Jules...passing thoughts - history, really.

This was shared by a friend.
I found it pertinent enough to share with my friends.

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Friends,

Tonight, President Obama delivered an extremely dishonest speech to Congress and the nation regarding his health care proposal. From claiming that his plan wouldn't increase the deficit by one dime, to claiming that the government-run health care will offer more competition, the president pulled out all the rhetorical tricks, but left us with nothing more than half-truths and empty prescriptions.

Please review this Associated Press Fact Check done on the speech: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090910/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_fact_check

In the coming days, there may be a temporary boost in support for Obama's plan shown in the polls. But keep in mind, if we continue to speak the truth about the dangers of his plan, those numbers will drop down once again, putting our side in a good position to defeat his proposal. Americans will not accept a plan that further explodes the deficit, forces many people into government-run health care, continues inhibiting true competition, and reduces our options in all realms of medical care.

Continue speaking to your friends and family about health care reform. Encourage them to join this group and read the articles we've posted. And, for just this once, take Obama's advice: if they lie, call them out on it.

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This blog was too good to NOT steal.
So here it is:

History Unfolding

Here's the link to an interesting (and scholarly) article that helps put MANY of the facts in perspective....
how inconvenient for poor Al Gore....

Manmade Global Warming Unlucky Number

So, a frog walks into a bank one afternoon and stands in line for a little while until finally a teller is available. He looks at her name tag and sees her name is Patricia Whack.

“Hello, Miss Whack,” he croaks, “My name is Kermit and I’m here to get a loan.”

“You’re the Kermit the Frog?!”

“Oh, no,” he chuckles. “I get that all the time. No, no. My last name is actually Jagger.”

“Ah,” replies the teller. “Well, we don’t usually loan money to amphibians.”

“I understand completely,” says the frog. “It’s just that, you see, I have been having a hard time getting around the pond lately, and I really need to buy a boat. There’s no way I can afford one right now, but I make a pretty good salary and I do have collateral.”

Attempting to humor him, she asks, “What in the world could you — a frog — offer as collateral for a loan?”

With this, the frog reaches into his pocket and presents a small pink porcelain elephant. “I have this,” he says.

“What in the world is that?” asks the teller.

“Oh, I’m sure if you check with your manager he’ll approve,” he says, handing her the elephant.

The customer is always right. So she takes the frog’s “collateral” and shuffles into the back to find her manager.

He’s sitting at his desk, working hard. But she interrupts him and, in a rush, tells him, “Look, I’m really sorry to bother you. But I don’t know what to do here.”

“You’re never going to believe this, but there’s a frog at the counter, says his name is Kermit Jagger, and he’s asking if we’ll give him the money to buy a boat. When I told him that we don’t give loans to his type, he told me that he had collateral and he gave me this,” she says, proffering the small pink porcelain elephant. “I mean, really! What am I supposed to tell him?! I mean … what is this?!”

The bank manager looks at her. He looks at the small pink porcelain elephant. Then he looks back at her.

“It’s a knick-knack, Patty Whack! Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone!”

I didn't write this...but wish I had & it truly reflects many of my sentiments about our "State of the Nation" at this point in time.

Statism's Waterloo

Here's an interesting blog with an interesting topic.
I'm interested to hear everyone's opinions & most interested to hear Kevin's (whose daughter recently had a similar experience, yet handled it QUITE differently).
Read on:
http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147486115

hmmm....
jules

I'm appalled at a recent statement by the ACLU toward the Senate about a bill they passed as an expansion of the "hate crimes" law...the ACLU released a statement criticizing the bill for its "chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech..."

No...seriously...they really did.

From Washington Post's Richard Cohen:

"The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to reassure politically significant groups--blacks, Hispanics, Jews, gays, etc.--that someone cares about them and takes their fears seriously. That's nice. It does not change the fact, though, that what's being punished is thought or speech. [The security guard gunned down at the Holocaust Museum] is dead no matter what [his killer] believes. The penalty for murder is severe, so it's not as if the crime is not being punished. The added 'late hit' of a hate crime is without any real consequence, except as a precedent for the punishment of belief or speech. Slippery slopes are supposedly all around us, I know, but this one is the real McCoy... For the most part, hate-crime legislation is just... another area in which liberals, traditionally sensitive to civil liberties issues, have chosen to mollify an entire population at the expense of the individual..."

Julie says:
The liberals need to decide....is it FREE SPEECH they are defending? or minority groups?  They are presuming to call it OKAY to hate someone because it's FREEDOM OF SPEECH! or are they defending that someone?  Depends on what day of the week it is, apparently.
Unreal!!

Getting dizzy - like watching a ping-pong tournament.
jules

I think this was his "dry test run" to see if he, indeed, is able to spur on a race war.............
And he has proven himself a mighty catalyst.
Just my opinion....j

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2447761120090724

According to a professional patient advocate interviewed by Fred Thompson on the radio 7/16/09 an actual reading of the Healthcare Reform Bill reveals appalling mandates:

The elderly and the boomer generation will be hit the hardest - $50 billion dollar reduction in Senior health, in order to fund the presently uninsured (read: including illegal aliens).

Page 425 mandates senior recipients be counseled every 5 years on hospice care, and instructed in how to decline nutrition, fluids, and other cares.

Stimulus Money is already going toward "Comparative Effectiveness Research" which compares medical treatments given to different groups of patients based on annual cost of treatment and number of years benefits treatment will provide. This makes sense in the context of limiting expensive care to people with very short life expectancy - i.e. organ transplants or starting dialysis on somebody with terminal cancer.

However, "Comparative Effectiveness Data" is in The Healthcare Reform Bill. It will be used to prioritize authorized treatment, just as it is being used in Great Britain. Treatment for age-related illness receives low priority and is denied if money is tight (It's always tight). Great Britain is already doing this; in order to be cost effective, sight saving medicine for macular degeneration is not provided unless patient has already lost sight in one eye. Coronary stents are routinely denied to people over 50 years old. A sex change operation which "benefits" a patient for many years longer than a coronary artery bypass operation would receive a higher priority.

The underlying justification for this proposed redistribution of medical care is voiced by Whitehouse Chief of Staff, Rom Emmanuel's brother Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel. He strongly voices his opinion that patients with dementia should receive no basic health services - no care for those with Alzheimer's, Down Syndrome, etc.

And lastly, there are several sections in this bill that mandate large numbers of people change from private insurance to HMO style care. The Bill plainly says people in the government health plan will not be able to get more care by paying more. This plainly contradicts what President Obama told the AMA in his speech two weeks ago, "If you like the insurance you have now, you will be able to keep it."

(posted on FaceBook by Dr. Bill Turcotte...stolen soon thereafter by his daughter...)

For anyone who has not joined the "blogging community" online as of yet... I've come up with an appropriate place to begin.  Where were you?  Where were you when 9-11 happened?  What do you remember?

Why did I choose to write on this today?  It's not any anniversary, there is no immediate state of emergency (no more than "normal") as it were.
I sat here tonight performing fairly routine chores that I choose to accomplish at ungodly hours (midnight through 6am) and was listening to the iPod selections on the desktop.  There's a few country tunes (sorry Dr. Kowalksi, yes, it's the truth).  An Alan Jackson song suddenly came on - "Where Were You" is the name of the tune.  And it suddenly came to me, after ten months away from my husband, why I am so alone.  Bryon is in Iraq because of 9-11, because of terrorism and our united fear of having our freedoms taken away.  So many have forgotten.  Even I had.

It's easy to rally behind our leader in the passion of the moment, and then opinions start moving - the next scenerios have played out between 2003 (start of Iraq War) through the present.  It's apparently also easy to forget.
That hurt.  I was angry that I forgot.

When it all "went down" (9-11) I had just dropped Matthew (son) at school (third grade) and Bryon was preparing for a shift at work.  After watching the horrific terrors on television, Bryon was sure to go back and retrieve Matt from school in order to leave him with his protective mother (that would be me), before going to work.  And then Bryon came home and asked if I could deal with him being in the Air Force once again.  He had already served a stint and he felt the call to defend our freedoms again.  I was caught off guard.  I remember laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, in the home we rented in Lakeland, FL and thinking what it might be like to be a widow.  Yes, it's morose - I still contemplate that thought, eight years later - I hate that I do.  I have NO IDEA how I'd deal with it.  Maybe the same way that I (angrily) supported Bryon in his calling.
Sometimes God and I don't agree - but He's always right.

This stinkin' country song got me to thinkin' about the past year and how all these changes have affected my (our?) life.  I've become independent again - I was so very reliant on Bryon for almost everything.  I've healed relationships that were well overdue for attention (love you mom) and I've realized how much I deeply adore and respect my husband.  Yes, I knew it before - but it became so much more REAL to me. (ok, here's where I tell Dr. K.: yes, country music should be banned!!  ha!)
I've even come up with some silly sayings throughout these 10 months (Bryon is set to return in about 3 months, God willing).  My mantra has become: "It sucks to live single with a ring on your finger."  I thought up a catchy bumper sticker: "Sexually deprived for YOUR freedom" - but I nixed the bumper sticker idea on my truck... I decided the school I attended and for which I worked would probably frown upon the sticker - private Christian college.  Highly inappropriate.

Anyway, the point I was getting at here... I'd like to give everyone a chance to begin blogging.  Tell us where YOU were when it all went down.  What are the details you recall?  What happened as a result?  What changed in your life - I honestly believe everyone's life changed in SOME way...how did YOUR life change?  Maybe it's the historian within my own being, but I promise that I will be interested in reading your blog.  I will read all of your blogs if you choose to write.

Blog on!!
j