With evidence indicating that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons in Syria, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday on “Face the Nation” that “there’s a growing consensus in the U.S. Senate that the United States should get involved.” Source: Graham: “Growing consensus” in Senate for U.S. action in Syria – CBS News. It is interesting that Senator Graham is able to find a “growing consensus” in the Senate but what about a consensus of the people who elected them? Do any of these guys actually listen to their constituents anymore?  Everyone knows that Senator Graham is a war … Continue reading Growing consensus” in Senate for U.S. action in Syria

  Those are astronomical numbers. I’m floored,” said Dr. William Graf, a pediatric neurologist in New Haven and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. He added, “Mild symptoms are being diagnosed so readily, which goes well beyond the disorder and beyond the zone of ambiguity to pure enhancement of children who are otherwise healthy.” And even more teenagers are likely to be prescribed medication in the near future because the American Psychological Association plans to change the definition of A.D.H.D. to allow more people to receive the diagnosis and treatment. A.D.H.D. is described by most experts as resulting … Continue reading More Diagnoses of Hyperactivity…

I just read a news article about a woman who says she is going to convert to Islam. Her family shouts that she has been brainwashed and needs an intervention to prevent that from happening. Just what does it really mean to be brainwashed? Brainwashing like many other words and conditions has a myriad of definitions depending on the speaker. Here is what Wikipedia says about brainwashing: Mind control (also known as brainwashing) refers to a process in which a group or individual “systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of … Continue reading Brainwashed???

  I have chosen the crabapple tree in the front yard as my inspiration theme for this Sunday. I just love watching things come back to life after a dormant cold season. The horses across the street are wintered someplace else. This was the first week they were back. Continue reading An Inspiring Spring Day

  October 2007 –  Milwaukee Art Museum.  This crazy looking piece of glass art is in the crazy looking museum. We very much enjoyed our visit there… Continue reading Crazy Glass…

“The Republican Party is not really a party. It doesn’t stand for anything except re-electing itself,” Stockman, who directed the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, tells Newsmax. “The neocons are only oriented to an aggressive, imperialistic foreign policy of big defense establishment and suppression of our civil liberties. That’s bad. “The tax cons want to just cut taxes — any time, any day — regardless of the fiscal situation,” Stockman adds. “That has gone to an absurd length. The social cons, social policy people — the right-to-life issue and gay marriage and all of that — … Continue reading A Reagan Apostle On The GOP

  “The minute a thing is long and complicated it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made ’em short. They may not always be kept, but they can be understood.” – Will Rogers, 17 March 1935 What is even more amazing it that Jesus turned those ten into just two. Love God and Love each other. How could it be simpler than that. Continue reading Long and Complicated…

    Couldn’t have said it better. Continue reading Priorities Around the Sequester….

We’re often told that our liberties are under assault. The right warns that our Big Government nanny state is plotting to seize our guns and our Big Gulps, while strangling our economic freedom with taxes and regulations. The left rails against our Big Government security state—the drone warfare, indefinite detention and electronic surveillance that make the war on terror sound like an Orwellian nightmare. The National Rifle Association had just finished bellowing about background checks violating our Second Amendment rights when the American Civil Liberties Union started shrieking about the FBI violating the Boston bombing suspect’s Miranda rights…. In the … Continue reading Tread on Me, Please….

  NEW YORK — A sharp decline in the price of oil this month is making gasoline cheaper at a time of year when it typically gets more expensive. It’s a relief to motorists and business owners and a positive development for the economy. Source: Drivers benefit as oil prices drop sharply – Business on NBCNews.com. I don’t know about where you come from but it seems that gasoline prices around here jump $0.30 a gallon in an afternoon. Most of the times that happens in Friday mornings. Friday is one of the mornings I drive 40 miles round trip … Continue reading The Gasoline Conspiracy…..

  A new golden rule   BY CHUCK JAFFE, MARKETWATCH It has long been a rule of thumb that typical investors should have 5-10% of their portfolios in gold. But watching gold’s swoon on Monday had to make you wonder: Really? Source: Online Trading, ETFs, Mutual Funds, IRAs & Retirement – Fidelity. Leave it up to the financial gurus to pollute the golden rule with things about money. I really got a kick out of this one. It seems Mr. Jaffe has a very short term memory. Yeah the price of gold dropped significantly on Monday but year over year it is … Continue reading The Golden Rule….

  Staying away from the news feeds today. Too much celebration of the Bush years.  I am just not ready for that yet.  Too many young lives lost and too many retirement pensions ruined during those years. Maybe when I am old and senile I can look upon them differently….. Continue reading Too Much Celebration….

I try not to post about the events like the Boston bombing until more of the facts are known but there is one related thing that always bothers me about such events. While I along with most mourn the four lives lost in this tragic event I wonder why we don’t also mourn the 150 or so lives also lost that day and every day to violence around our obsession with guns? I wonder why don’t we also mourn the 3,000 or so lives lost each day to hunger? Were those four lives more precious than the 150 or the … Continue reading Loss of Life….

“The Ryan budget kicks 12 to 13 million people off of nutrition assistance, cuts off pathways to opportunity, slashes job training and education, and makes draconian cuts to Medicare, which serves a majority of the disabled and the elderly,” said Boteach. “That’s how House Republicans have outlined their priorities.” Among those who voted for Ryan’s budget: Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, whose district has a roughly 28 percent poverty rate and 38 percent child poverty rate; Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), whose district has a roughly 26 percent poverty rate and 37 percent child poverty … Continue reading Congress Ignores America’s Poverty Crisis

“The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. via What it means to be a Christian…. These words come from Rachel Held Evans blog but are the words of Brennan Manning. Until I had read them I was unaware of who he was. He had a very robust life and was a prolific writer for a former Jesuit priest.  He passed on to the Lord recently. Here is an additional inspiring quote from Wikipedia. “The greatest single … Continue reading What it means to be a Christian…

For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preferences to all others forever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.  – Tom Paine in Common Sense, 1776 I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. —  Thomas Jefferson But, you know, we … Continue reading Aristocracy…

Books and newspaper columns talk of an “insurgency of the rational” and of the “sane, pragmatic majority” taking charge. A political action committee founded by New York’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, plans to spend millions backing moderates and independents in state and federal elections, with a nicely balanced focus on promoting gun control (angering the right) and school reform (which makes teachers’ unions seethe). The Common Sense Coalition, set up by entrepreneurs and fund managers, wants an online “Army of Moderates” to lobby candidates and elected officials. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is said to be poised to launch a group … Continue reading Power To The Centrists…….

We’ve lost something as a nation when we can no longer look at one another as people, as Americans, and — for people of faith  — as brothers and sisters.  Differing opinions have become worst enemies and political parties have devolved into nothing more than petty games of blame…. It is not about Right and Left — or merely about partisan politics — but rather about the quality of our life together. It’s about moving beyond the political ideologies that have both polarized and paralyzed us, by regaining a moral compass for both our public and personal lives — and … Continue reading Differing Opinions Have Become Worst Enemies……

I know that climate change is yet another scientific discovery that some think is false. So, what else is new? But soon the facts will just be too overwhelming for even these doubter to ignore.  We as a country seem to love to go to the edge of a crisis before acting but this is not possible with global warming. It is not something that is so easily reversible. Going to the edge of destruction will mean years of having to deal with the contamination of our atmosphere. If we wait until all the polar ice caps have melted and … Continue reading Climate Change….