Excusing Obama’s Golf Game and Absence from the Presidency, the NY Times Opines

 

The Damage of 2011

opinion page, New York Times:

“After they took power in January, the hard-line Republicans who dominate the House reached for a radical overhaul of American government, hoping to unravel the social safety net, cut taxes further for the wealthy and strip away regulation of business. Fortunately, thanks to defensive tactics by Democrats, they failed to achieve most of their agenda.

But they still did significant damage in 2011 to many of the most important functions of government, and particularly to investments in education, training and transportation that the country will need for a sound economic recovery.

With a threatened government shutdown in April, the Republicans pushed through spending cuts of about $25 billion over a decade. Then, in August, the agreement to raise the debt ceiling — an unnecessary crisis created by the Republicans — cut nearly $2 trillion through 2021 with strict spending caps, a move that will hurt hundreds of programs serving millions of Americans for a full decade and longer.

Given the level of extortion they faced, the White House budget office and Congressional Democrats negotiated relatively well. They prevented Republicans from touching Medicare recipients, Medicaid, Social Security and other programs. (President Obama did offer to cut entitlement spending in exchange for higher tax revenues, but Republicans refused that deal.) They arranged for more than $500 billion in cuts to come from defense spending. And they did not agree to extend the Bush tax cuts, now scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.

But that still leaves major reductions in the vital category known as nondefense discretionary spending, which faces cuts of around $800 billion over a decade. That category includes education, housing assistance, transportation, public health, veterans benefits, law enforcement and courts, environmental protection and many other crucial programs.

This spending category has been the main focus of Republican pressure for decades. In the 1970s, nondefense discretionary spending represented about 5 percent of the gross domestic product; that is now down to about 2.5 percent. Over the next decade, once the new cuts go into effect, it will decline to less than 2 percent. This year’s spending bill, signed into law a few days ago, is roughly 10 percent lower than last year’s, cutting Pell grants, environmental programs and aid to desperate states. Low-income heating assistance was cut by 25 percent.

As the economist Jared Bernstein has noted, this is the category of spending that helps people move up the income ladder, providing nutritious food, improving early education and job training and putting people to work.

The precise cuts on individual programs will be determined each year by appropriators acting under the new caps. Each year’s cuts will be more painful than the last because the spending limits fail to keep pace with population growth, inflation and the needs of the economy.

This situation is the result of the Republicans’ success at shifting Washington’s focus from job creation and revenue increases to deficit reduction, at exactly the wrong time, when the economy was too weak to handle it.

The long-term deficit needs to be reduced once economic growth has returned, but only in the context of higher taxes for the rich and a careful restructuring of Medicare. Even if the Bush tax cuts expire on time, much of the $3.8 trillion that that would bring in over a decade would have to be used for deficit reduction if the caps stay in place.

All of this leaves President Obama and the Democrats with much work to do in 2012. When the 2013 budget process begins in a few weeks, they will need to protect vital investments from further cuts and start building the case for raising the spending caps.”

Comment:   I have never thoought of myself as being a hard line Republican.   I even never voted for a  Republican  until 1984.   I even  voted for George McGovern in 1972.   

If one wants to use the word “hard line” in opining, how about a little honesty about whose the stubborn arrogant hardnosed hardliner in reality……the one who withdraws from discussion and struggle to solve problems……the one who speechifies loudly spouting his vaingloriousness again and again to raise money for his re-election  as others  in government try to steer America in his absence?  

If simply opposing Marxist Obama’s return to the White House is in itself hardline, I plead guilty……but there should be nothing hardline about the general complaints of the Tea Party folks…….unless you, like Obama, believe that democratic America is a carcas already dead.

Even the Democrat part  of Congress goes to work while this Obama, graduate after 22 years of study at  the Jeremiah “Goddamn America” Wright’s cathedral of black racism, Barack Hussein Obama , snubs his hardline  nose at the duties of the American presidency.

David Cameron Claims Britain is still a “Christian country”…..What will Obama and the Jihadists Say? Oh, my!

David Cameron’s Christian Understanding

By MARK TOOLEY     at the American Spectator:

A British prime minister who’s not afraid to confront the dogmatic secularists.

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/29/david-camerons-christian-under

British Prime Minister David Cameron recently marked the 400th anniversary of the King James’ Bible by declaring that Great Britain is a “Christian country” and “we should not be afraid to say so.” Cameron was speaking at Christ Church, Oxford before a Church of England audience.

 

The speech will trouble dogmatic secularists of course. But it also should alert many American religionists who enthusiastically insist that Christendom is dead. Perhaps the embers, however muted, of what reputedly began with the Emperor Constantine almost 1700 years ago still burn, even in a nation like Britain where only 5 percent are regular churchgoers.

 

Acknowledging that critics would be concerned about his remarks, and claiming for himself “no religious authority whatsoever,” Cameron described himself as a “committed” but “vaguely practising” Church of England Christian “who will stand up for the values and principles of my faith.”

 

Of course Cameron affirmed Britain as home to people of many faiths and no faith. “But what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today,” he declared. “Values and morals we should actively stand up and defend.” He added: “The alternative of moral neutrality should not be an option,” and: “You can’t fight something with nothing.”

 

Cameron paid homage to the King James Bible’s magnificent language and its vast influence on all English-speaking peoples, specifically citing two great American speeches: Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. 

 

Even more interestingly, Cameron summarized the Bible’s impact on politics and governance. “The Judeo-Christian roots of the Bible also provide the foundations for protest and for the evolution of our freedom and democracy,” he said. “The Torah placed the first limits on Royal Power.” And God’s crafting man after His own image was a “game changer for the cause of human dignity and equality” when the “in the ancient world this equity was inconceivable.” He saw the Bible in the “forefront of the emergence of democracy, the abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of women.”

 

Cameron also credited the Bible with the “formation of the first welfare state” an unfortunate choice of words, as he cited historically private initiatives emerging from the church that “enabled hospitals to be built, charities created, the hungry fed, the sick nursed and the poor given shelter.” He noted 30,000 “faith-based” charities in Britain today. 

The Prime Minister accurately described the world as getting more and not less religious, with three-quarters of humanity now adhering to the four biggest religions, up from two-thirds a century ago. “Societies do not necessarily become more secular with modernity but rather more plural, with a wider range of beliefs and commitments,” he said, observing that China now likely has more Christians than Communist Party members. He even declared of ostensibly mostly secular Britain: “Christianity is alive and well in our country.”

 

Rebutting rabid multiculturalists, he regretted they “simply don’t understand that it is easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity.” Observing that Jews and Muslims sometimes tell him their faith seems more welcome in Britain than more secular France, Cameron pronounced: “The tolerance that Christianity demands of our society provides greater space for other religious faiths too.”

 

In what one British newspaper called a “coded attack” on the left-leaning Archbishop of Canterbury, Cameron claimed he had no objection to the prelate’s expressing political views. But “he shouldn’t be surprised when I respond.” And Cameron said the Church of England should advocate an agenda that “speaks to the whole country.” Presumably the Prime Minister doesn’t believe the established church or its senior bishop should simply represent the far left of the Labour Party. 

 

Reputedly over 70 percent of the English and 65 percent of the Scottish self-identify as Christian. Far fewer are active in any institutional church. But obviously Cameron was still politically confident about the likely reaction to his affirmation of Christian Britain. He cited the public’s enthusiasm over the recent royal wedding and papal visit.

 

The United States never had a state church as Britain still does. But for years many U.S. Christians, especially evangelicals, have heralded the supposed collapse of Christendom and Christian America, which remains far more outwardly religious than Britain. A recent massive Gallup study found that 78 percent of Americans identify as Christians, and 95 percent of Americans professing religion identify as Christian. Even the statistics may not reflect the full reality. Some American believers in the Christian faith in recent years have started avoiding the term “Christian” in favor of “follower of Jesus,” or other alternatives that supposedly avoid negative images about organized religion.

 

Evangelical elites who insist, even celebrate, that Christendom has ended point to a new postmodern age where modern Western society will more resemble the pagan, multicultural ancient Greco-Roman world where Christianity began. Post-Christendom, Christians supposedly will have more opportunity for faithful witness, now shorn of the corruptions originating with Constantine’s semi-merger of state with church. 

 

Prime Minister Cameron’s speech affirms that Britain, and by implication the U.S. along with much of the West, still rests on the cultural and moral assumptions of Christianity. Both secular elites and passionate religionists often deny this reality for differing reasons. But American Christians who imagine themselves living as the bold Apostles of old in a completely hostile culture might reconsider their paradigm. Pointing at the continued social structures of morality and faith that survive as vestiges of Christendom may be more effective than pretending that 1700 years of Christendom have completely vanished.”

 

Comment:   Our Dear Leader, Mr. Obama, has on at least one public occasion, denied the United States of America is a Christian country, although he had campaigned in all of the  nation’s “57″   states.

 

I am wondering how, from his Seat, the Archbishop of Canterbury could ever recognize a Christian these days.   Much of the “Church of England” is a laughing stock in our 21st century for marrying Marxism.

 

Thank you, Mark Waldeland, for sharing this article.

AG Holder’s Black Racism Corrupts Integrity of America’s Voting Process

Holder’s Racial Politics

The AG’s attack on voter ID laws may backfire legally and politically.

Opinion at the Wall Street Journal:

“Eric Holder must be amazed that President Obama was elected and he could become Attorney General. That’s a fair inference after the Attorney General last Friday blocked South Carolina’s voter ID law on grounds that it would hurt minorities. What a political abuse of law.

In a letter to South Carolina’s government, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez called the state law—which would require voters to present one of five forms of photo ID at the polls—a violation of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Overall, he noted, 8.4% of the state’s registered white voters lack photo ID, compared to 10% of nonwhite voters.

This is the yawning chasm the Justice Department is now using to justify the unprecedented federal intrusion into state election law, and the first denial of a “pre-clearance” Voting Rights request since 1994.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was created to combat the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities, especially in Southern states with a history of discrimination. But the Justice position is a lead zeppelin, contradicting both the Supreme Court and the Department’s own precedent. In 2005, Justice approved a Georgia law with the same provisions and protections of the one Mr. Holder nixed for South Carolina. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board that an Indiana law requiring photo ID did not present an undue burden on voters.

A second case offers a further glimpse into the High Court’s perspective on the modern use of Section 5. In 2009′s Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder, the Court declined to decide the question of the constitutionality of Section 5, writing that while it imposes “substantial federalism costs,” the “importance of the question does not justify our rushing to decide it.” But the Justices didn’t stop there.

They also cast real doubt on the long-term viability of the law, noting in an 8-1 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts that it “imposes current burdens and must be justified by current needs.” That such strong criticism was signed by even the Court’s liberals should concern Mr. Holder, who may eventually have to defend his South Carolina smackdown in court.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley tells us she “will absolutely sue” Justice over its denial of her state’s law and that challenge will go directly to federal district court in Washington, D.C. From there it may be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which would have to consider whether South Carolina can be blocked from implementing a law identical to the one the High Court approved for Indiana, simply because South Carolina is a “covered” jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act.

In such a scenario, Mr. Holder’s tactics could well doom Section 5 itself. That’s a big gamble for the sake of trying to stir up election-year minority voter turnout.

Civil-rights groups claim this Justice offensive is needed to counteract a voting environment in which little has changed since Jim Crow. But South Carolina’s law, like Indiana’s and Georgia’s, explicitly addresses potential disenfranchisement by offering state-issued IDs free of charge. When civil-rights groups fretted about the ability of minority voters to get to the local Department of Motor Vehicles to pick up a free state-issued ID card, Governor Haley created an 800 number to offer free rides to anyone who couldn’t afford the transportation. About 30 people called.

In October, the South Carolina Department of Elections reported that some 240,000 state voters lacked ID cards. The DMV now says more than 200,000 of those had allowed their IDs to expire, lived in other states or were dead.

The Voting Rights Act was once needed to counteract the gap between black and white voter registration. By 2009 the gap had narrowed to a few percentage points in some covered states while blacks out-registered whites in others. Yet Justice retains a federal veto on election-law changes no matter how innocuous or racially neutral. Section 5 has become a vehicle not to pursue equal access to the polls but to play the grossest kind of racial politics.

As African-American men at the most exalted reaches of government, Messrs. Obama and Holder are a testament to how much racial progress the country has made. It’s a shame to see them pretending little has changed so they can scare up some votes.”

Obama Sudden Approval Lasted One Day…..Dear Leader is off to play golf again in Hawaii

Obama’s approval rating plummets

By Amie Parnes -    at The Hill:

“President Obama enjoyed a surge in popularity this week — but the bounce proved to be remarkably short-lived.

A Gallup tracking poll released Thursday showed that Obama is once again underwater, plummeting to 41 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval, a sharp drop from earlier in the week.

A survey released Monday showed the president had a sudden uptick in the opinion poll, with 47 percent of respondents approving of the way he was handling his job and 45 percent disapproving. It was the first time since July that more people viewed him favorably than unfavorably.

 

The bounce in popularity came on the heels of the payroll-tax cut debate, when Senate Democrats and Obama stood firm to force House Republicans into accepting a two-month deal. 

 

After emerging as the winner in that debate, the president headed to Hawaii on Friday for a Christmas vacation with his family.

Obama, who has spent much of his down time on the golf course and out with his family, has not appeared at a public event since leaving Washington.

The Hill is  usually a slightly Democrat Party establishment.   Ms. Parnes claims Barack Hussein’s sudden rise in ‘popularity’ was due to the ” respondents approving of the way he was handling his job and 45 percent disapproving. It was the first time since July that more people viewed him favorably than unfavorably.

“Wow, now that popularity supposedly due to handling his job, was truly short lived.   Baloney.   He  got a good press for the moment’s trouble caused by tea party patriots in the House preferred to vote on prinicple rather than holiday expediency.   Plus, Mr. Obama received good press for his abandoning the Iraqis  to sink in their own quicksand as American troops were pulled home.

Romney Doing Well in Iowa…..Joined by Chris Christie

Chris Christie joins Romney in Iowa push

By Philip Rucker     at the Washington Post

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – Accelerating his late push to win the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney rallied more than 300 supporters under a cold drizzle and cutting wind here Friday morning by casting himself as a “citizen leader” and the election as “a real battle.”

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, center, with wife Ann, right, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, arrives for a campaign appearance at a Hy-Vee grocery store, Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, in West Des Moines, Iowa. ( (Charlie Neibergall – AP)

“I need your help, you guys,” Romney exhorted the crowd. “This is a real battle – it’s a battle for the future course of America. I don’t want politicians running America anymore. I want to make sure that we have citizen leaders going to Washington, leading this country, fighting for the soul of this great country.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, kicking off a day of campaigning across the state on Romney’s behalf, joined the former Massachusetts governor on stage here.

“President Barack Obama came out to Iowa three years ago and he talked to you about hope and change,” Christie said. “Well, let me tell ya. After three years of Obama, we are hopeless and changeless and we need Mitt Romney to bring us back, to bring America back.”

The rally — staged in the parking lot of a suburban supermarket, where the wind chill was about 26 degrees — was the latest sign of Romney’s growing confidence about his chances in next Tuesday’s caucuses. After pursuing a cautious strategy here for much of the year, Romney now sits atop the polls with Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) and has been drawing large crowds on his bus tour this week.

Romney is planning a more aggressive sprint in the closing days of the campaign. From here, Romney flies to New Hampshire, where he will host a spaghetti dinner with supporters Friday night and hold a campaign event Saturday morning, before returning to Iowa that afternoon to begin a series of rallies in the state’s bigger cities.

Christie warned Iowans that if they don’t support Romney in next Tuesday’s caucuses, “I will be back — Jersey style, people.”

“When you look at that stage and you’ve watched these debates, I think you’ve got to come to the conclusion I’ve come to — there is no person better qualified by his experience and his character to take on Barack Obama and to lead the United States of America than Governor Mitt Romney,” Christie said.

As he has all week on his bus tour across Iowa, Romney seemed confident and punchy. Taking the stage, he looked out at his bundled-up supporters and remarked that there were “over 1,000 people – 1,500 people here.” That was a hopeful guess, as the actual crowd was somewhere north of 300.

Still, Romney’s point was taken. He went on to contrast the scene in West Des Moines – it was so cold that Romney’s wife, Ann, was visibly shivering and moved closer to Christie for warmth — with President Obama’s Christmas vacation in Hawaii.

“He’s in Hawaii right now,” Romney said. “We’re out in the cold and the rain and the wind because we care about America. He’s out there — he just finished his 90th round of golf. We’ve got 25 million Americans that are out of work or stopped looking for work or are underemployed.”

“Do you want more of Barack Obama?” Romney asked.

“No,” the crowd shouted back.

“Do you want more of Obamacare?”

“No.”

“Do you want promises of higher taxes?”

“No.”

In his brief remarks, Romney kept his focus almost exclusively on Obama. He did not mention any of his Republican opponents, although he drew a subtle contrast with them by talking about his experience in the business world relative to their years as elected officials.

“I think to get America back on track you need to have someone who spent his life outside of Washington,” Romney said. “I did spend four years as a governor – I didn’t inhale, I promise. I’m still a business guy, a father, a husband, a person who cares very much about this country.”

By Philip Rucker

Conservatives UNITE! America’s Enemy is the Marxist, Barack Obama. Help ROMNEY Send “Hussein” back to Chicago!

For those of you who are worried about the Conservative Credentials of Mitt Romney, please rest.   Somehow, Mr. Romney became governor of the state of Massachusetts, one of the looniest, most provincial and educationally bigotted  states in the Union.    Confront those TeaParty folks who insist this Governor is not electable, AND remind these OUTSTANDING AMERICANS of Governor Romney’s abilities, charm, intelligence, love for America and his family, and his lifetime record of American citizenship.  

To TEAPARTY ACTIVISTS   and their fans, such as I:    If Mr. Romney is malleable, why do you assume you cannot  persuade him to accept the traditional American values we  so cherish.    He leads the life of an exemplary American as most of you folks do, so he possesses your family values.   He may be a bit wealthier than the rest of us.  He may have even  hired a struggling landscape company such as mine to improve the beauty of his home  grounds.

Mitt Romney is only an inch away from being an ideal American to be a textbook opposite of Barack Hussein.

Critics claim Governor Romney is dogmatically malleable.   WHY ON EARTH IS THAT A PROBLEM?     If any conservative is worried about Mr. Romney wandering from a tenet or two of  conservative  DOGMA, well….PERSUADE HIM TO RETURN TO YOUR IDEAS, for he has a habit of listening, unlike Barack Hussein!!!   WHAT A WONDERFUL AMERICAN VALUE!    His life is filled with conservative values.

WHAT ROMNEY NEEDS IS A QUICK SHORT COURSE IN AMERICAN STATESMANSHIP……something this political gangster, Barack Hussein Obama, a foreigner to American life, has no feel for.  

What Mitt Romney has to do….. FIRE  OR RE-EDUCATE  THE FOLKS ON HIS CAMPAIGN STAFF WHO HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR STAINING THE GOVERNOR’S CHARACTER  in the Republican battles for nomination thus far.   PUT AN END TO THE CHEAP SHOTS AGAINST FELLOW CONSERVATIVES.   MEND FENCES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.    BECOME AN AMERICAN STATEMAN  NOW, if not sooner.    End the sniping in conversation and advertising.    TRUST THE AMERICAN CITIZEN TO RECOGNIZE ONCE AGAIN THE GLORY OF AMERICAN VALUES.   

WE NEED  A  STATEMAN OF AMERICAN CONSERVATISM  to campaign for those values.   Help Mitt Romney become that TEACHER…….after all, especially if he is so persuadable  as his Republican opponents claim.   

Help persuade Mitt Romney’s inner conservatism by electing a stong conservative majority in Congress!

AMERICA’S ENEMY WITHIN IS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, THE  SON OF FATHER FIGURE, ‘GODDAMN AMERICA ’  ‘JEREMIAH WRIGHT!    Introduce this president to the American public by his own words and deeds.  Identify his Marxism, his arrogance and disdain for American traditions, his inabilities to lead and be presidential, his policies to weaken our nation, militarily, morally, and financially, his ties to corruption from Chicago to and through Solyndra, his training, his hiring.  his dishonesty and duplicity.

The “Advantages” of the Obamacare Health Plan shine in Britain’s National Health Service

Annals of Government Medicine

by John Hinderaker     at    PowerLine

Britain’s National Health Service has taken a lot of heat because patients often wait a year or more for operations, and many die in the meantime. The NHS could have responded to this criticism by making its operations more efficient so that waiting times could be reduced, like a private company would, for fear of losing business to competitors. But in government medicine, such incentives are lacking. So the NHS did the next best thing: it started rotating people out of the hospital prematurely to make room for new patients, thereby reducing the new patients’ waiting time, but increasing the likelihood that the prior round of patients would need to return. The Telegraph reports:

The number of NHS patients who have to undergo emergency readmission to hospital within a month of being discharged has increased by more than three quarters in the last decade….

More than 660,000 people were brought back to hospital last year within 28 days of leaving, statistics show, sparking allegations that patients are being “hurried through the system” so the NHS can meet waiting-list targets. …

The figures show that 620,054 patients had to be readmitted in 2009-10 – compared to just 348,996 a decade before, a 78 percent increase. Over the past five years, there has been a 31 percent rise and a five percent increase on the previous 12 months.

Statistics like these speak for themselves. Obviously, it is not changes in diseases or new developments in medicine that drive such stunning changes. Rather, the cause is a change in bureaucratic priorities. This is life under government medicine–a shell game in which the paramount objective is not treatment of patients, but perpetuation of a bureaucracy.

Some Bizarre State Laws enacted before the Arrival of BIZARRE ‘Lawman’ Eric Holder

I’m Under Arrest for What? Fifty Bizarre U.S. Laws

By: Annie Tucker Morgan 

 

First published June 2010

Find this article at:

 http://www.divinecaroline.com/22323/99603-i-m-arrest-what-fifty-bizarre#ixzz1hZdiJQD4

http://www.stupidlaws.com/  

 

I’ve never claimed to have extensive knowledge of U.S. legislation throughout history, but it’s safe to say that I and most people I associate with are law-abiding citizens … or not. As it turns out, every state in this country has at least one wacky legal stipulation that could land residents in hot water if they don’t comply. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Alabama
It’s illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.

Alaska
Whispering in someone’s ear while he’s moose hunting is prohibited.

Arizona
Cutting down a cactus may earn you a twenty-five-year prison term.

Arkansas
It’s illegal to mispronounce the name of the state of Arkansas.

California
You may not eat an orange in your bathtub.

Colorado
It’s unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor (Denver).

Connecticut
A pickle cannot actually be a pickle unless it bounces.

Delaware
It’s illegal to get married on a dare.

Washington, D.C.
It’s against the law to post a public notice calling someone a coward for refusing to accept a challenge to duel.

Florida
If you tie an elephant to a parking meter, you must pay the same parking fee as you would for a vehicle.

Georgia
It’s illegal to change the clothes on a storefront mannequin unless you draw the shades first.

Hawaii
All residents may be fined for not owning a boat.

Idaho
A man must not give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing fewer than fifty pounds.

Illinois
It’s illegal to take a French poodle to the opera (Chicago).

Indiana
The value of pi is 4, and not 3.1415.

---

Iowa
One-armed piano players must perform for free.

Kansas
It’s illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits (Natoma).

Kentucky
Every citizen is required to take a shower once a year.

Louisiana
Biting someone with your natural teeth constitutes simple assault, but biting someone with your false teeth classifies as aggravated assault.

Maine
If you keep your Christmas decorations on display after January 14, you’ll be fined.

Maryland
It’s against the law to wash or scrub a sink, no matter how dirty it is (Baltimore).

Massachusetts
No gorilla is allowed in the backseat of any car.

Michigan
A woman may not cut her own hair without her husband’s permission.

Minnesota
It’s illegal to paint a sparrow with the intent of selling it as a parakeet (Harper Woods).

Mississippi
Walking a dog without dressing it in diapers is forbidden (Temperance).

Missouri
Children may buy shotguns in Kansas City, but not toy cap guns.

Montana
It’s a felony for a wife to open her husband’s mail.

Nebraska
Bar owners may not sell beer unless they brew a kettle of soup simultaneously.

Nevada
It’s illegal for men with mustaches to kiss women.

New Hampshire
It’s forbidden to sell the clothes you’re wearing to pay off a gambling debt.

---

New Jersey
It’s against the law for a man to knit during the fishing season.

New Mexico
Females may not appear unshaven in public.

New York
While riding in an elevator, you must talk to no one, fold your hands, and look toward the door.

North Carolina
It’s against the law to sing off-key.

North Dakota
It’s illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on.

Ohio
You must honk the horn whenever you pass another car, according to the state’s driver’s education manual.

Oklahoma
It’s forbidden to take a bite out of another person’s hamburger.

Oregon
State law requires dishes to be drip-dried.

Pennsylvania
It’s illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors.

Rhode Island
You may not bite off another person’s leg.

South Carolina
If a man promises to marry an unmarried woman, he is required by law to keep his promise.

South Dakota
It is illegal to lie down and fall asleep in a cheese factory.

Tennessee
Selling hollow logs is strictly forbidden.

Texas
You may not shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.

Utah
It is illegal not to drink milk.

---

Vermont
Women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth.

Virginia
Tickling a woman is unlawful.

Washington
It’s illegal to pretend that one’s parents are wealthy.

West Virginia
If you make fun of someone who does not accept a challenge, you risk a six-month prison sentence.

Wisconsin
Unless a customer specifically requests it, margarine may not be substituted for butter in a restaurant.

Wyoming
Unless you have an official permit, you may not take a picture of a rabbit from January to April.

This Court Is Adjourned
Whew! With all this legislation, it’s a wonder we’re not all sharing a prison cell right now. Granted, something tells me the Los Angeles Police Department has bigger fish to fry than popping people who dare to eat oranges while bathing, and that most people who saw me catching some shut-eye on top of a fridge in Pennsylvania wouldn’t call the cops on me, but you never know when you might come across that rare whistle-blower who wants you persecuted to the fullest extent of the law, so it’s probably better to be safe than sorry. The next time I tie up my elephant at a parking meter in Florida, I’ll be sure to bring a pocket full of quarters.

(Mark Waldeland, ‘chairman’ of our MN Discussion Group News Department, sent the above information.)

The Pleasure of Viewing a Knockout Robbery

Feelgood video of the day:

Store clerk knocks armed robber out cold

posted  by Allahpundit      at HotAir

Via Wizbang, be sure to check out the stills at the Daily Mail of this guy forcing the robber to wipe up his own blood off the store’s floor. Before I saw that, I was going to propose a Christie/Mothershead ticket next year. After I saw it, I’m thinking more like Mothershead/Christie.

Click below to view a  Knockout Robbery of any day:

 http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/27/feelgood-video-of-the-day-store-clerk-knocks-armed-robber-out-cold/

 

Mark Steyn on “Life in the Long Run” and “Wimpy” Christian Pastors

Mark Steyn: An upside-down family tree

By MARK STEYN     at the Orange County Register                 article sent by Mark Waldeland

 

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/people-332895-women-percent.html

“Our lesson for today comes from the Gospel according to Luke. No, no, not the manger, the shepherds, the wise men, any of that stuff, but theother birth:

“But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.”

That bit of the Christmas story doesn’t get a lot of attention, but it’s in there – Luke 1:13, part of what he’d have called the back story, if he’d been a Hollywood screenwriter rather than a physician. Of the four gospels, only two bother with the tale of Christ’s birth, and only Luke begins with the tale of two pregnancies. Zacharias is surprised by his impending paternity – “for I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years.” Nonetheless, an aged, barren woman conceives and, in the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy, the angel visits her cousin Mary and tells her that she, too, will conceive. If you read Luke, the virgin birth seems a logical extension of the earlier miracle – the pregnancy of an elderly lady. The physician-author had no difficulty accepting both. For Matthew, Jesus’ birth is the miracle; Luke leaves you with the impression that all birth – all life – is to a degree miraculous and God-given.

We now live in Elisabeth’s world – not just because technology has caught up with the deity and enabled women in their fifties and sixties to become mothers, but in a more basic sense. The problem with the advanced West is not that it’s broke but that it’s old and barren. Which explains why it’s broke. Take Greece, which has now become the most convenient shorthand for sovereign insolvency – “America’s heading for the same fate as Greece if we don’t change course,” etc. So Greece has a spending problem, a revenue problem, something along those lines, right? At a superficial level, yes. But the underlying issue is more primal: It has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren – i.e., the family tree is upside down. In a social democratic state where workers in “hazardous” professions (such as, er, hairdressing) retire at 50, there aren’t enough young people around to pay for your three-decade retirement. And there are unlikely ever to be again.

Look at it another way: Banks are a mechanism by which old people with capital lend to young people with energy and ideas. The Western world has now inverted the concept. If 100 geezers run up a bazillion dollars’ worth of debt, is it likely that 42 youngsters will ever be able to pay it off? As Angela Merkel pointed out in 2009, for Germany an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. The Continent’s economic “powerhouse” has the highest proportion of childless women in Europe: one in three fräulein have checked out of the motherhood business entirely. “Germany’s working-age population is likely to decrease 30 percent over the next few decades,” says Steffen Kröhnert of the Berlin Institute for Population Development. “Rural areas will see a massive population decline, and some villages will simply disappear.”

If the problem with socialism is, as Mrs. Thatcher says, that eventually you run out of other people’s money, much of the West has advanced to the next stage: it’s run out of other people, period. Greece is a land of ever-fewer customers and fewer workers but ever more retirees and more government. How do you grow your economy in an ever-shrinking market? The developed world, like Elisabeth, is barren. Collectively barren, I hasten to add. Individually, it’s made up of millions of fertile women, who voluntarily opt for no children at all or one designer kid at 39. In Italy, the home of the Church, the birthrate’s somewhere around 1.2, 1.3 children per couple – or about half “replacement rate.” Japan, Germany and Russia are already in net population decline. Fifty percent of Japanese women born in the Seventies are childless. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of Spanish women childless at the age of 30 almost doubled, from just over 30 percent to just shy of 60 percent. In Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, 20 percent of 40-year old women are childless. In a recent poll, invited to state the “ideal” number of children, 16.6 percent of Germans answered “None.” We are living in Zacharias and Elisabeth’s world – by choice.

America is not in as perilous a situation as Europe – yet. But its rendezvous with fiscal apocalypse also has demographic roots: The baby boomers did not have enough children to maintain the solvency of mid-20th century welfare systems premised on mid-20th century birthrates. The “Me Decade” turned into a Me Quarter-Century, and beyond. The “me”s are all getting a bit long in the tooth, but they never figured there might come a time when they’d need a few more “thems” still paying into the treasury.

The notion of life as a self-growth experience is more radical than it sounds. For most of human history, functioning societies have honored the long run: It’s why millions of people have children, build houses, plant trees, start businesses, make wills, put up beautiful churches in ordinary villages, fight and, if necessary, die for your country. A nation, a society, a community is a compact between past, present and future, in which the citizens, in Tom Wolfe’s words at the dawn of the “Me Decade,” “conceive of themselves, however unconsciously, as part of a great biological stream.”

Much of the developed world climbed out of the stream. You don’t need to make material sacrifices: The state takes care of all that. You don’t need to have children. And you certainly don’t need to die for king and country. But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for: It’s no longer a stream, but a stagnant pool.

If you believe in God, the utilitarian argument for religion will seem insufficient and reductive: “These are useful narratives we tell ourselves,” as I once heard a wimpy Congregational pastor explain her position on the Bible. But, if Christianity is merely a “useful” story, it’s a perfectly constructed one, beginning with the decision to establish Christ’s divinity in the miracle of His birth. The hyper-rationalists ought at least to be able to understand that post-Christian “rationalism” has delivered much of Christendom to an utterly irrational business model: a pyramid scheme built on an upside-down pyramid. Luke, a man of faith and a man of science, could have seen where that leads. Like the song says, Merry Christmas, baby.”

Comment:   It is likely I am repeating myself describing  Mark Steyn stuff.  I don’t care.   I’d do it again and again,  willingly.   His work lightens my day. 

I’d like to know amid  what laws  of science he was born to have become so honed in   his gifts of gab and thought to describe politics, history,  and reality so often with humor   in one  mere sentence or two.   And  within  this unique arrangement of   the language called English,  he accents the general with  Steynbites of the specific  somewhere in his playful sentence structure.

Try this:    In the paragraph above referring to believing  Christians and the Christ stories, Mark writes:  “These are useful narratives we tell ourselves,” as I once heard a wimpy Congregational pastor explain her position on the Bible. But, if Christianity is merely a “useful” story, it’s a perfectly constructed one, beginning with the decision to establish Christ’s divinity in the miracle of His birth. The hyper-rationalists ought at least to be able to understand that post-Christian rationalism” has delivered much of Christendom to an utterly irrational business model: a pyramid scheme built on an upside-down pyramid.”

Especially…..”These are useful narratives we tell ourselves” as I once heard a wimpy Congregational pastor explain her position on the Bible, Mark writes.    In this one sentence  the curse of modern Christianity is exposed….”wimpy”….”Congregational pastor”….and   “her”…….the triune of  conditions  rolled into one which reduces  the Christian core belief to just another narrative along with Little Red Ridinghood.

Click below for Mark’s article:   ‘War  on Christmas indicative of the western world at  twilight’:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/26/mark-steyn-war-on-christmas-indicative-of-the-western-world-at-twilight/