Question about 'rights'

If you have children...I'd like your take on this topic.

Do your precious babies have unrestricted use of the computer, or possibly their own? Are they allowed on social networking sites? Do you oversee the way these sites are used by your children?

Do you (or they) consider it a violation of their right to free speech if when they post something to a page belonging to someone else they get a reply they don't like and with which they (vehemently) disagree? Do you believe children (under 18 and living in your home) have the Right to Free Speech? Is anyone - including parent - having and expressing an opinion counter to said child's opinion or view considered repression and oppression of THEIR First Amendment Right?

I'm trying very hard to keep my temper, considering the sources...but it sure is giving me the Opportunity for Growth I was told about when I first decided to change my life...lying and stretching the truth and convenient selective memory and name-calling and dragging up the past to no good end tends to make me grumpy. Your thoughts are ALWAYS welcome here, thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE: Another question - when posting to the site of another, are your precious babies sure it's ok with Mom and Dad if they swear, insult, or lie to or about the person whose site they comment on - because that's just what said child is like, he/she doesn't 'care' what anyone thinks (no chit, Cherlock?) and so what?

*sigh*

Thomas Sowell, Part IV

Pretty durn good analysis. Too bad our Elected CongressWeasels aren't this thoughtful. Or down-to-earth. Or honest.

Whose Medical Decisions? Part IV:

What we also should stop to think about is the mindset behind this legislation, which is very consistent with the mindset behind other policies of this administration, whether the particular issue is bailing out General Motors, telling banks who to lend to or appointing "czars" to tell all sorts of people in many walks of life what they can and cannot do.

The idea that government officials can play God from Washington is not a new idea, but it is an idea that is being pushed with new audacity.
...

The thing most associated with America — freedom — is precisely what must be destroyed if this is to be turned into a fundamentally different country to suit Obama's vision of the country and of himself. But do not expect a savvy politician like Barack Obama to express what he is doing in terms of limiting our freedom.

Thomas Sowell, Part III

A few hundred words in one column can barely scratch the surface of the discussion that NEEDS to take place and the information that NEEDS to be passed along to the American People about the "Health Care Rationing" bill. Here's the next installment from Mr. Sowell.

Please, THINK about this, people...you're not just being blind-sided, you're being lied to at every turning:

Amid all the controversies over medical care, no one seems to be asking a very basic question: Why does it take more than 1,000 pages of legislation to insure people who lack medical insurance?
...
Despite incessant repetition of the fact that millions of Americans do not have medical insurance, hardy souls who have actually read the mammoth medical care legislation being rushed through Congress have discovered all sorts of things there that have nothing whatever to do with insuring the uninsured — and everything to do with taking medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and their patients, and transferring those decisions to Washington bureaucrats.
...
Deception is not an incidental aspect of this medical care legislation, but is at the very heart of it.

Thomas Sowell, Part II

Part Two of Thomas Sowell's column:

It is not just a question of what the government will pay for. The logic of their collectivist thinking — and the actual practice in some other countries with government-controlled health care — is that you cannot even pay for some medical treatments with your own money, if the powers that be decide that "society" cannot let its resources be used that way, or that it would not be "social justice" for some people to have medical treatments that others cannot get, just because some people "happen to have money."

Fiji water ain't exactly green...unless it's from the MONEY!

I used to buy Fiji water for Lovely Daughter because I love the bottle...when we lived in Hawai'i. Now, if I have to drink water, I get it from the tap and I add Country Time lemonade packets to it. Much better and half the price. John Stossel says I might be on the right track...

Thomas Sowell Tuesday with Cal Thomas, too - Decisions, Decisions

We're going to keep beating this drum. Who do YOU think should be making decisions about YOUR medical care? Some government flunky who works for a Political Appointee of the Administration? Your own doctor, in accordance to YOUR wishes? Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com on The Man Who Would Be In Charge of the "Death Panels."

At one time, it would have been none of Dr. Emanuel's business if your physician prescribed the latest medications for you, rather than the cheaper and obsolete medications they replaced. It would have been none of his business if you preferred to have a nice hospital room with "amenities" rather than being in an unsanitary ward with inadequate nursing care, as under the National Health Service in Britain.

The involvement of government gives Dr. Emanuel the leverage to condemn other Americans' choices — and a larger involvement of government will give him the power to force both doctors and patients to change their choices.

As for a "death panel," no politician would ever use that phrase when trying to get a piece of legislation passed. "End of life" care under the "guidance" of "some independent group" sounds so much nicer — and these are the terms President Obama used in an interview with the New York Times back on April 14th.

Here's Cal Thomas:

Anyone wishing to revise America's medical system and model it after Britain and Canada ought to thoroughly examine how these health care systems function before plunging into the same pool. A reasonable conclusion is that these systems require long waits and treatments (if you can get them) that are inferior to the U.S., based on government "guidelines" that frequently approve care only if the patient is deemed "worthy of the investment."

As a symbol, Adolf Hitler has been overused, but the philosophy behind the horrors he unleashed can be found in the beliefs of some of those who would use the power of the state to determine who gets help and who doesn't.

El Campeador has this little bit of 'fluff' from FoxNews, about the FABulous care you'll get when we're all covered by British-style "health" care.

Charlotte, of Oswestry, Shropshire in England, was prescribed Tamiflu via the flu hotline, but when she didn’t feel any better, she was admitted to the hospital on July 29 where she died two days later after her lungs collapsed.

The 16-year-old girl died after being misdiagnosed with the H1N1 virus, when she really had tonsillitis, London’s Daily Mail reported.

Charlotte Hartey’s condition was diagnosed over the phone, like many other H1N1 viruses in the United Kingdom, but when complications arose from Charlotte’s real affliction – tonsillitis – the teenager died.

A post-mortem exam showed Charlotte died from “natural causes.”

Remember - BarryOCare will give you EXACTLY what the British people get. Aren't you excited??? YES WE ARE!

Fifty years since...

I have no real memory about this - I wasn't quite 4. I've been to Yellowstone - more than once - I think the first time I may have been 8 or 9, could have been 11 - but, as I said, I was so young AND had never been there at that time of the quake. My only memories are from after, and of course pictures.

Mama Nature isn't a kind, gentle, cuddly nurturer. Mother Earth can be a real killer, and has been since Time began.

from Patriot Guard Riders website

...we stand in flag lines

...we stand for hours in silence

So we can see one moment like this.............


(tip of my cap to My Chief, who sent this in an email this morning)

Tea Party Commercial

Created by a teenager...which is no surprise. Created with such passion and patriotism? While not surprising to those of us who live in the real world, it is such an inspiring work from such a young man! Good job, and thank you!
Tip of my cap to GrouchyConservativePundits!

Tax Code

There's a BRILLIANT post at Are We Lumberjacks? that explains - with a very simple analogy even I can understand - how our tax structure works.

An analogy works best when it's written from a point of view I can understand, in language I can grasp with ease. This one has ALL that!

LIFE, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...with WHO in charge of the LIFE part???

REMEMBER:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Jonah Goldberg at JewishWorldReview.com:

When it comes to civil liberties, liberals are often distrustful of government power. But, for reasons that baffle me, they are quite comfortable with Uncle Sam getting into the business of deciding, or providing "guidance" on, which lives are more valuable than others. A government charged with extending life expectancy must meddle not just with our health care, but with what we eat, how we drive, how we live. A government determined to cut costs must meddle not just with how we live, but how we die.

Analysis and translation - for those of us not fluent in NewSpeak and Legalese

I heard some of this listening to Rush today. Amazing stuff. If there was a town hall happening near me, I'd print it out and take it along, pass out copies. Maybe I'll post it on the bulletin board at the laundromat!

The Health Care Bill: What HR 3200, ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” Says.
by John David Lewis.

Grandpa John's: Terminological Clarification

I offer here an outrageously funny replacement for the name BarryOCare, the socialist health care plan that shows up as a topic on fairly regular occasions - and a welcome addition to my sidebar, too!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Patriotic Readers of All Ages, from Steve Burri at Grandpa John's, I give you 'The Dingell-Barry Bill.'

Maybe more later, after I wipe the tears from my eyes and clean my monitor.

*whew*

(Thanks, Paco!)

"Drunks" by Jack McCarthy

We died of pneumonia in furnished rooms where they found us three days later when somebody complained about the smell.

We died against bridge abutments and nobody knew if it was suicide

and we probably didn’t know either except in the sense that it was always suicide.

We died in hospitals, our stomachs huge, distended and there was nothing they could do.

We died in cells, never knowing whether we were guilty or not.

We went to priests, they gave us pledges, they told us to pray, they told us to go and sin no more, but go. We tried and we died.

We died of overdoses, we died in bed (but usually not the Big Bed)

We died in straitjackets, in the DT’s seeing God knows what, creeping skittering slithering shuffling things.

And you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried.

We went to doctors and they gave us stuff to take that would make us sick when we drank on the principle of so crazy, it just might work, I guess, or maybe they just shook their heads and sent us to places like Dropkick Murphy’s.

And when we got out we were hooked on paraldehyde or maybe we lied to the doctors and they told us not to drink so much, just drink like me.

And we tried, and we died.

We drowned in our own vomit or choked on it, our broken jaws wired shut. We died playing Russian roulette and people thought we’d lost, but we knew better.

We died under the hoofs of horses, under the wheels of vehicles, under the knives and boot heels of our brother drunks.

We died in shame.

And you know what was even worse, was that we couldn’t believe it ourselves, that we had tried.

We figured we just thought we tried and we died believing that we hadn’t tried, believing that we didn’t know what it meant to try.

When we were desperate enough or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help we went to people with letters after their names

and prayed that they might have read the right books that had the right words in them, never suspecting the terrifying truth, that the right words, as simple as they were, had not been written yet.

We died falling off girders on high buildings, because of course ironworkers drink, of course they do.

We died with a shotgun in our mouth, or jumping off a bridge, and everybody knew it was suicide.

We died under the Southeast Expressway, with our hands tied behind us and a bullet in the back of our head, because this time the people that we disappointed were the wrong people.

We died in convulsions, or of “insult to the brain”, we died incontinent, and in disgrace, abandoned .

If we were women, we died degraded, because women have so much more to live up to.

We tried and we died and nobody cried. And the very worst thing was that for every one of us that died, there were another hundred of us, or another thousand, who wished that we could die, who went to sleep praying we would not have to wake up because what we were enduring was intolerable and we knew in our hearts it wasn’t ever gonna change.

One day in a hospital room in New York City, one of us had what the books call a transforming spiritual experience, and he said to himself “I’ve got it .” (no, you haven’t you’ve only got part of it) ” and I have to share it.” (now you’ve ALMOST got it) and he kept trying to give it away, but we couldn’t hear it. We tried and we died.

We died of one last cigarette, the comfort of its glowing in the dark.

We passed out and the bed caught fire. They said we suffocated before our body burned, they said we never felt a thing , that was the best way maybe that we died, except sometimes we took our family with us.

And the man in New York was so sure he had it, he tried to love us into sobriety, but that didn’t work either, love confuses drunks and he tried and we still died.

One after another we got his hopes up and we broke his heart,

Because that’s what we do.

And the worst thing was that every time we thought we knew what the worst thing was something happened that was worse.

Until a day came in a hotel lobby and it wasn’t in Rome, or Jerusalem,

Or Mecca or even Dublin, or South Boston, it was in Akron, Ohio, for Christ’s sake.

A day came when the man said I have to find a drunk because I need him As much as he needs me (NOW you’ve got it).

And the transmission line, after all those years, was open, the transmission line was open. And now we don’t go to priests, and we don’t go to doctors and people with letters after their names.

We come to people who have been there, we come to each other. We come to try and we don’t have to die………

Because another one died Friday...that's three this year that we know personally...

Project 2996

The anniversary of the attacks on 9-11 is only 4 weeks away.

Have you forgotten?

UPDATE: I've been assigned the name of a man who was killed in the attacks, and will write a Tribute to be posted here on September 11.

Maybe you should think about doing the same?

I'd love to hear the backstory on THIS one

From the Billings Gazette, which is the daily paper my mum gets in Big Timber, we find another instance of Patriotism...but I'd sure like to know the story behind the note this Marine received! I know I'd have to be "stupid drunk" to steal anything that belonged to a Marine...ever...no matter HOW old he is!

Paco Says...

The Democrats have made, I think, two fatal errors: they have come to believe their own mendacious propaganda, and they have grossly underestimated the intelligence, and the courage, of the American people.

I agree with every word.

Paco is evidence that the smartest people in the country are NOT sitting on their bums in D.C. or writing for the New York Times. I may not agree with everything he says (can't think of an example right now, though), but his positions are well-considered, well-informed, and based on fact and experience, not what it'll get him and how much power he'll wield (PacoEnterprises notwithstanding).

Read it all.

Thomas Sowell Tuesday - Random THoughts

Random Thoughts from Thomas Sowell. I LOVE Tuesdays.

My favorites:
~Perhaps the scariest aspect of our times is how many people think in talking points, rather than in terms of real world consequences.

~Recently I was foolish enough to try to reason with an environmentalist. But it became obvious that he had his mind made up and didn't want to hear any evidence to the contrary. The Pope is more likely to have read Karl Marx than an environmentalist is to have read even a single book that criticized environmentalism.

~How long will it be before the public gets tired of the little know-it-all sermonettes by Barack Obama — especially since nothing that he is doing is actually working?

Patriot Guard Riders, we thank you for your service

What My Chief (retired) did with part of his Sunday...

American Flag Carried Across the Country to Marine's Daughter

PALM COAST, FL -- The daughter of a Marine who served in the Vietnam war received a surprise honor Sunday afternoon: her father's burial flag, hand delivered from California by the Patriot Guard Riders.

Sgt. Michael Gares died last week in Riverside, California of natural causes.

His daughter, 18-year-old Jennifer Gares, and her brother, Andrew, live in Flagler County and could not afford a plane ticket to fly out to his funeral.

During the funeral, which took place at Riverside National Cemetery, the Patriot Guard Riders stood in the family's place.

As a tradition, the serviceman's burial flag is handed down to a widowed spouse, a parent, or the oldest child in the family.

When the riders learned Sgt. Gares' family was in Florida and his burial flag was to be mailed back home, they stepped in, and organized a hand delivery.

"The way the vets feel, this is a flag of honor. It is treated with respect and a whole bunch of love from the combat brotherhood," said Ernest Tucker, a Vietnam Veteran.

For six days, the flag traveled on the back of motorcycles, from rider to rider, state to state.

Read the comments, too.

Shared via AddThis

UPDATE: I forgot to add...a movie that also shows true American Patriotism and respect for our Fallen Brothers is "Taking Chance," an HBO production. I don't watch movies. HBO lost me a couple decades ago. I watched this one, and it's on my Christmas list to be one of the few movies I actually own.

"Democracy" not "of the People or by the People" anymore

Mitch Albom at JewishWorldReview.com:

I would rather live in a place where people questioned what their government proposed rather than swallowing it blindly — especially a government whose members guard our tax money while taking bribes, shout morality and then get caught with their pants down, or lecture businessmen about private planes and then order a bunch for themselves.

What did Democrats expect with a bill like this? Roses and hosannas?

Byron York:

As a reporter, how does one keep from rooting for the home team? And as a government official, how does one flack for the boss while ignoring the questions any journalist should ask?

This week Douglass undertook to debunk a video going around the Internet showing Barack Obama, before he became president, endorsing a single-payer national health care system. “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan,” Obama said at a conference in 2003, as he was beginning a run for the U.S. Senate. “That’s what I’d like to see.”

A viewer might reasonably conclude that, at least in 2003, Barack Obama was a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan. Not true, said Douglass. In a video posted on the White House Web site, she explained that there was a lot of “disinformation” going around these days about health care reform. Opponents of reform have been “taking sentences and phrases out of context” to create a “false impression.”

“There are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time, and they take a phrase here and there — they simply cherry-pick and put it together,” Douglass said, “and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say.”

A few years ago, Linda Douglass the journalist might have asked just how Obama’s 2003 declaration of support for single-payer health care was taken out of context. Now, Douglass the White House spokeswoman didn’t even address the question.

Jack Kelly:

On Jan. 20, 2009, after an eight year run, dissent ceased to be "the highest form of patriotism."

Now, according to those who once assured us that even violent protests against the war in Iraq were patriotic, to express dissatisfaction with President Obama's plans for health care "reform" is mob rule, or worse.