Really?

On some level, this product makes me glad that I am not a golfer.  But for those of you who are, you should check this out and consider adding it to your bag.  It’s “the only club in your bag guaranteed to keep you out of the woods!”

Has anyone seen a man holding a golf club under a towel that is hanging from the front of his pants?  If you have, NOW you know what he was REALLY doing.

HT: my B-I-L, Matt

U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R, sorry…D-ME)

Disappointed?  Yes.  Surprised?  Not in the least.  The “honorable” senior (Republican in name only) senator from the State of Maine, has announced that she will vote (again) in alignment with the party that she does not caucus with, to pass the so-called Baucus Bill for health care reform.  

Apparently, the “distinguished” lady from Maine fell sway to the persuasion of President Barack Hussein Obama, who called her yesterday to convince her to vote (as usual) with her Democrat comrades, er, ah, colleagues.  Well done Senator.  That’s the way to put a thumb in the eye of the party that you claim to be a member of.

But at the end of the day, does ONE vote from a RINO really make it a bi-partisan bill?

UPDATE:  Senator Snowe now explains that she voted for the bill to “keep things moving.”  Huh?  The bill (with her vote) passed 14 to 9.  If my math is correct, the count WITHOUT her vote would have been 13 to 10.  I am thinking the bill MIGHT have passed and “kept moving” even without her lending her “bi-partisan support” to it.

PREDICTION:  The democrats will now talk about the bill receiving bi-partisan support (by virtue of Snowe’s ONE vote) and they’ll do so with a straight face.

Nonsense!

Former President Jimmy Carter, the man whose time in office people in his own party would like to forget, has surfaced again.  This time, he is making outrageous claims that even the White House has disavowed based on pure common sense, if not common decency.  You can listen to Carter’s absurd comments HERE (along with those of Brian Williams, who seems to think he got a great scoop with this interview, so good in fact that he aired at least this segment of the larger interview before its originally scheduled time).

The question I have for President Carter is this…if there is, as he insists some pervasive racist mindset in the country that holds that an African American is ”not qualified to lead this great country”, how exactly did the current president get elected?

Does it make any sense whatsoever, that all of the “racists” in our country (who according to Carter now so numerous that they are jeopardizing the implementation of health care reform), would lay down their racist sentiments for the purpose of electing an African American to the presidency, and then take those sentiments up again when he begins to govern?  Nonsense!

A voice of reason in the health care debate.

Readers of JT’s blog  are already aware the subject of this post.  But for those who are not familiar with that blog, here is a LINK to an article in the September issue of The Atlantic Online.  It is written by a man named David Goldhill, who identifies himself as a Democrat and a business executive.  It is a long article; over 10,000 words and it will take you some time to go through it.  However, this is the most powerful and informative thing that I have seen yet on the broad subject of health care in the United States, and its institutionalized problems, that are in fact in need of reform.  As the writer of the article notes though, virtually nothing that is being discussed by Congress now, comes even close to fixing the fundamental problems with our health care system.

This article stands so far and above all of the other highly partisan/politicized rhetoric, that I emphatically encourage you to read this thing carefully.  My linking to it is not to suggest that I agree with all of his recommendations.  But his is the first voice of reason that I have heard among all of the other conversations about this very hot topic. 

Stand up and stretch, grab a cup of coffee and dig in.  You will be amazed.  At least I was.

Social Media

I admit, I am probably not terribly cool.  Of course, being in my mid-50’s no doubt contributes to that.  It simply goes with the territory.  That said, I do consider myself open to the benefits that are derived from so-called social media.  I suppose that this blog itself falls somewhere in the genre of networking, although it clearly falls well short of the ”power to connect” in near real-time, as is the case with other forms of social media.

I don’t have a facebook account, for a couple of reasons.  Even after it was opened up to people who were not still in college, I thought it seemed a little weird for someone my age to have an account.  I know lots of “mature” folks who have facebook accounts, including my lovely wife.  She enjoys the networking and often tells me about people she has “friended” via facebook.  Perhaps on a subconscious level I fear rejection and being a person with a facebook account and no friends, or worse, just a bunch off “pity-friends”, a  term I may have just made up.  And, as someone who is mildly competitive, I am not sure that Ashton Kutcher’s million plus friends is a goal that is, in any shape or form, one that would be attainable by me. 

In all seriousness, while I am still groping for the real benefits, I remain open to the possibility that I will someday understand why I would want to establish a facebook account.  Perhaps it is the ability to communicate more effectively with my younger friends who seem to prefer this method above all others for staying in contact electronically with their peers.  And that might be the only reason to do so.  Still, the broader benefit of having a facebook account is not readily apparent to me at the present.

One of the social networking tools that absolutely defies understanding for me is twitter.  I cherish the thought of someone actually sitting down in front of me, face-to-face, to explain what twitter is all about.  I’ve seen and read the blogs, I’ve seen the YouTube video published by twitter explaining how it works, and I still absolutely don’t get it.  It is so not apparent to me that this graphic says it all.  (In the process, it might also provide something of a near clinical diagnosis of why other types or forms of social media are so popular.)

HT:  dispair.com

Wow! This’ll get your attention.

Powerful message with impactful graphic support.

HT: Abraham Piper

Finally a “green” initiative I can live with (figuratively, that is).

As anyone who is a regular reader of this blog knows, I am not overly impressed with the breathless claims from special interest groups, that we have already gone off the cliff leading to environmental disaster, or that man is the ultimate cause of global warming.  (No you are not getting off the hook by using the term “climate change” folks…you guys picked the term”global warming” and when the statistics failed to support your claims, you changed the moniker.)

As I have noted in other posts, while I am not impressed with the usual over-reactions to environmental discussions, I do believe that as stewards of the planet we live on, we should do reasonable things to protect and even improve the environment, especially when they provide REAL benefits, and have the potential to save money.  This Bloomberg.com article discusses some ideas that appear to have legitimate environmental merit.

Arrangements for my ”disposal” have already been made and paid for.  Cremation is my choice, and whenever that day comes, I am all in favor of it being done as energy efficiently as is technologically possible.  Why wouldn’t I be?  And for those of you who prefer to be a “land owner” during your pre-resurrection rest, there are now ”greener” options that you should consider.

I may not be particularly “green” in life, but I will be “green” in death.  Now that is environmentalism I can “live with“, or not, if you know what I mean.

A facinating look at what is either thinly veiled deceit or stunning ignorance.

HT to JT for linking to a set of articles from US News and World Report.  When I first saw them, I had little intent of actually plowing through all of the material.  However, I got drawn in and could not stop, although I confess, I scanned some portions of this republished email exchange between Robert George, who if you have ever read his stuff, or seen him speak, you know he is brilliant, and Doug Kmiec.  Both are law professors, so that may void any interest you have in reading their correspondence.  But the underlying subject matter is haltingly important and I fear may be revealing about the character of our President.

This is an excerpt from one of George’s emails to Kmiec to whet your appetite.

President Obama did not prohibit human cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer to create living human embryos) and does not oppose it.  What he opposes is the implantation and gestation of human embryos that were created by cloning—that is what he means in saying he is opposed to “reproductive cloning.”  The President supports the practice of cloning to create living human embryos for purposes of scientific research in which they will be destroyed to produce pluripotent stem cells.  His executive order has made research using cells and cell lines produced by creating human embryos by cloning eligible for federal funding.  This is the first time that federal money has been made available for research using materials derived from embryos created and destroyed specifically for research purposes.  (emphasis mine)

Words matter.  The President tries to differentiate between “reproductive” and “therapeutic” cloning, but the underlying creation and subsequent destruction of life is indisputable.

So, I am left with the question I cannot answer.  Is the President operating at this level of deceit based on semantics, or is he ignorant of what appears to be an effort to create a distinction, without a difference?

The US News & World Report articles:
Part 1

Part 2

part 3

Part 4

Part 5

New Obama HHS Secretary nominee – scary!

Kathleen Sebelius, shown here in the center of the photo, is reported to be the new nominee for Obama’s Health and Human Services secretary.  She comes with executive credentials as both a governor and as a state insurance commissioner.  She also has a cozy relationship with one of the most notorious late-term abortion doctors in the country, Dr. George Tiller, who specializes in 3rd trimester “therapeutic” abortions.  His practice of infanticide is located in Governor Sebelius’ state.

The fact that Obama will nominate her really comes as no surprise.  He is simply keeping his promise to make abortion “safe” and legal.  What has been most appalling are the voices of support that Sebelius is getting from Republicans, including the two U.S. Senators from Kansas, along with a few Republican governors.

For fleeting moments, I actually thought that maybe the republicans “got it” when they voted unanimously (not including the traitorous Senators, Snow, Collins, and Specter) to oppose the Obama Government Bankruptcy Act of 2009.  But it seems my confidence in them was premature.

Am I discouraged?  Yeah, I guess you could say that.

Ooops. Wonder how he’ll explain this?

Barry Obama spoke earlier today at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC.  The video below is long, and doesn’t even represent the entire speech.  However, there is a particular line that I recommend everyone listen to.  IN HIS OWN WORDS Barry declares ”…there is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being, this much we know…“

How does he square this “knowledge” with his endorsement of the murder of unborn (innocent) human beings who are still in the womb?  Is there any possible explanation?

So as to spare you the utter waste of time listening to the entire speech, you can find Barry’s troublesome and contradictory statement starting at approximately the 4:00 mark in the video.