Post Scripts

Posted by Tina

People are fed up with big, slow, ineffective government! Arizona led the way and now in one Florida County they’re breaking out of the pack and taking action on their own:

theDESTINlog.com

DESTIN — Okaloosa County isn’t taking oil spill orders any more. County commissioners voted unanimously to give their emergency management team the power to take whatever action it deems necessary to prevent oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill from entering Choctawhatchee Bay through the East Pass. ** That means the team, led by Public Safety Director Dino Villani, can take whatever action it sees fit to protect the pass without having its plans approved by state or federal authorities. ** Commission chairman Wayne Harris said he and his fellow commissioners made their unanimous decision knowing full well they could be prosecuted for it. ** “We made the decision legislatively to break the laws if necessary. We will do whatever it takes to protect our county’s waterways and we’re prepared to go to jail to do it,” he said.

Continue reading “Okaloosa Takes Initiative Defies Big Government” »

God bless Alvin Greene, I love this guy! It proves one of two things…either voters are so fedup with the status quo, they’ll go to any lengths to send a message or as the Washington Post said: “He won because (democrat) voters are stupid.”

Here’s a guy who ponied up $10,000 to file for the Senate race and run as a democrat and he won the race! He’s unemployed, he’s not articulate, he had no platform, he ran no campaign, no ads, no mailers, no bumper stickers and gave no speeches. He had no advisors, rasied no money, he never even filed any mandatory disclosure papers, heck he doesn’t even own a cell phone and still he won one of the most important nominations in the State of South Carolina. I think this is fantastic…to all those loyal democrats that voted for Alvin, thanks, you made my day.

by Tina Grazier

A news item from the Garden State generated a steamy internal response in me and I just had to share. I’m talking cartoon time…actual steam escaping from my ears and nostrils! Ya see, I have long held that it’s the lawmakers not the businessmen that need regulating. Most of our lawmakers have never met a payroll and haven’t a clue about creating wealth. Most have clearly demonstrated through the years that spending our money is the only reason we sent them to Washington. In fact they spend our money so freely, with nary a concern for what it has taken to send it there, that the national debt has become irrelevant to them. It’s only monopoly money. The budget numbers are big, the people have an endless supply of cash, and we are charged to buy boardwalk, Park Place…and so much more! They are worse than teenagers.

Meanwhile, promises to put greater restrictions on business is a laugh. they do it for show, they do it to garner favor from special interests. It’s nothing but a slap in the face for the over regulated money machine that funds their game. More regulation is meaningless coming from these incompetent, fiscally challenged boobs. Rarely do new rules have anything to do with protecting the public at large. As we saw in the housing melt down, lending regulation for the housing market was designed to create a certain social effect. As we are seeing in the Gulf spill, regulation has trumped common sense and caused greater harm. The regulation now in place to supposedly protect the environment is partially responsible for the depth and breadth of the disaster and speaks to the absolute incompetence of the regulatory bureaucracy. Who regulates the regulators? Why can’t we regulate oput of control politicians? Arghhhhh!

Here’s the story that set me off…talk about bad business practices! The politicians of New Jersey have been criminal in what they have done with public funds. As a citizen of Californian I can only shudder:

“America’s Municipal Debt Racket,” by Steven Malanga – The Wall Street Journal

Nearly 40 years ago the Garden State borrowed $302 million to begin constructing the Meadowlands. The goal was to pay off the bonds in 25 years. Although the project initially went according to plan, politicians couldn’t resist continually refinancing the bonds, siphoning revenues from the complex into the state budget, and using the good credit rating of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition authority to borrow for other, unsuccessful building schemes. ** Today, the authority that runs the Meadowlands is in hock for $830 million, which it can’t pay back. The state, facing its own cavernous budget deficits, has had to assume interest payments–about $100 million this year on bonds that still stretch for decades.

This is exactly the kind of thing that has Tea Partiers across the nation up in arms. If anyone can defend this blatantly irresponsible behavior by elected officials let it be known that YOU are the fringe nut. I can imagine millions of similar scenario’s taking place all across this nation with zero real accountability. Who will regualte the politicians?

Yes government needs regulating! We need to regulate politicians! Let them stand at attention for quarterly inspections and big fines for noncompliance! Let them fill out meaningless reports that nobody reads. Let them pay the fees just for the rpiviledge!

Elections are coming up again in November. Remember this New Jersey story as you mark your ballots. And since it’s highly unlikely that we can actually find a way to regulate these bozos, let us at least be smart enough to rid ourselves of practiced conniving spenders.

by Jack Lee

Corruption charges against Rep. John Doolittle have been dropped. It was disclosed last Friday and we were just made aware of it today. The status of possible charges against his wife have not been disclosed. Doolittle’s former legislative director, Kevin Ring, was ultimately implicated and is scheduled for a retrial next month. The corruption scandal caused Doolittle to resign from office that is now occupied by Rep. Tom McClintock.

Ring went to work as a lobbyist for Abramoff after he left Doolittle’s staff. The original charges against Ring, issued last year, identified Doolittle and his wife as unindicted co-conspirators.

Prosecutors presented evidence including e-mails detailing how Abramoff’s firm provided Washington Redskins and U2 rock band tickets for Doolittle’s staff members, all while seeking legislative help. Prosecutors say Abramoff also arranged for Julie Doolittle to be paid $5,000 a month for event planning work.

“Congressman Doolittle and his staff helped out again and again and again on lots of projects,” federal prosecutor Nathaniel Edmonds told a jury last fall, the trial transcript shows. “Not for projects just in his district, not in California, but for Ring’s clients thousands of miles away.”

Ring’s attorney, Andrew Todd Wise, retorted that Ring was merely a good lobbyist, who while on Doolittle’s staff had been part of a “close-knit group of mainly late-20s, early-30s folks, that developed friendships that lasted after they left.”

Ring’s initial trial resulted in a hung jury.

“They had made up their minds that they were going to get me,” Doolittle said Friday, “but there was no evidence against me.”

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/06/11/1222837/justice-department-case-against.html#ixzz0qt5geNEW

An Iranian freighter set sail for Gaza on Sunday with a crew of about 16. The cargo is claimed to be humanitarian aid for the citizens of Gaza. In addition, another Gaza-bound ship is expected to sail from Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces regard this ship as a greater threat, given the short distance separating Lebanon and Gaza. Both vessels intend to run the blockade.

The Israeli government voted to establish an independent public committee with foreign oversight looking into the raid against the Gaza-bound flotilla that left nine demonstraters dead. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is moving forward with plans to form an internationally sanctioned investigative forum to probe the deadly events.

The UN has called on Israel to lift its blockade. This is an incredibly dangerous situation that could have profound consequences. The world can only wait and watch as this drama unfolds.

Posted by Tina

Not long after he was elected President Obama vowed to stop funding for the completion of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada. This smacks of payback to Harry Reid who has lobbied to end the project for years. It was also a hat tip of some sort to the green lobby and anti-nukesters. I remember posting about this soon after the election and at the time I wondered why there wasn’t a bigger uproar made about it. Billions of dollars in investment is nothing to toss in the toilet willy nilly! Maybe folk had bigger problems looming…like losing a job or a home. By now we have an economy that continues to be stressed making the move seem even more ludicrous. Do we really want to add financial burdens and debt on the backs of taxpayers who are already feeling the pinch of a slow jobless economy? What will be the long term effects of leaving the waste material lying around in temporary storage while we wait for courts, commissions, and new building projects? Is this insane or what?

The Department of Energy webpage states the Presidents vision:

The President has made clear that Yucca Mountain is not an option for waste storage. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, led by Congressman Lee Hamilton and General Brent Scowcroft, will conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, and will provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the Nation’s used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. ** On March 3, 2010, the Department of Energy filed a motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to withdraw the license application for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain with prejudice. The President’s fiscal year 2011 budget request eliminates funding for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. The Office of Nuclear Energy will lead used fuel activities previously performed by OCRWM.

Continue reading “Yucca Mountain Disaster” »

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by Jack Lee

For over 50 years we’ve had a blockade imposed on Cuba for being a Communist regime on our doorstep. Many of our trading partners have been part of this, making it collective punishment. Prior to the Iraq war the UN had a box around Iraq, another blockade – collective punishment.

When Iran embarked on its nuclear program, the UN responded with a blockade, again, it was collective punishment. And Arizona dared to enforce the law of the land and exert sovereignty over its citizens, the Hispanic dominated city council of Los Angeles called for collective punishment of Arizona and San Francisco joined them.

The UN still has a blockade on North Korea for their nuclear proliferation violations (more collective punishment) and have we forgotten about what apartheid got South Africa and Rhodesia? These are all forms of a blockade or collective punishment, but when Israel seeks to impose a blockade on Gaza the world is outraged because it is a “collective punishment.” The U.N. Human Rights Council calls this a crime against humanity.

Israel’s blockade did not occur in a political vacuum – there was a good reason. It can be traced directly to a well known terrorist organization, Hamas. Hama seized power over Palestinians through violence. And while many high minded liberals are always so quick to point violence solves nothing when the US is involved, there was no world condemnation of Hamas. This is incredibly perverted ethics, yet it’s completely predictable. Imagine, this was a brutal, bloody coup to oust a duly elected government and our leftist critics around the world and on every college campus in the US had nary a thing to say about it?

When the coup was over and the blood was wiped from the streets, Israel came into their sights and the Qassam missiles (artillery rockets) were launched indiscriminately at civilian targets within Israel. This rain of terror continued unabated for years and many innocent civilians, men, women and children were killed. Collective punishment and the leftist world was silent once again.

Eventually after every diplomatic overture had failed, Israel finally said enough and launched a military incursion to stop the rain of missiles and what happened? They were of course denounced as the aggressors! But, at least the missile attacks stopped and they continue to be stopped thanks to Israel’s blockade. This is because of one reason, the blockade worked to stop the flow of arms and rockets to Hamas. All humanitarian cargo has been allowed through.

Last week the Israelis boarded five ship from Turkey for cargo inspections and they were met with violence and 9 pro-Palestinian activists were killed. This was a huge propaganda victory for Hamas. But, when Israel said it would release the “humanitarian” cargo Hamas said keep it. But, why? This is desperately needed cargo, right? Because it’s lost its propaganda value, and because it’s been sullied by Jewish hands that’s why. This part has had little media attention and it seems unimportant, so the “usual suspects” ranting against Israel have not been held accountable or even challenged for their blatant hypocrisy by our [impartial] news media.

Now enters Iran. They are long term sponsors of subversive terrorism in the Middle East and the avowed enemy of Israel. 8 Iranian ships are headed for the Gaza to run the blockade. According to Iran the ships contain “humanitarian” aid and their intent is to break the Jewish hold on the Gaza strip. If Israel attempts to stop the ships Iran will claim it is a provocation for war, and Iran is or will soon be a nuclear power. Their president (shown at left with an American hostage from the US embassy 1977) has given speech after speech calling for the complete destruction of Israel. Israel stands alone and a showdown approaches.

by Rev. Right

There are a number of places in the New Testament where we are called on to be peace makers. Turning the other cheek is a basic tenant of Christianity. The Bible tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who would persecute us. Jesus was the Prince of Peace.

In our time, it’s Mahatma Gandhi that is the Apostle of Peace. Gandhi’s message can also be found in the Bible, if you look for it. Gandhi stood for social justice, human rights, courage, compassion, commitment and personal integrity. His main weapon, nothing more than truth. Nelson Mandela is our most recent Apostle of Peace and it’s not an accident that his words often mirror those of Jesus and Gandhi.

Lets get right to it. . . peaceful, nonviolent intervention against social injustice is ten thousand times more preferable than war. But, we don’t pursue peace with an effort equal to the payoff, do we? And we should. When dealing with nations we must be more pragmatic. There has never been a time when seeking peace could be more productive.

We can’t fight bad deas with good bombs anymore than we can win over hearts by killing them. However, if we counter bad ideology with good, with reason, truth, courage, compassion and integrity, we hold the moral high ground and thats a good start. .

To carry this thought to the next level, I would suggest that if we are ever to engage in a foreign war again that it be a declared war – and then we fight it to win, swifty and with certainty. There is no ambiguity in a declared war and the names of those who declared that war are forever attached to it. This would make starting a war more difficult and peaceful methods more preferable, and that is another good start.

The United States should be an example for peace, not war.

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So you can really understand just how unhealthy these foods are, here are the recommended daily calorie counts. Saturated fat should be less than 7 percent of your total daily calorie intake.

• Men: 2,500 calories
• Women: 2,000 calories
• Children ages 5 to 10: 1,800 calories
• Toddlers: 1,300 calories

The top 10 worst fast food meals:
1. Wendy’s Baconator Triple, 1330 calories and 38 grams of saturated fat
2. Sonic’s SuperSonic Cheeseburger, 980 calories and 24 grams of saturated fat
3. Burger King’s BK Quad Stacker, 930 calories and 28 grams of saturated fat
4. Domino’s Bread Bowl Pizza, 670 calories and 22 grams of saturated fat
5. In-N-Out Burger’s Double Double With Onion, 670 calories and 18 grams of saturated fat
6. Arby’s Large Beef n’ Cheddar, 650 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat
7. Popeye’s Breast-Leg-Biscuit, 640 calories and 15.5 grams of saturated fat
8. Taco Bell’s Chipotle Steak Taco Salad, 900 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat
9. White Castle’s Sack of 4 Cheeseburgers, 680 calories and 16 grams of saturated fat
10. Jack in the Box’s Jumbo Jack With Cheese, 620 calories, 15 grams of fat

Courtesy of Netscape