to see someone cry on national TV or invading someone's privacy with an army of reporters and news vehicles camped at a victim's or suspected criminal's house, yet alone someone convicted of a crime.

Just think how more time could be given to real news stories if all that was said was "there was a drive-by shooting in Los Angels or New York or Detroit today, but no one died", read about it on our web site", or some other quick 3 second blurb, and then get to real important news. No one cares about the celebrities and superstars on again off again escapades or lack of social grace. It belongs in its own news show or program. Olbermann, Stewart, Beck and O'Reilly aren't news people, they're news entertainment pundits disguised as political news, but that’s where people are forced to go if they want the rest of the story that started on national news and was left unfinished on local news. We shouldn’t be relegated to getting our national news from CNN or Fox News and no one watches MSNBC anyway. Although Olbermann, Levine and Savage may be in the basement of the political pundit tower, the elevator isn't going anywhere worth stopping. if you are looking for the real story behind those "breaking headline news" stories. There isn't one local or national newscast that would be longer than 30 seconds, if each event was cut to one sentence. Then you could get to the news that actually impacts the city, state, nation or world, from the national news programs (ABC, NBC, ABC) that both the left and the right should be watching.

If National news really wanted viewers to flock to their broadcast, they would let the news happen, give a short summary and then ask the question everyone wants to know, and then go looking for the answers. There are far too many news stores about drive-by shootings and minor crimes that are allowed way too much airtime. We glorify gangsters and criminals, even overpaid unappreciative super stars, by making them headline news, so much so, that 80% of the news is either negative or driven by entertainment gossip. In fact, victims should, by law, be given 3 times more airtime than criminals, and the story should never be more than 6 seconds long. If there needs to be more time, they should be directed to a 'special' news program.

News stations and newspapers will see a resurgence of listeners and readers, if they took a more proactive, but unbiased, approach to the real news. News stories should be politically unbiased, as well as editorially unbiased. Most news organizations are politically bent, they all need to straighten up, or at least announce they are the voice of the left, or right, and see how their audience responds. That way we could have some fantastic news media battles that may actually get the whole story out and let the audience decide, or at least let them be informed enough to decide if they care enough to watch or read tomorrow's news.

Ask a politician a question, and the last thing that will come out will be the answer. Politicians always ignore the question. Their main objective is to get their message out first, because air time is so short and costly to them. Usually the question never gets answered and the news reporter on the scene or the interviewer in the studio, also short on time, lets them off the hook. The first sounds a politician should make when asked a question, must be about the answer. Give them 3 seconds to start the answer or cut them off. You could then have a standard disclaimer, "another long-winded politician that can't get to the answer". The politicians will be screaming, but it should be, answer first - stump second. Everyone knows the news anchor is just really an overpriced news reader anyway; give them something they can sink their teeth into. Congress is currently trying to silence the news that everyone wants under the guise of "equal air time", anyway, let the battle begin. Politicians would then get more air time than they would probably want, if they had to answer the question first, then stump, because there would always be questions that need answering.

The news media could easily put the challenge on politicians, government officials, superstars or the Corporate CEO, and drive up interest in viewing or reading their news. All they have to do is say, "We invited so and so to come on and answer these perplexing questions, but they have declined our offer", and keep repeating it every day. When they do come on, then it's, one question - one answer, stump later, if there is time. There would always be some important news going on in-between the hard hitting world and national catastrophes that occur. The news stories wouldn't have to be dragging on ad nauseam until the next "breaking news" happens.

So with all the news that's apparently not fit to print in our fine national newspapers or broadcast on our upstanding national news broadcasts, why is the significance of Cordoba not getting out to the people?  >>Watch and Learn!<<

And it took a non-American to point it out! Shame on our own national news media! Shame on CBS, NBC, and ABC.

The Story of the Statue of Liberty

The French, Egyptian and American connection.

The Story of the Statue of Liberty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty


While on a visit to Egypt that was to shift his artistic perspective from simply grand to colossal, French sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi was inspired by the project of the Suez Canal that was being undertaken by Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, who later became a lifelong friend of his. He envisioned a giant lighthouse standing at the entrance to the canal and drew plans for it. It would be patterned after the Roman goddess Libertas, modified to resemble a robed Egyptian peasant, with light beaming out from both a headband and a torch thrust dramatically upward into the skies. Bartholdi presented his plans to the Egyptian Khedive, Isma'il Pasha, in 1867 and, with revisions, again in 1869, but the project was never commissioned because of financial issues then troubling the Ottoman Empire.

Soon after John Wilkes Booth was killed by one of his captors, Frédéric Bartholdi (according to legend) was enjoying dinner with friends in Paris. Commenting how good it was that the U.S. Civil War was over and how terrible it was that Lincoln had died, one of Bartholdi’s friends (Edouard de Laboulaye) had an idea. What if the people of France, gave the people of America, a monument to commemorate liberty? And ... what if they gave such a gift during 1876, the first centennial of American independence? France, after all, had played a key role in helping America to win her revolutionary war. Enthused with the idea, Bartholdi visited America and ultimately sketched his conception of such a monument.

The first small terracotta model was created in 1870. It is now exhibited at the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon. The first reduced scale bronze replica was given to the city of Paris by Americans residing in the French capital on May 13, 1885; the statue was originally located in the Place des États-Unis and was moved to the Île des Cygnes in 1889. It was agreed that in a joint effort, the people of the United States were to build the base, and the French people were responsible for the statue and its assembly in the States. In France, public donations, various forms of entertainment including notably performances of La liberté éclairant le monde (Liberty enlightening the world) by soon-to-be famous composer Charles Gounod at Paris Opera, and a charitable lottery were among the methods used to raise the 2,250,000 francs ($250,000). In the United States, benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions and prizefights assisted in providing needed funds.

Meanwhile in France, Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) was commissioned to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework which allows the statue's copper skin to move independently yet stand upright. The good-looking French widow of an important American, Isabella Eugenie Boyer, the wife of Isaac Singer, the sewing-machine industrialist, was called upon to be Bartholdi's model for the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886 and was designated a National Monument on October 15, 1924.

The Statue of Liberty functioned as a lighthouse from 1886 to 1902. As a lighthouse, it is the first in the United States to use electricity. Birds, attracted by the original torch, sometimes became disoriented from the light of the flame. It was once discovered that more than a thousand had been fatally injured in a single day.
The bronze plaque in an exhibit on the second floor of the pedestal is inscribed with the sonnet:

"The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

It has never been engraved on the exterior of the pedestal, despite such depictions in editorial cartoons. The first two lines refer to the ancient Colossus of Rhodes. The bronze plaque in the pedestal contains a typographical error: the comma in "Keep, ancient lands" is missing, causing that line to read "'Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she", and noticeably altering its meaning. The name "Mother of Exiles" was never taken up as the statue's name.

In 1889, Americans who were living in Paris gave that city a smaller version of Liberty. The thirty-five foot monument is located near the River Seine and faces west, toward its sister.
http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/national_treasure/national_treasure_ch6.htm

Hundreds of other Statues of Liberty have been erected worldwide. A smaller replica is in the Norwegian village of Visnes, on the island of Karmøy, in Rogaland County where the copper used in the original statue was mined.

A Statue of Liberty replica at Odaiba, overlooks the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo Bay. There is a sister statue in Paris and several others elsewhere in France, including one in Bartholdi's home town of Colmar, erected in 2004 to mark the centenary of Bartholdi's death; they also exist in Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, Brazil and Vietnam; one existed in Hanoi during French colonial days. During the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, Chinese student demonstrators in Beijing built a ten meter image called the Goddess of Democracy, which sculptor Tsao Tsing-yuan said was intentionally dissimilar to the Statue of Liberty to avoid being "too openly pro-American." At around the same time, a copy of this statue was made and displayed on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a small park across the street from the Chinese Embassy.

The sculptor James Alexander Ewing's most prestigious commission was for the carving of the Glasgow City Chambers' Jubilee Pediment, its apex group of Truth, Riches, and Honor, and the statues of The Four Seasons on the building's tower. The figure of Truth also is known as Glasgow's Statue of Liberty, because of its close resemblance to the similarly posed, but very much larger, statue in New York harbor.

The Statue of Liberty is located in the harbor of New York City, on the Jersey side (but that's another story), on what was originally called the Oyster Islands, which includes Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and Black Tom Island. Both Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty have become powerful symbols of the freedom and opportunity that awaited millions of men, women, and children when they legally immigrated to America from around the world.


Don't Be Blue

Change you can believe in: The 1st Federal Sales Tax E-V-E-R and next the New Value Added Tax

Motivated Photos

Intentional Misrepresentation of the Health Care Reform Bill.

Lawmakers never read the bill they mandated into law or else they conspired to hide the 19 new taxes found in the Health Care Reform Bill.
In their zeal to pass a health care reform bill that is designed to make health care coverage affordable and available for more than 95 percent of Americans, Congress hasn’t explained very well the hidden tax bombs that the bill contains.

You will only be allowed to deduct medical expenses in excess of 10% of your Adjusted Gross Income. Currently that number is 7.5%.

If you buy a house and live in it for 20 years and the value goes up over 250k, a 4% tax will be levied on your proceeds from the sale of your house, which will go to cover Health Care costs.

Medicare payroll tax goes to 6.15%.
New Medicare payroll tax of 3.8% will be applied to interest, dividends, capital gains and other investment income for couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. The bill also increases the normal Medicare payroll tax from 1.45% to 2.35% for the same individuals.

3.8% tax on payouts from annuities
Investors who buy stocks and forget about them for more than a year will see an increase of almost 20% in taxes owed in 2010.

If you purchase a wheelchair, you will pay a 2.3% excise tax.

Pharmaceutical companies will be allowed to pass a $3 billion annual fee on to you.

Part of the bills is The Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act (CLASS Act), Americans will find between $150 and $250 taken out of their paychecks each month to cover this program nobody knew about.

Penalties on individuals.
Individuals will pay a yearly penalty of $695, or up to 2.5 percent of their annual income, if they cannot show they have purchased a government-approved health policy.

Penalties on families.
Families will pay a yearly penalty of $347 per child, up to $2,250 per family, if parents cannot show they have purchased a government- approved policy.

2.9 percent tax on medical aid devices.

This appears to be the FIRST - Federal Sales Tax - in the United States.
Tax on tanning. Imposes a 10 percent tax on services at tanning salons. Business owners will collect the tax from customers and send it to the federal government.

The START of.......................... 

                       THE - 1st FEDERAL SALES TAX, (E V E R)

                                                     WITH MORE TO COME ! ! !

Don't Be BLUE

UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE AWRY

This is from 4 years ago.
We should all look to Malmo, Sweden, as an example of the problems of uncontrolled immigration and political correctness gone awry.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/938

Malmö, in Sweden, set to become the first Scandinavian city with a Muslim majority, within a decade or two, has nine times as many reported robberies per capita as Copenhagen, Denmark.

It is interesting to note that these Muslim immigrants state quite openly that they are involved in a “war,” and see participation in crime and harassment of the native population as such.

Some talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden, the country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration.

Although it is not stated, most of the immigrant perpetrators are Muslims. In one of the rare instances where the Swedish media actually revealed the truth, the newspaper, Aftonbladet, reported several years ago that 9 out of 10 of the most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden came from Muslim countries.

The recent Jihad in the streets of France looked like the early skirmishes of an impending Eurabian civil war, brought on by massive Muslim immigration and Multicultural stupidity. Law and order is slowly breaking down in major and even minor cities across the European continent, and the streets are ruled by aggressive gangs of Muslim youngsters.

At the same time, Europeans are paying some of the highest taxes in the world. We should remind our authorities that the most important task of the state – some would even claim it should be the only task of the state – is to uphold the rule of law in exchange for taxation. When enough people feel that the system is no longer working and that the social contract has been breached, the entire fabric of democratic society could unravel. What happens when the welfare state system breaks down, and there is no longer enough money to “grease” the increasing tensions between immigrants and native Europeans? There will be massive unemployment, and tens of millions of people will feel angry, scared and humiliated, betrayed by the system, by society and by their own democratic leaders.

European leaders decided that therefore what they really needed was a European Union that would obviate their need for nationalism.

They took all the wrong lessons from World War II and continue to apply them, while ignoring the only lesson that’s really relevant from World War II, which is that you have to choose good and defend good, and fight with the intention of defeating evil. We have to be able and willing to make moral distinctions and stand up for the good and fight evil — and that is something that both the Europeans and Obama refuse to do.

Nationalism isn’t evil. British nationalism hasn’t been evil. French nationalism isn’t evil. Polish nationalism isn’t evil. American nationalism wasn’t evil and has never been evil. Contrary to Obama’s actions, American exceptionalism isn’t evil.
http://www.atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

LJ BLUE
(Holding by breath)

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and the one-eyed monkey.

Golda Meir got it wrong, only because of the basic prejudice of the Jews vs Arabs mentality, when she said, "We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

It should have been,
"We will only have peace with the Muslims when they love their children more than they hate non-muslims." Not all Arabs are Muslim and not all Muslims are Arabs.

Terrorism, like any other hateful prejudice from the KKK to Louis Farrakhan´s Black Muslim's to Hamas and Hezbollah and Al-Qaida and their ilk, should be dealt with by force, since force is the only language they speak. These terrorists are the cannabalistic kind, it's as if they eat their young, when they use them as human bombs and practice polygamy, so they can make more human bombs. It's no wonder they treat women worse than cattle.

The recent bombings in Moscow are a precursor of things to come in Eruope and therefore destined to happen in America, if we continue on the road to socialism and "political correctness" infesting our politicians. There is no place for "political correctness" in a war on terrorism. Whereas it may be thought of as politically incorrect to put all members of any group in the same catagory as those in the group that are true terrorists, you MUST start somewhere.

The place to start would logically be with the leaders of the group, except when the leaders can not truely lead because the followers will not except their leadership. Whether it's the religious leaders or the political leaders, the truth is that Islam is more about politics than it is about religion. Politics and religion are so intertwined that they can not be separated and the leaders are so powerless, they can not change it. Islam still rules by fear and the fear mongers are the fanatical religous leaders that hide in the shadows of evil.

LJ BLUE
(Holding my breath)

FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY GOT SLAPPED RECENTLY

For the John Gault that lurks inside, once you get past the Jewish bias. Like the Cycloptic Media or one-eyed monkey, that only sees with one eye, hears with one ear or speaks with only one voice, sometimes the message still needs to get out.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

You can avoid evil, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding evil.

American business, the motor of the global economy, was dealt a deathblow by the Marxist coup delivered by the Demo-rat party. The numbers are staggering. AT&T, the largest telephone company in the country, will take a one billion dollar hit in the current quarter as a result of this economic attack on America.

Verizon Communications, the second biggest U.S. phone company, told employees that tax burdens under the new law would likely filter down to employees.

Other companies that announced health care reform related charges include Deere, a maker of farm equipment, which sees a US$150-million charge for its current quarter, and Caterpillar, which warned of a US $100-million charge.
 
Unemployment will increase as companies, both large and small come to terms with the intended conscquences of socialism, and the intention is to redistribute wealth.
 
Implementing a doctrine that has no plan to pay for it will eventually cause anarchy among the citizens that will be required to foot the bill, especially when the leaders decide to do it now and fix it later. While they are fixing this one, they will soon try to include the millions of undocumented immigrants in this plan and also put them in our welfare system.

We should never allow a law that costs more than a billion dollars to be passed with less than a 2/3 majority.

LJ BLUE
(Holding my breath)

Contempt of Congress - Then and Now

Pogo had it right!

So, where does it all come from?

WASHINGTON, DC -------- HELLO!

Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax (Fed)
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
(And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes)

Not one of these taxes existed in 1900 ....
And our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

History of Taxes in the United States
http://www.google.com/search?q=history+of+taxes+in+the+united+states&hl=en&safe=active&sa=G&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=mj5rS52_GYvqsQOv-OmrAw&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=11&ved=0CDUQ5wIwCg

About 100 years ago our National Debt was about 2 million dollars...
We had the largest middle class in the world...
And Mom stayed home to raise the kids..

What happened?

Can you spell 'politicians'

And I still have to Press '1' For English.

DON'T BE BLUE

Going John Galt?

Do you have your copy?
..... sales of “Atlas Shrugged” have tripled since President Obama's election.

http://www.whoisjohngalt.com/

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." -- John Galt
Galt spoke against what he saw as the "evil" of collectivism and Christian ideas of collective sin and guilt, and said they should be replaced by enlightened selfishness and individualism.

http://www.goingjohngalt.org/blog/about/
I really, really don’t want to ever actually have to go “John Galt”.

http://washingtonindependent.com/32772/battling-obama-by-going-galt

“Set off a series of regulatory blunders and congressional meddling, blame the free market for the financial crisis that follows — then use this excuse to impose a more intrusive state! Sounds like something right out of an Ayn Rand novel.”

Atlas Shrugged - From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years.
How about 52 weeks.

Does this sound familiar "...rebelled against them when they demanded he loan money to people who could not repay it...", right out of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

The Democratic Party itself is making similar demands, not just on one banker, but on ALL lenders of money. Isn't that what got us here in the first place, when the Democrats forced lenders to loan money to people who could not repay it and set up ACORN to help find the people who couldn't qualify?

They’ve spent more in the first three weeks of Obama’s “rule”

than the government spent in all the time since America’s CREATION!

Socialism creates need!

“We just can't trust the American people to make those (health and savings) type of choices...the Government has to make those choices for people.......We can’t afford to have that money go to the private sector. The money has to go to the Federal Government
because the Federal Government will spend that money better than the private sector will spend it.”
-Hillary Clinton, in 1993.
http://www.cchconline.org/soundbites.php3

And President Obama said that he is not an ideologue?
Ask him about ramming health care down the throats of Americans, whether they want it or not,
the government knows best!

Going John Galt?
I'm not there yet...............yet!
However, I do have an American flag that will remain upside down for at least the next 3 years.
http://bullcutter.blogspot.com/2009/03/were-living-atlas-shrugged.html

DON'T BE BLUE

A TRILLION $$$$$$$$$$$$$

What's a Trillion?
13 digits, never thought about that part. Is it Lucky or Unlucky?

Everett Dirksen, one time Minority Leader of the Senate from 1959 to 1969, maybe most famous for the quote, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money".

Do calculators go to a Billion? How about a TRILLION? How many zeros is that?
9 for a Billion and 12 for a Trillion – but who’s counting?

The next time you hear a politician use the Word 'BILLION' in a casual manner, thnk about whether you want the 'politicians' spending - YOUR TAX MONEY!
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases. And don't even start them talking about a Trillion, you're head will explode.

A Billion seconds ago, about 31.7 years, it was 1979 and Iran's government becomes an Islamic Republic when the Shah of Persia is forced to leave and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran
One TRILLION seconds ago – 31,688 years – Neanderthals stalked the plains of Europe.

A Billion minutes ago, approximately 1902 years, it was 108 A.D. and China discovers paper, made from rags and the fibres of mulberry, laurel and Chinese grass.
A TRILLION minutes ago, about 1.9 million years, the earliest known species of the genus of man, Homo. habilis, was in the middle of its reign on earth and our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A Billion hours ago, about 114 thousand years, our ancestors were living in the Lower Paleolithic era "Old Stone Age".
A TRILLION hours is about 114 Million years, the first modern mammals roamed the earth, the World begins to cool and dinosaurs were in their heyday during the Cretaceous period.

A Billion days ago, about 2.74 million years, Homo. habilis, was in the beginning of its reign on earth.
A TRILLION days age, about 3 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere gets oxygen and the formation of the first known continent called "Ur".
 http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/timeline.html

A billion dollars ago was only 4 hours ago,
at the rate our government is spending it today,
and getting shorter by the minute.

If you spent a dollar per minute,
you could barely spend a TRILLION dollars during-------------

ALL OF KNOWN HUMAN HISTORY !!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Even if you spent $100 per minute, you would not be able to spend a TRILLION dollars in 300 years,
virtually the entire history of the United States.

Packed in bales of $100 bills (each weighing a gram), a TRILLION dollars would be 10 billion $100 bills, or about 10 million kilograms, 22 million pounds, or over 10,000 tons of cash (at 2000 pounds per ton).
A TRILLION dollars in $100 bills would occupy a million cubic feet of space. It would fill a football field 6 feet deep.

A stack of 1 TRILLION dollar bills would be 67,866 miles high or 2.73 times the circumference of the earth.
It could reach 1/3 of the way to the moon.

A TRILLION $10 bills, taped end to end, would wrap around the Earth more than 380 times.

You could spend $10 million a day and it would still take you 273 years to spend $1 trillion dollars.

One TRILLION is more stars than there are in the entire Milky Way GALAXY,.................
but who's counting?

DON'T BE BLUE

The Cost of Freedom

"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
"If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it."

Norman Thomas (1884-1968)
U.S. Socialist Presidential candidate

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968)
American clergyman, activist

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963)

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing"

Edmund Burke (1729-1797),
British statesman and philosopher

"Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him."
"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog."

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."

George S. Patton (1885 – 1945)

"Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week."

Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"There are good men and bad men of all nationalities, creeds and colors; and if this world of ours is ever to become what we hope some day it may become, it must be by the general recognition that the man's heart and soul, the man's worth and actions, determine his standing."
"Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace."
"A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards."

Theodore Roosevelt

 
"I don't know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"In time of war the first casualty is truth."

Boake Carter (1899-1944) aka Harold Thomas Henry Carter,
American national news commentator

"The Americans will always do the right thing... After they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Winston Churchill, Sir (1874-1965)

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thank the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among human creatures."

Abraham Lincoln (1830-1861)

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)
American inventor, journalist, printer, diplomat, and statesman

"I'm not afraid of the man who wants ten nuclear weapons, Colonel. I'm terrified of the man who only wants one."

                                           from the movie 'The Peacemaker' (1997)

"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action."
"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832
German writer and polymath

"There is nothing more dangerous than stubborness and arrogance in action."

ME

"For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt."

Lillian Hellman (1905 – 1984)
American playwright

"None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free."

Pearl S. Buck (1892 — 1973) aka Sai Zhen Zhu,
American writer

"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."

Robert A. Heinlein (1907 – 1988)
American science fiction writer

"Freedom is not enough."

Lyndon B. Johnson

"There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires."

Nelson Mandela

"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility."

Sigmund Freud

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

James Madison

"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression."

Malcolm X

"Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America's servicemen and women."

Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose ~~~ nothing ~~ if it ain't free"

Kris Kristofferson