PEACE ON EARTH

GOODWILL TOWARD ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, BORN AND UNBORN

Sunday, January 29, 2012

A Non Bainish

Business Model

This article talks about a new kind of business model- and the state laws that are changing to accomodate this. Profit is not bad, and corporations create jobs. Clearly some are doing a great job.
It's not that we don't appreciate corporations -its that some of the incentive structures don't always work for the common good when shareholder suits and stock prices are the tail wagging the dog.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/01/28/doing-good-to-do-well-gets-a-legal-boost-in-california/

Saturday, January 28, 2012

ooooo000000aaahh

Shoookie Shoookie

Herman Cain just endorsed Gingrich in time for the Florida vote. Cain wanted to be Defense Secretary. Hope Gingrich didn't promise him the Moon. (aaaaargh)

Mitt Pilferer

Meet the Lanham Act

Which prevents the misappropriation of celebrity likeness. Tom Brokaw is a celebrity.
Tom Brokaw said cut it out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanham_Act

Editorial Correction.

I apologize

For calling Callista a cheap blonde. It costs $300-$400 every few weeks. Not cheap. Nice 'N Easy root touch up is about $7. a bottle. They need the balance at the church.

This is cheap or free though:

http://www.freeforcatholics.com/

Looney

or Qwirky Genius?

In that kind of absent minded professorial way maybe? The idea of privatizing moon colonization is not as out there as you may think.
The privatization of space travel has already become a reality and was reported by the Huffington Post last summer.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/nasa-privatize-space-future-changes_n_905186.html
See also, the NYTimes article:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/science/space/29nasa.html

While it may be a bold idea, its not too far a stretch once we are privatizing space buses to the moon to have people hanging around and colonizing it for longer than a starbucks break. Space watchers in the know actually do know that we currently have technology to not only land people there but mine it for water and other elements which could produce fuel for further space travel-to mars perhaps. While this might sound infinity and beyondish, (it does a bit to me) what would you have thought of a man landing on the moon and prancing around in a marshmallow space suit if you were living in 1950? Carazy right? Stuff of comic book fantasy-right?
Moon colonization is under study by other foreign governments already in their defense programs.
All he was saying was Give Peace a Chance------ let's not get Left Behind.

Memba Him?

Rancho Romney

Dear Floridians
Here are Just six of fifteen of Romney houses in the US

No one has figured out where the ones around Europe are yet.

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/gallery/see-mitt-romneys-6-houses/


He feels your pain.

Kidding Aside

Is it worth thinking about?

A Moon Colony? Fodder for late night smirking but does it make sense? If you are wondering about your home being foreclosed in Florida you perhaps cannot grasp how basketball on the moon helps you.
But just like Cali Governor Jerry Brown was derrided as 'Governor Moonbeam' for being a visionary that actually was ahead of his time in environmental green science, is Gingrich tapping into something real outside his spacious ego?
It turns out that a Space program was actually something we developed as national defense inspired in space wars which launched our NASA program. We have been space traveling with satellites and men on the moon and Hubbell telescopes and have a projected 8 billion dollar new "James Webb" telescope in the works. What Gingrich was promoting was commercializing it on a level that would attract private investment and create jobs. Not so spacey after all. It is already projected that within two years there will be passenger rockets to the moon for tourist travel by ordinary rich folk who want to play astronaut. So Newt wasn't being so AstroNutty here. The idea actually could stop a few foreclosures in Florida.











It's the Constitution

Stupid.

Our Constitution is what makes us all Free. There are civil liberties and guarantees that prevent arbitrary imposition of one ideology or religion over another. It has created safe sacred space for all religions and this is as a result one of the most openly religious nations in the world.
As a contrast look at what happened in Nazi Germany when Hitler consolidated and co-opted the Lutheran church creating one synod with him as the head. One religion was demonized and laws enacted that openly persecuted them.

One of the basic strongholds of our freedom lies in the First Amendment Non -Establishment principles that make it illegal in this country to favor one religion over another by the state in a number of ways. It is coupled with the Free Exercise of Religion principle so that in doing so it has to delicately balance how not establishing any state religion (such as they had and people fled from in England) does not quash non-state expressions of it.

There are tricky areas of the delicate balancing of this two pronged act.
For example, when you bring in the tax code and make people pay for things that they have conscience objections over, you determine whether not honoring the breadth of those objections somehow runs afoul of one principle over another. Attorneys look at case law and precedent and try to figure out what is constitutional in reach.

We as a country have decided, as most Western civilized nations have, that the health burdens of the country should be shared as a basic principle of taking care of neighbor and there are few things more Christ-like than wanting to heal people. All people regardless of the state of sin that got them there.

It is astoundingly ignorant and insulting to say that people who believe contraception is something that should be in health care as an insurer paid for provision or something health providers cover do so because they have either bad catechesis, bad morals or lack virtue. It might be because they love the country, all of it, and have read the Constitution.

Others might be running to be head of another country without a Constitution- perhaps one called Vatican City.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Equal Time


Free Exercise And Non Establishment of Religion

In Cranston, Rhode Island an athiest student does not like the gift another student penned that was blown up into a class gift and has been on the wall since the 1960s- a prayer. It starts "Our Heavenly Father." It is a heavily Catholic community and the protesting student was actually first baptised catholic as an infant and since rejected it all. She was offended by the prayer.

The District Court made them take it down and an appeal, which I hope is filed soon, is considered.
The Non Establishment of Religion has to be balanced with the Free Exercise thereof. This does not involve funding preferences or anything which gives indication that everyone must accept what it says. It is one student's gift to the school which the school proudly displays.
In equal time thinking what would the athiest's gift look like next to it (in similar fashion to public menorahs and qwanza symbols next to nativity scenes in public squares).
"Dear Nobody and Nothing Really. I don't need to ask for any help from anyone except the people I actually see because there is nothing out there and I don't really know why I am writing this. I don't need help being kind and friendly, I know everything. Oh- and all the intricacies of my working physiology and brain generating this brain to hand to paper to pen magic that allows me to write this was not the intelligent design of anything but my parents because they are geniuses so i don't need to ask anyone else for any help certainly not from something 'heavenly' or 'above.' Put that next to the prayer and see which one people want to read.

Paying for the Sins of Others

That's What Jesus Did

But the Bishops don't want to do it when it comes to contraception- different kind of sin.
Vegetarians and Vegan's don't want to pay for the sins of gluttony of anyone who overeats and refuses to get any exercise and are going to burden a public health system with diabetis risks, blindness, amputations and kidney failures and transplants.
Non smokers don't want to pay for public health of lung cancer victims.
Smoking is a sin when you know it statistically will cause a degree of lung cancer.
People who don't ride motorcycles don't want to pay the public health benefits of reckless motorcycle racers who get in accidents.
And no one wants to pay for anything for Nascar wierdos.
Other sins, besides gluttony, not taking care of your general health in a body God gave you, overconsumption of things you know are bad for you- Non Alcoholics don't want to pay for the public health of people who get drunk and drive while drunk or replacing their livers.
And the Bishops don't want to pay for anyone's contraceptives.

When one is President of an entire sinful country- one has to I imagine have a heart like Jesus that wants to heal every sin sick soul. And he wishes we all felt like he did.

So Creepy

We need another party

Mitt, the lying rich bully, Newt the squishy bombastic verbal flame throwing serial philanderer turned repentant, with someone who should always have known better, and the flat earth guy. None of these are my leader.

Romney's

Version of American Enterprise

Frightening. It is a class of player- a mentality that you should play the system for whatever you get out of it to get as rich as possible at the expense of whoever is in the way or whomever you can trample on.
This is endemic in the "Republican Establishment"- it is an arrogant self centered view of life that should be unworthy of Americans but it passes itself off as a virtue.
This is not what anyone should be looking for in a President.
Newt was a small business man trying to run enterprises- like lots of small business people. It is really admirable actually, that part of him, while other parts of his personal life are questionable.
Romney is a financial player. He is America's pick pocket who hides his stash in foreign locations so no one finds out. He's a guy who looks you in the face while telling you he is all for your family while he just bought your mortgage from the bank to foreclose on you. He's the guy who actually did drive American businesses in the ground who needed him and he gutted and abandoned them and all their workers and hid his plunder in overseas tax sheltered accounts. Really frightening that he is the darling of the Establishment. And the Republicans are saying they don't want to turn America into a 'european socialist' country. If Romney is so against Europeans why is he hiding all his money there? He would rather Switzerland and Ireland have better unemployment rates? This guy CANNOT be President. Look at yourselves people.

Pants on Fire Award

Debbie Wasserman's response to Romney Ruminations:

.........

We've known for some time now that Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected -- but tonight was truly a breathtaking display of dishonesty. After trying to cater to Hispanic voters this week, Romney kept up the doublespeak tonight -- trying to downplay his extreme positions on immigration and acting as if he had never said that undocumented workers and their families should be rounded up and kicked out of America.

"Romney continues to try to have it both ways on every issue under the sun. Tonight, he lied about not voting for a Democrat if there was a Republican on the ballot -- there was when he voted for Paul Tsongas in a Democratic primary in 1992 in the same election where President George H.W. Bush faced Pat Buchanan. He lied about never saying his Massachusetts health care plan was a model for the nation -- the truth is that he's often said it was. And tonight he even tried to distort the President's strong record of commitment to Israel, claiming that President Obama has not addressed rocket attacks on Israel before the United Nations when in fact he explicitly did so -- and when the President has actually visited Sderot and affirmed Israel's right to defend itself.

"Tonight, Romney called his enormous personal wealth 'an asset to help America.' But there's just one complication: he's not investing in America. He has had millions in investments and accounts in infamous offshore tax havens -- including the Cayman Islands and a Swiss bank account that his advisor closed down for fear it would be politically embarrassing. Those tax havens cost American taxpayers about $100 billion a year. And the hundreds of millions of dollars he raked in at Bain were made in part by laying off American workers and outsourcing their jobs to other countries.

"Mitt Romney must not realize we live in the age of Google, YouTube and DVR -- because he literally shifts from one position to the next without any sense of restraint. It's time for Romney to try something new and finally give the American people the straight answers they deserve -- that’s certainly not what he offered on the debate stage tonight."

Thursday, January 26, 2012

What did I tell you

Romney's Financial Disclosures re: Swiss and other Foreign Bank accounts deficient- "minor details"-

Does he think Tax Evasion is "minor?"

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/26/10244809-romney-revising-disclosures-for-overseas-accounts

Still

Hard to Swallow

People who live in glass houses shouldn't turn on You Tube.
If one googles Monica Lewinsky and particularly the five part Barbara Walters episode you will see a fallen women terrorized and nearly destroyed by her daliance with power- because they turned her into a national slut figure and bulls eye for every wagging tisk tisk finger who wanted to feel superior. This poor girl was subjected to a grand jury investigation and feared jail for having a flirtation with the President that he provoked and a few times doing something nice girls do not do. The Republicans were out to destroy her.
Compare that with a six year illicit affair Calista was engaging in with the Speaker of the House at the same time, one of Clinton's major persecutors who was with his signature loud mouth demanding impeachment at the time. All the sanctimonious while he was having an affair with Calista, the small town cheap bottle blonde girl who figured her rise to fame is through sleeping with the most powerful guy she can entice because her ambition is something to behold, while Gingrich plays the piety card on his poor wife who was diagnosed with MS.
Sure, that's going to take the White House. Everyone admires that crap. (sarcasm stage left) As whacky as Santorum's ideas are, he looks more and more appealing.

Wisdom

of the Founding Fathers in America

The Separation of Church and State is a phrase coined later than the writing of the Constitution. It does not exist in the Constitution. What does is a principle that the government shall enact no law that impinges on the free exercise of religion or do anything that establishes a state religion. No one religion gets to be favored or paid for by the state. No religion gets to be so tied with the enforcement arms of the state that it can punish dissent in the civil order. This was a great fear of those Irish who came to this country, who were subject to penal laws and punishments in England prior. It was a great comfort to people like John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian preacher who founded Princeton University because he knew how badly it worked the other way first hand, having been locked up in a Scottish prison in a castle for not conforming to the political succession aligning himself with either catholic jacobians or anglican british. Scottish separatists were mostly presbyterian and they got locked up for being presbyterian.
Religions will try whatever they can to consolidate power and crush dissent even if it requires slander and trumped up allegations. Look at what happened to Jesus and Paul and a lot of disciples. Some civil authorities said 'we don't find any crime in him" and wanted to release them. Others were so ticked off at their preaching they wanted them just dead. Just hated them profoundly. So we see Nero
actually lighting them on fire because he blamed them for anything he could.
Christian tiki torches.
The beauty of our Constitution is that we have this religious freedom guarantee and we also have it coupled with a free speech guarantee, so it is no civil crime to dissent. We have an open society where people may speak their minds and beliefs, and except for a few exceptions, if it doesn't incite a riot for example, you are entitled to your opinion and protected in saying it.
That is why it sometimes is upsetting to watch all these Occupy arrests when they are peacefully
gathering and speaking against the excesses and abuses of capitalism without morality and inequality. This is something that John Paul II actually warned against- the excesses of greed or capitalism gone amuck can create a very unjust society. This is also why a Romney presidency would be aweful and should frighten people.

When a country lets any prevailing religious group or 'ism' control the Rule of Law it is in trouble. It invites abuse and arbitrary oppressions. The Non Establishment of Religion means that no religious group gets to either dictate public policy exclusively or punish in any fashion those who disagree. It means we are a free people, man, woman and child. And anyone championing Freedom should understand the constitutional limits on their power and not abuse the privilege of being in a free society.

People with political ambition will always want to crush dissent, and it is a natural human weakness to self justify by some higher grandiose purpose in the mind of a totalitarian. This is what the political rule of law is supposed to check and protect against. "My ways are higher than your ways" justification for any cruelty one deems fit to inflict is wrong. So wrong it doesn't matter what your ways are if you have to get there by slander and oppression. We do not allow ambitious clerics in this country to lock up people who disagree with them. We don't even allow it if they do it on blogs.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Mormonism

Is Not Monotheistic

The Central tenet of the call to prayer for real Jews is Here Oh Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One." Christians believe God is One.
Christian doctrine teaches (of all denominations including Catholic)_that Jesus is "one in being with the Father" in the sense that there is a mystical trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They believe Jesus existed at the creation because he is 'one in being with the father" and the monotheism is not defeated in some mystical way.
Quite in contrast Mormons maintain that there are multiple Gods, and the God who sent Jesus to earth had multiple wives, and everyone who follows and attains through their good works God Like status which includes giving lots of money to the Mormon church gets to be a God and go populate another planet when they die by celestrial sex with multiple wives, including those you married on earth. It is vastly different theologically and spiritually from Christianity. It is not an "offshoot" of modern Christianity - it is a profound perversion, bastardization, a cult made of an invented theology. Anyone studying the history of Joseph Smith and finding of the Book of Mormon can learn of the wholly invented nature of this theology.
If Romney were elected President it would be the first time in American History that a Non Monotheistic Religious person would be in the highest office of the land.
It is an extremely wealthy church. It exercises power and influence in ways that are extremely corrupting. It would be a disaster of untold proportion if Mitt Romney were to be President of the US.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

saint anthony's daughter gets married

how many

abortions

paid for Cecile Richards manhattan lifestyle Who the HELL does she think she is?

Precisely.

LIFE

IS FROM GOD

THE DEVIL WILL TRY ANY WAY HE CAN TO TAKE IT AWAY. HE WILL TRY POLITICS.
HE WILL TRY MASS DELUSIONS. LIKE POPULAR SENTIMENTS OF EMPOWERMENT OR LIBERATION PERVERTED FOR ANOTHER AIM.
HE WILL TRY WHATEVER HE CAN GET AWAY WITH TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING



careers, advancement, threats of impovrishment, threats of rejection. threats of abaondonment.

The devil's job and work is discouragement. Disillusionment. A feeling that all your efforts are worthless. Your life is meaningless. This is the devil's work.

You must stand and fight it. You must believe that Hope is the eternal call to eternal life in Jesus Christ who saves all from the death of despair and disillusionment against all hopeless and the destruction you see before your eyes.

this is what came to me.

I am Catholic

Because of John Paul II

He came to Los Angeles when I was a new lawyer working for a law firm there. I asked my Jewish boss for time off to go hear him speak when he came to LA in the late 80s.
I had a catholic irish grandfather i didn't know because he died before i was born but formed morally my father who insisted that we said prayers that he taught us before sleeping every night.
John Paul II I now believe had a love of his life when he was a youth living in Poland who was Jewish who was a girl sent away by her family subsequently killed during the Warsaw uprising. (at this point God had taken away from him his mother, his older brother, the love of his life and his prospective in -laws, and if he was to have faith in life itself it had to come from his faith in God because there was mothing left on earth to inspire his hope. His hope came from God, and specifically the Virgin Mary who became for him like a real life mother that she promises to be, especially in the absence of his own mother. )
Later in his life before he died he went to Israel to Vad Yashem, and he memorialized a prayer in the Wailing Wall. He mourned this girl, he never saw her again after that.

Loooove

These ladies!!!














Do Not Let

The Perfect

be the Enemy

Of the Good.

Many small steps in the Right Direction may become a
Leap for Mankind.

What if

There were a law

that created a Chinese Wall and said No Organization that Provided Birth Control (not abortofascients, just birth control) could offer also abortion. Strict line legally and mandatory auditing and reporting requirements. They can have no cross-directorships, no cross-executives, they can't be merely divisions of the same enterprise. They have to be totally different enterprises.

Then Planned Parenthood would decide what it is and which was more profitable-
Then it would be clear who was doing abortions.

It also would make it possible for an entity without an abortion agenda to give birth control and they could control the quality of the birth control. Planned Parenthood now gives fake out defective birth control to make more money off the abortions later. It's sick.

What if there were facilities, Catholic hospitals that provided high quality birth control- that was not designed to fail.

Right now no one is regulating the massive Fraud on the Public that Planned Parenthood is- that is why people who oppose abortion are looking at totally undesirable Republicans- because the evil of abortion and ruses and fraud on the public to perpetuate it are so grave it becomes unpallatable to fall for the corruption within the Democratic party finance machinery over it.

What if really good and safe birth control were offered by Catholic hospitals? Who would go to sleazy planned parenthood clinics?

--or, a law that said No Doctor who provides abortions or any clinic or place that performs them may also dispense birth control which must be dispensed only by licensed physicians after a full pap smear and physical exam in the case of the "pill" or any medication with birth control features for women.

The Billion Dollar

Non Profit.

If I told you there was a billion dollar corporation that is registered as a non profit would you raise an eyebrow? What do their executive salaries look like? Wouldn't you want to know.
How about if I told you that Planned Parenthood is reported to be a billion dollar profitable corporation. That is what Wikepedia says- only it misreports the amount of their abortion allocation- much more than 3 percent is abortion related. It is the majority of their budgetary profit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood

Would that make you sick? It makes me sick.
A billion dollar corporation- making most its money off abortions.

Thank You

Friends at Moses and Singer

For reminding me of the forms and procedures for declaring off shore accounts to the IRS. There is now a THIRD offshore voluntary disclosure initiative, which means there were two before. Did Romney fill out any of these forms and are they anywhere on file with the IRS? Who is doing a FOIA?
Chris Matthews?


IRS Announces Third OffshoreVoluntary Disclosure Initiative
On January 9, 2012, the IRS announced that it is implementing a third offshore voluntary disclosure program for people with unreported offshore accounts to come into full compliance with their tax obligations. The 2012 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) offers reduced penalties for taxpayers who failed to report non-U.S. financial accounts and assets on an FBAR (IRS Form TD F 90-22.1—Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) and who failed to report income from those accounts and assets on their U.S. income tax returns but who come forward before the IRS identifies them. Read More If you have any questions about this Client Alert, please contact the author Gideon Rothschild.
Gideon Rothschildmailto:Rothschildgrothschild@mosessinger.com
212.554.7806


Romney blasts opponents on immigration amnesty but i bet he likes swiss bank account amnesty.

The Pope and the Pill

A Psychological History

Pope John PAUL II is probably the greatest apostle of peace the 20th century has known.
The book and movie Witness to Hope is a brilliant depiction of how he survived WWII, joined an underground Seminary in Poland during WWII bravely (could have been killed if caught) and witnessed many of the horrors of the war including watching of or knowing of the Nazi attrocities including the leveling of Warsaw after the Warsaw uprising while he lived in the city. Many of his Jewish friends were killed. The entire Jewish population was routed up against their will and walled into ghettos before being sent off to being killed during the Nazi occupation which he lived through.
The child John Paul when he was just Karol W, first saw his mother die in his early adolescence, then his older brother, and later, before he even turned 25, his father died. In the middle was the attrocity and horrors of WWII.
It is very possible that he carried around within himself what we now call PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. An intensely apprehensive anxiety. Something that made it untenable for him to be comfortable wanting to start his own family- after all they all die eventually and what pain that must have caused.
It is against that backdrop of a persona that one has to look at how he penned the encyclical which forbade birth control. It is too easy to just reduce it to the desire to avoid overpromiscuity. One must look at the psyche of why a man would be so adamant about first not wanting his own family, then what he wants to dictate should be normative practices in formation for others. Perhaps knowing how many people die in wars and of disease made him want no limit of any kind on procreative capacity. Perhaps he didn't want anyone entering into intimacy too intimately for the pain of loss of it.
But whatever his psychological orientation, one cannot merely accept the reasoning without critically examining whether in current modern context it makes any sense. That is not being true to the Holy Spirit.

Romney Not Apologizing For Success

In Historically hiding assets in Swiss Bank Accounts.

Swiss Bank account secrecy has only just recently been opened up. Prior to a year or so ago Swiss Banks were not obligated to and did not produce their American accountholder records to the IRS, income was sheltered there as the Swiss government protected their banks and banking industry to having to report it to foreign authorities. That is precisely why people sheltered money in swiss banks-why else? Did Mitt ski the French or Swiss Alps every year or have a chalet or swiss chateau and needed access to cash in Switzerland? Get serious! His accountants told him it was a political liability in 2010 because the reporting requirements changed. The question is how much did he stash there in years prior when no reporting obligation fell on the banks. Recall there was recently a deal struck with people who had accounts in an amnesty program- they could fess up and pay the taxes they didn't in years past or the Justice Department was going after them. When did Mitt open these accounts> and did he avail of the amnesty program.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/mitt-romney-tax-returns-released_n_1225247.html

Romney's Wealth

Distribution Plan

From middle America and struggling American enterprise to the Mormon Church.

\http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/mitt-romney-tax-returns-released_n_1225247.html

Swiss Bank Accounts (but not for tax sheltering, no siree bob) and Cayman Islands accounts (but not for tax sheltering no siree bob) and 'other foreign enterprises' (but not for tax sheltering, no siree bob) and it does in fact turn out he only paid 13 some percent to Uncle Sam in 2010. He'll make it up this year. He paid Over 15 percent, some 7 or so million to the Mormon Enterprise, that 30 Billion dollar Empire in the sequel to the Empire Strikes Back as Romney tries yet again to be our leader. Who is buying this garbage?

Romney

oy vey

The Politics of Intimidation

and Campaign Terror Tactics

We have had a congresswoman actually shot in the head. An assassination attempt in broad daylight. We have had a cat killed recently with the word "liberal" scrawled on its carcass. We had Palin pandering to the second amendment yahoos with targets and bulls eyes and 'lock and load' language against liberals and Bile Barbie Coultercreep calling everyone who doesn't like her brand of conservatism 'Demonic.' Because she is a Romney fan, her brand of conservatism is something like corporate raider arbitrage leverage buy out decimate legitimate struggling business to pilfer rape and pillage for the assets and to hell with the rest of you.
Let me clarify the sort of camera shoved in my face at the Basillica where I went to politely listen to a lecture and asked one question. It wasn't a nice sony digital someone might have in their purse. This was a guy who rudely belligerently shoved a huge moving picture camera, a rolling film video camera the size of a microwave he shoved in my face demanding to know who I was and insinuating I was a secret plant of either a news organization or a campaign. Outrageous. Clearly designed to intimidate me and anyone watching, any one else like me from asking questions. Like free contraception is a bad idea because??????
This is the sort of garbage that gets people completely turned off religion. And conservative politics. It looks too corrupt, too nasty, too evil.
The politics of intimidation

Much ado about nothing

I'm shocked.

If I walk into a liquor store and there is a section in one corner where everything is free, and I want a bottle of wine, I am not going to pick up the Jack Daniels just because it is free if I went in there for a bottle of wine. The HHS legislation says that INSURERS or the federal Obamacare system that people barely understand, can't charge the patient for preventative contraception-its free to them, even in Catholic hospitals perhaps. This has the Bishops' undies in a twist calling it a religious freedom assult. Are they kidding? Really? Whose freedom? The religious freedom of the patient at all factor into that? Shouldn't the Bishops be focused more on guiding the patient into right relationships or behaviors? Unless they want to own insurance companies that don't like having to eat their bottom lines on this point. Or maybe its that their biggest donors do because insurance companies have some of the most overfed highest compensated executives in the country. Are those people breathing down the Bishops' backs? Why on earth do Bishops want to prevent women from preventing unwanted pregnancies? This whooplah is going to woefully backfire because it sounds like nonsense to most American women and most of them are Protestant statistically anyway.
People are not trying to be recklessly permiscuous for the most part- they are trying to find lasting love. That is the prevailing impulse. Have a little faith in people.

You cannot have it

Both ways

You cannot be against abortion and against contraception at the same time. It is not rational or logical. You can tout contraceptions dangers, you can warn women of side effects, but you can't be against contraception and also want to keep abortion rates down because contraception keeps abortion rates down.
People are going to try to form relationships in healthy manners that involve physical intimacy. People who do not do that do not understand the Humanity of Jesus the same way the rest of us do or believe full lifetime chastity is their calling. That is not how to perpetuate the species or be fruitful multiplying. People try to bond intimately. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they do not. But it absolutely prevents unwanted pregnancy when people are figuring it out if contraception is used.
Sometimes I wonder what happened to priests to make them reject physical intimacy with women. Were they emotionally scared somehow and rejected deeply in adolescence? Was it beat out of them or were they chemically castrated? I think Seminary must be a gruesomely painful experience. Because it is not a healthy heterosexual response to shut down all feelings of wanting emotional and physical intimacy with a person. Studies even show people who are touched and hugged have healing responses. I cannot imagine Bishops dictating to women decisions regarding contraception. It does no service to the anti abortion movement. Abortions really do harm women deeply phychologically. You should want to avoid them by all legal means necessary.

Monday, January 23, 2012

What do you call an Order of Married Priests?

Lutherans.

That was the old joke. Now the new one is Anglican Ordinariate and thank God for them. They can perhaps start to enlighten the unmarried kind about some basic things regarding heterosexual family life from first hand experience. Like chastity is not the only path to holiness even for clerics.
And like if you are a responsible human being trying not to live outside your projected means you only have as many kids as you reasonably can afford so birth control is smart, responsible and moral. Its not that they don't adore kids, or think kids are a disease, its that they think eight is enough.
Theoretically, if someone is married in their early twenties and used no birth control they could have a kid literally every year until menapause hit somewhere in the mid 50s. Who in their right mind thinks it is morally responsible to have twenty to thirty kids, maybe have a few die off- other than the Duggars and who knows where they get their money from and what vitamins that chick is on.
Seriously. Birth control is morally responsible. It is not a slight on pregnancy- it is moral responsibility to have children when you are ready emotionally, physically, sociologically in the right family context and financially. If you want to avoid any abortions it is morally responsible to exercise some sort of birth control, and because the 'natural family planning' method is not reliable, the pharmaceutical ones should not be outlawed.

Does this mean that they shouldn't be tested for safety as well as efficacy- no. No one is arguing that. They all go through FDA approval and testing. Still, some are not all that safe and nothing not natural you put in your body is. But women weigh the alternative and find that a more morally acceptable alternative and assume the risks.

So the non married male Bishops have decided its morally wrong to take birth control? Are they kidding? And the wingnuts are out to demonize the Secretary of HHS? How sad. I have never been on the 'pill' or any pill like prevention-so I am not talking out of self-justifying defensiveness. I am talking out of concern that unmarried males in clerical garb who have not had girlfriends openly that we are supposed to know about much less wives or children are dictating birth control policy to women. Thank God the Health and Human Services Secretary is a Catholic Woman.

contraception

hysteria

And Ideologues without MDs. There are a few things you want to tell priests but would be too embarassed to, so I will here.
The family planning rhythym method that catholics say should be the only valid form of birth control because it is 'natural planning' does not work all the time. It is not foolproof either in avoiding unwanted pregnancies. This method is based on women figuring out when they ovulate and then when the ideal times in relation thereto are for having or not having opportunity for an egg to actually get fertilized. Women use tools like thermometers - very sophistocated, and can sometime read their discharge.
Men are not expected to know that cycles are not always lock step in cync with a daily calendar and this prediction method is far from foolproof. Cycles vary with stresses, stress hormones, hormonal fluxuations caused by a variety of features, and dietary and health reasons. Irregular cycles are very common. http://women.webmd.com/tc/missed-or-irregular-periods-topic-overview
They get more common with increased diabetis risks and have something to do with metabolic changes that large changes in weight occur. So the kids now that are fighting juvenile diabetis have more incidents of irregular periods.
The over the counter contraceptives prevent pregnancies, in some cases much better than one could read one's body for a 'natural planning' rhythym method if one is sexually active. Of course, abstinence is the only sure fire foolproof way not to get pregnant, unless you are the Virgin Mary.
That is why it is knee jerk jerky to just rant against contraceptives in my humble view. In a perfect world no one would have sex until they married the right person and stayed married. We don't live in a perfect world and people are far from perfect, and public policy has to account for all the fallible creatures out there that make a country.

Reprehensible

WingNut Episode

The democratic campaign manager in a tight congressional race came home to find his cat slaughtered with "Liberal" written on the side.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/democratic-operative-cat-liberal-slaughtered-pet_n_1224095.html


The second amendment types can be out of their minds crazy. Do we need another 'tone down the rhetoric' talking to people?
Should there be legislation that suggests that anything that clearly is motivated by partisan hatred is a hate crime? Like shooting up a shopping mall of everyone who comes to hear a congressional candidate of another side you disagree with? That should be a hate crime against particular party representatives. This threatens democracy itself because it stifles free speech and association.

Not a Partisan Issue

Life. The Pursuit Thereof.

Its foundational to all the other liberties. Without Life the rest of them are meaningless.
In DC today the Cathedral of Saint Matthew was packed for a service, and priests flooded the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the Verizon Center and RFK Stadium. If you were not at any of those places you are not going to get it.
If you lived during the Nazi slaughers of WWII as a christian German just trying to make a living and feeding your family how much would you really want to know about what the government was doing to the Jews? There are new accounts out recently that many more than were previously thought knew of the extermination policies of the government and just really didn't raise a fuss. They didn't join any resistence, they didn't try to overthrow the government, they didn't lobby to stop it. They just let it happen. And what do we now think of those people? We deem hero martyrs of the people like Dietrich Bonhoffer and the priests who died in concentration camps opposing the government policies. The vast majority of people just shut up, minded their own business and tried not to get in trouble or in the way themselves.
This is what those people sitting in cathedrals, shrines and stadiums all across DC and elsewhere are reminded of. Its another anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The count is now apparently closer to 60 million dead little people called embryos or fetuses. Little people with full human DNA, for each of whom its possible to project what they would look like in twenty years. But they all get just slaughtered, dismembered in utero, tossed in the trashheap of history or into biopharma undercover labs for the stem cell research.
When people get the magnitude of this, they can hardly sit on their hands.
If you learned what was going on in Nazi germany could you feel good about yourself if you said nothing or did nothing? Never tried?

The head of Planned Parenthood is Cecile Richards. She is the keynote speaker at a lot of Democratic fundraising events. It is possible to be well intentioned and deeply misguided at the same time. She is incredibly politically connected as the daughter of former Texas Governor Ann Richards and former Chief of Staff to Nancy Pelosi. She is the attractive blonde cover to the planned parenthood debate. She reminds me of how good looking some of the Nazi generals and soldiers were.
The democratic finance machine is tied intricately with Emily's List that sponsors and promotes the interests of planned parenthood which is an organized fetal dismemberment organization for profit. The planned parenthood 'agenda' has nearly completely hijacked the democratic party politics financially.

There are things that people could choose that we as a society would not permit. Like-I choose that for your own good you should slice off your arm because the metro is so crowded and we could squeeze a lot more people into it and not have to buy larger metro cars if people only had one arm. That is ridiculous right? We think things are overpopulated so we will extract an entire human being from your womb by slicing and dicing it and suctioning it out piece by piece if it kills you. Crazy, right? Right. And that is exactly what is going on. You shouldn't be a parent then, because you haven't figured out yet how you are going to financially support it.

The structures and systems surrounding birth have to be addressed to make it possible for people to choose life rationally. It has to be done on a much more deliberate greater scale than the Rachel or Gabriel projects that churchs run. If you are pregnant there has to be governmental support for you to have your child. But this runs against what the Republicans call the 'entitlements' mentality so it never gets done. The Abstinence Doctrine is a viable alternative which should be aggressively taught and not defunded. The best way to avoid an unplanned pregnancy is not the rhythym method (people's periods are irregular a lot) It is to not have sex or have really good double protection.

Given that the abstinence doctrine does not persuade large numbers of people and not because they have not heard all the arguments surrounding it, contraception is another way to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Is it foolproof? No, but double protection on both sides of the equasion gives one much better odds of not having an unwanted pregnancy so it should be available (also to protect against AIDS transmission_) and I don't get why the Catholic church is so opposed to it. I don't believe they have statistics indicating that contraception leads to more abortions.

This should not be a Partisan issue at all. It is a race issue because the African American community is impacted three times as hard by abortions in this country. It should be a bipartisan issue with bipartisan efforts brainstorming how to stop the slaughter of the innocents who didn't ask to have their hearts suctioned out of them while happily floating around in a womb.

The US President, Obama should convene a serious bipartisan commission of the best
pro life advocates on all sides of the political divide to discuss the social structures that need to be in place to make the country hospitable towards birth and life. We cannot demonize the other side or nothing gets resolved.

If you were a german living in Germany and saw your neighbors rounded up and put on a train to a place you strongly suspected death was occuring by artifice and fraud on the public what would you do?





















Things I want to tell

Santorum

I personally find Santorum an appealing person, but his policies? He's from Western Pennsylvania where my relatives hail from so I am naturally drawn to him- Penn Hills is spitting distance from where my niece and great niece live. My Dad worked in the steel mills as a youth until he went off to the Korean War, then went to Pitt on a GI Bill and also did courses at Dickenson from where Santorum got his law degree. I love his historic family narrative. I speak Pittsburgh. Everything about his stand up good guy personality and devoted husband and father persona I like. So I feel bad for him- because he is on the wrong side of history on a few things and needs to understand a few things before he is nationally electable. He won't be the nominee this time but he is young enough and should try again once learning his lessons. First, global warming is not junk science-and who does that cater to? Industry titans aren't saying let's ignore melting ice glaciers and snow caps and drowning polar bears? The goverment should be inspiring green technologies because that is the wave of the future. Those technologies that understand how we have to evolve to protect the planet are the ones that are going to also create jobs. The weather is demonstrably more freakish so its apparent to everyone. Just because Al Gore draws attention to it doesn't mean it's not out there. Al Gore drew attention to the internet and it's out there or you wouldn't be reading this. I sat next to a guy living in Sommerset PA on a bus recently who told me that he often visits Alaska where it is evident in his lifetime just by looking that the ice is dramatically melting and no rational person can doubt it. So this view doesn't even cater to what he might think of as hicksville Pennsyltuckians. We have a very green Pope by the way.
And why do you think you keep getting glitterbombed? Do you think it out of the questions scientifically, against the wisdom of a large part of the scientific community, that gayness might be in large numbers of cases intrinsically biological or physiological on a level that makes it just unkind or even unconstitutional to discriminate against them? How is it that you cannot see that your views place a segment of the population in a stigmatized category of unworthiness for something that you perceive as a sin, when we don't discriminate against others for sexual sins. What if we deprived everyone who masterbated (also a sin in your doctrine) in a category of unworthy to marry anyone. Or if a guy fell into watching porn- unworthy to marry. Or if someone was in the business of usery, or defrauding people- also unworthy to marry. How about greedy wall street tycoons- greed is a sin-unworthy to marry. We don't do that for any other sin- we do it for homosexuals. Why? So even under his own moral code it's not rational to discriminate against homosexuals and it is absolutely bigotry. How is it that he can't see that and still defends it?

Thirdly, no one can or should get elected if they don't appreciate why we need a strong public education system in this country. The homeschooling, we can do it better than any certified professionals is frightening. The California public school system use to be the best in the country and because of it a technological revolution took place now centered around Palo Alto in Silicon Valley which spurred industries and supported entire industries in developing. We cannot be globally competitive without a strong public education system. A candidate who cannot appreciate and articulate that and wants to send kids all back to the kitchen table is just not nationally electable.

Santorum is doing things that are beneath his intelligence which says to me he doesn't really want to be President this time- its for the exposure, the money, and whatever else that will launch him in another four years after Obama's reelection.
He should start endorsing someone soon.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

How is Immigration going to feature in Florida?



















Really

Retail Politics.

When I was in New York around Christmas time I noticed huge signs everywhere, on buses, on billboards saying "Believe" in large letters. Did Romney buy the city or what is this? Because that is his campaign motto. No, it was Macy's idea first. Macy's holiday campaign was "Believe" and it was everywhere. Romney, practicing really retail politics apparently pilfered Macy's ad campaign it appears. So what is he trying to sell exactly?
Congrats to Gingrich one has to say (and I can because Rachel Maddow did). The process is really fascinating whatever one thinks of the people. These are all great Americans for playing and what fun characters to watch.

A Pro Life Saint

Saint Vincent de Paul

In a road in Paris, the Rue du Bac, meaning road of the Baccalaureate, the test all French high school kids take to get into university, like our SAAT, there is a convent. In the convent is a chapel.
In the chapel there are three saints bodies some incorruptible; Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Louise de Merrillac and Saint Catherine Laboure who saw the Blessed Mary who instructed her to cast a metal now famously known as the Miraculous Mary Metal.
Saint Vincent de Paul became famous for helping the poor and there are to this day hospitals named after him for indigents. In his day, in France, 16oos prior to the Revolution there was a class system with royalty and noblemen and ladies and masses of poor peasants who would flood the streets of Paris when their villages burned down in conflicting territorial uprisings or fights between fiefdoms of lords. Paris was full of poverty living in the streets.
Saint Vincent de Paul discovered one day that at a particular church, every day ladies would secretly drop off babies in an abandoned baby box outside the church- sometimes four in one day. With the cold, if they were not picked up within hours of not being fed in the cold they died there in the box. This was considered routine- someone daily dumped the box of dead babies, every day.
Routine until Saint Vincent de Paul discovered what was going on and was deeply outraged. He demanded that the babies be cared for- against the sensibilities and customs of the day that just resigned them to being nameless victims of poverty. The sensibilities of the noblewomen of the day resisted this because they were perceived to be born of sin and with a stigma of sin, the product of low life low class fornication- and beneath their standing to even touch. The prevailing social norm of the time was to let them pile up in church boxes in the cold outside churches until they died and then dump the church box in the woods somewhere. Now we think that a horrendous crime- how can someone let babies just sit in the cold until they die?
Can you see that this is little different than what we do in turning a societal blind eye toward babies in the womb? We do worse now, we turn a blind eye to just killing them off before they get to the church box.
And we are really efficient at it- we have a huge corporation and the government even wants to pay the corporation to do it. There is a movie everyone should see called UNPLANNED about the former Director of the Planned Parenthood in Brasos/Bryant-College Station, Texas near where Texas A&M is who saw the light of an ultrasound during an abortion that demonstrated to her what was really happening in an abortion. I Highly recommend this movie. Another one everyone in the White House should see.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Public Relations

And the Archdiocese

The Archdiocese of Washington, DC has ever since I started paying attention to it done a ridiculously bad job at explaining the rationale of their positions, some of which they pay half a fortune to lawyers to advocate for. For example, no one can convince me that the downfall of civilization will result if gay couples get to call themselves married and get the same tax breaks as heterosexuals. No one has given me an intelligent reason why half a fortune was fought in fighting against the DC Human Rights Act and US Constitution. Whenever Santorum starts rattling on about comparable bestiality, incest or polygamy down the slippy slope I want to paint a large round red nose on him on the TV because it sounds just clownlike ridiculously non-analogous to any thinking person.
Then there is the contraception issue- which the Pope actually back peddled on if you recall. Contraception is fine to avoid AIDS- it is a lesser harm than the risk to over promiscuitizing society I suppose, or something like that. I am sure some Dominican can explain it to you without your eyes rolling like mine do whenever I hear someone say the root of all evil is a rubber. The catholic standard notes all the clerics that are fighting Obama on the HHS and deem it all a Free Exercise of Religious expression thing. Do they realize that the sterilizations they are talking about are voluntary-when there is a forced sterilization issue it ends up typically in a courtroom and it gets litigated such as we just saw with a mentally deficient person whose guardians battled not to have her sterilized. Sometimes you see this in cases where a severely mentally disabled person is subject to forced sterilization by their guardians. There is no secret government program out there to sterilize masses of Americans and if there was, show us the evidence before making whackadoodle judgments about why women who are medically determined to need hysterectomies can't have them paid for by the government health plans.
Santorum if you listen closely first was for States outlawing contraception until he was against States outlawing it and now only says he meant to say they could if they wanted to- which would only come up if he wanted them to.
This weekend we are getting all the pro Life stuff we care to ingest. This is a topic I fear above the head of the Archdiocese PR team to fully educate people about. It is a really serious topic and the educational efforts are not anything like what should be going on at the level of debate that should be taking place. For example, Planned Parenthood is an industry, a huge national corporation with corporate offices in huge office buildings crunching budgetary numbers on how many women they convinced that they needed to dispose of their offspring in polite terms. It is a quiet holocaust, a genocide in America, and when the impact personally and on the country as a whole is really fully appreciated, people are going to be wailing and crying bloody murder- because that is what it is. The massive popular deception going on is something Goering would like to aspire to.
Fifty Million little tiny people dead. Fifty Million people. That's a lot of neighbors you didn't do like you want to be done to.

The nation is going to have to get a grip. It's above the head of the Archdiocese PR efforts. There is a Jesuit Priest who taught at Georgetown and has written several books on the subject which are a good place to start- Robert Spitzer , SJ, PhD. Ten Universal Principles; A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues is his latest. It should be mandatory reading for everyone in the White House.

Speaking the Truth

In Love





That's what the abortion opponents think that they are doing, but sometimes it comes off ridiculously self righteous and ignorant of all angles of the argument. I am reminded of the time that nutjob texans in pick up trucks drove by a PRO LIFE Democrats signs held by his campaign workers (including me years ago) shouting "baby killers!" Another wingnut episode just happened when I made a remark at the gathering at the Shrine where a book talk was given by a great Jesuit priest and a woman who was a bit frightening. When she went off on Kathleen Sebelius, whom I am sure she never has actually met or had a conversation with, regarding the recent HHS legislation, I noted that the sterilization provisions might pertain to women who get hysterectomies to avoid life threatening uterine cancer-and wouldn't we want poor women to get the same coverage as wealthy women if their lives were so threatened? It was a legitimate question which was met with a non-sequitorious unsatisfactory response and a lot about an unspecified Agenda that made her sound more conspiratorial than 9-11 truthers.
After the talk someone with a huge camera shoved it in my face demanding to know who i was and whether i was with a news organization (did i sound that good? ) and which campaign I was working for. Because I must have an Agenda, as opposed to an informed opinion. Not the way to win hearts and minds folks. This guy was totally wierd, so whosever campaign he was with needs to do a major pull back. I am not on Obama's campaign, don't work for any government agency and write a blog- which a lot of people read. So the next time you send wingnutty people with huge cameras into a church I am going to start taking names. And if you keep this up I am going to have to start running for something and getting bodyguards and secret service to bounce characters like that out of my path.

Don't Put Off

Tomorrow What Should Be Done Today -Get serious about life.

You know the stories of girls hanging on to relationships with guys for way too long when the guy doesn't feel ready to get committed. You know all the things that can get in the way, the other priorities, the other front and back burners, the other work commitments, and all the things that tug and pull a person. You just start taking people for granted, like they will always be there so you can do whatever and dilly dally until you feel better positioned or like you need more money in the bank or a better job. 9-11 was a huge wake up call and a number of marriages shortly followed because people got serious about life. This is a sad story about a guy who had a girlfriend for a decade and always thought they would get married and start a family but just never got around to it, and in her prime she died : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/man-marries-dead-girlfriend-thailand_n_1211497.html?ref=mostpopular Griefstricken he married then the dead girl.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Let there Be Life

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/melinda-star-guido_n_1218492.html?1327062852&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D128967#s546056


Beautiful story in time for the March For Life.

best comment

On MaryAnn Gingrich

Didn't her mother tell her that when a man marries his mistress it creates a job
opening? Karma is a witch sometimes.




Which leads me to that "do unto others" commandment as you want it done to you. Which is another way of phrasing Karma is a witch sometimes. When Jesus said it, he was repeating common spiritual wisdom of many traditions. Basically he was saying Karma isn't really optional. Its a law of the universe. Do what you want done to you because that is how it is spiritually set up in the laws of the universe. That's why you have to confess your sins because once you nail them Jesus is there to forgive them and wipe the slate clean. He is the Karma buster.

Whether Good or Bad, Happy or Sad

http://www.5min.com/Video/Raw-Video-Obama-Sings-Al-Green-517250925

The eyes




Have it.


Is there something in her contact lenses? Or did she just see a ghost? Take me to your leader.


Newts blistering blow off remarks to last nights debatemaster might have lost him the Presidential nomination-that and his third wife who looks like something that was evicted from Wisteria Lane on Despirate Housewives.


It is totally legitimate to ask the question- how does this man treat women? Because women are half the electorate and this stuff matters to them. How you treat women is a signature point defining honor in a man. Santorum has it. Gingrich does not.


A contrite Heart. That's what God wants. Gingrich wants to have his wives and eat them too. You cannot act like a bullying insulting indignant wronged man when asked the question regarding how you wronged your second wife. Totally wrong approach and he should know better. Women are going to start saying we don't want the Henry the 8th in America. You don't get to act like you did nothing wrong- even if you repented and reformed your sorry self.
Doesn't he realize that women hate the narrative of the guy dumping his wife (2 times) for the younger model trophe wife? It's about a thousand times worse if the trophe wife was your mistress for half a decade. Seriously. We all had mothers.


Good luck South Carolina. As beetween Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum and Jack the arbitrage leverage buy out firesale Cayman Island jerk, I vote for Tweedle Dee.

Voted most likely to be indicted on an insider trading scam

A Letter from Mitt Romney
About My Finances



SOUTH CAROLINA (The Borowitz Report) – Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has released the following letter to the American people (yes, its a joke):

Dear American People:

Over the past several days, my personal finances have been distorted into a grotesque caricature by the mainstream media, pundits, and other people who can count. I am writing to you to set the record straight by explaining my finances in terms the American people can relate to.

Let’s say you bought a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982 for $5,000. A couple of years later, what do you know, you sell that same bottle for $10,000. So you just made a profit of $5,000 through your own hard work. How much of that should you pay to the government? I’d say fifteen percent.

Now let’s say you have a fellow mowing the lawn at your 7,000 square foot home in La Jolla, and he turns out to be an illegal. You say, “No way, Jose” (Jose is actually his real name) and send him packing. He doesn’t deserve his full paycheck, since he lied to you in Spanish, but it wouldn’t be fair to give him nothing, either. So you pay him fifteen percent.

Now let’s pretend the United States of America is like one big restaurant. Not a fancy restaurant, mind you, but one that only gets two Michelin stars. And let’s say that you order a meal of Beluga caviar, white truffles and gold shavings, washing it down with your favorite beverage, Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982. The bill arrives and it’s quite a hefty one for a working stiff who only made $375,000 last year in speaking fees. (That’s right: minimum wage.) So when it comes to toting up the bill, how much should I tip the waiter, who in case you’re having trouble following this metaphor is the IRS? You got it: fifteen percent.

I think I’ve now shown, using these real-life examples that everyone can relate to, that no one should ever pay more than fifteen percent on their taxes. If you have been paying more than that, you should get rid of your loser accountant pronto. That’s another thing I have in common with regular Americans: we like firing people.

So – now that I’ve laid it out in simple terms that even you can understand, do you agree that you and Mitt Romney have a whale of a lot more in common than you thought? I’ll bet you ten grand you do.

Au revoir,

Mitt

Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Hey

If He Can Run For President So Can You Guy

Santorum, it turns out really did win Iowa. Just like I told ya. It pays to double check the count. And examine the source code. How bad can Iowa mess up the fridge post-it count?
Pretty bad- it picked up just enought to give Santorum the win on the recount.

Please don't let the dog eat your votes in November.

The Bomb

That Blew His Nomination

CAYMAN ISLANDS MILLIONS.
Romney has admitted he has invested Millions in the Cayman Islands, a known tax free shelter haven for gazillionaires.

His 'aides' say ,whooops, not to evade taxes. We just value investing in the Cayman population (what more than the population in those middle western US towns you obliterated with your corporate raiding, pilfering, raping and pillaging?)

THE CAYMANS PEOPLE. It's the bomb.

Creepy, sneaky, candidate who wants to buy friends, endorsements, all the press, and the EDGAR SEC reporting system to keep secretly scamming the country.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/mitt-romney-wealth-south-carolina-primary-2012_n_1215598.html

What they really Should Be Running For

I would vote for these guys for this:

Santorum: Guy you most want to take you to the Prom
Gingrich: Guy you want sitting next to you in a car pulled over for speeding to double talk his way out of it. --or-- Guy you want organizing the neighborhood kids to clean up the local park.
Perry: Guy advertising elocution classes.
Ron Paul: Guy leading the underwater geriatric aerobics classes.
Romney: Guy organizing the New Years Eve taxi ride home don't drive drunk program. -or-
guy giving the Storage Wars guys tips on how to break the locks.

US President? Not so much guys.

The Presidential Piety Problem

And conflicted American guilt

Presidents have to prove themselves role models while running for office in ideal family life. People think it fair game to say the Third Wife can't be the First Lady and hail someone with seven or eight kids as someone who must be adhering to the catholic church's No Birth Control ban. Does anyone seriously think Karen Santorum didn't use birth control when for most of her 20s she was sleeping with an abortion doctor? Does anyone seriously think that Calista Gingrich who has no biological children of her own and has been sexually active since her 20s never used birth control? Then there's Mitt who on the stump actually admits "its working just fine." Taking a public view in some catholic church circles that this is an aspect of Papal wisdom that is a bit off its rocker can get you escorted out of the building. These candidates are supposed to be the paragon of religious piety or at least moral paragons of virtue.

Then there is the gay marriage thing. The Pope makes shocking statements like allowing for gay marriage is downfall of civilization as we know it. Really? If ten percent of the people who would never marry heterosexually, because they puke at the thought of heterosexual sex want to couple with their same gender that somehow threatens the rest of us who know from historic memory at least how good committed heterosexual sex is? The only people who could possibly think this are people who have zero experience or appreciation for physical intimacy. Oh-right, priests. They define holiness in a way that excludes physical intimacy- something Jesus never does. OK, its OK in proper marriage- something priests also are not familiar with on any physical level, which is a soul bonding level, that compels physical union. Just not a path they choose to follow.

It seems that the people most threatened by homosexual intimacy are those feeling most threatened by it. Like it's too tempting for them and they don't want to think of themselves in the ten percent born that way and are fighting it with every religious muscle they have. I don't blame them, they are all living with all men.
No one, I repeat who is really heterosexually healthy is threatened by a gay person who wants to marry a gay person really. It's (a) none of their business and (b) does nothing to discourage them from wanting to have sex the way they like it. But Republicans have to mimick that religious line that it is the downfall of civilization from guys who experience no physical intimacy which sounds like a pretty much unelectable line. Does anyone really think any heterosexual couple is saying to themselves, gee, we better not get married or have children because those gay guys down the street are going to get the same tax breaks. Ridiculous. But the radical right has to cater to this nonsense.

The qualities you should want in a President are confident humility- a guy or gal who knows that they can't possibly know everything they need to in a job they have never done before with Intelligence reports they have not been privy to before, because their advisors are going to be top notch state of the art geniuses and they are going to have the humility to listen to them. Someone who is bull headed and ignorant at the same time is not good Presidential disposition. That's assuming that they are not schemers in the first place with a bad agenda. Ideologues make bad Presidents. People who think moving to the middle is a sin make bad Presidents, because moderation is sometimes the only intelligent compromise. People who put down other's well thought opinions because they come from a different perspective make bad Presidents. Then there are red flags that should alert you to things you don't want to tempt fate on- like repeal of child protection or labor laws. Or people who just shout they want to repeal Roe v. Wade when they don't seem to have read the opinion carefully- because it does provide for certain stage State regulation of abortion and there was a progeny of following cases that say more. You want a smart President who values education, knowledge and intelligence and doesn't champion hickery dickery dockery.

That's why the most Presidential candidate, dispositionwise, valuewise, intelligencewise, and confident humilitywise is Barack Obama.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

On Christian Unity

This Week We Pray for Christian Unity

Gros plan : L'unité des Chrétiens, une question chère à Benoît XVILa semaine de prière pour l’Unité des Chrétiens s’est ouverte ce mercredi 18 janvier. L’occasion pour catholiques, protestants et orthodoxes de se rencontrer, d’échanger et d’apprendre à mieux connaître l’Église de « l’autre ». En septembre dernier, Benoît XVI s’était rendu en Allemagne, patrie d’origine de la Réforme, une visite importante sur le plan oecuménique et en particulier pour le dialogue avec les luthériens. Où en est aujourd’hui le dialogue entre catholiques et luthériens et quel impact la visite du Pape a-t-elle eu sur ce dialogue? Le Pasteur Marc Lienhard, théologien, ancien doyen de la Faculté de théologie protestante de Strasbourg et président de l’Eglise luthérienne d’Alsace revient sur cette question Propos recueillis par Marie-Leila Coussa-

Listen on Vatican Radio- link to the right.

It's On Line

www.BIBLESTUDYTOOLS.com

Judging a President

By their Covers
Their wives. bed covers that is.
That is what James Dobson wants to do.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/callista-gingrich-james-dobson-mistress_n_1211758.html

I don't like adultery any more than James Dobson but why is someone who stayed committed to the same guy forever less desirable than someone who was sleeping with an abortion doctor forty years older than she was before she met her husband--for about the same amount of time Mrs. Gringrich was adulterously being a mistress to Gingrich? It's all out of wedlock fornication-right?

I don't think anyone should judge a President by the cover of their wives. Calista found the man of her dreams and he happened to be in a bad marriage at the time. As far as we know she has only had one lover, one husband. Why is that worse than someone who had an abortion doctor boyfriend? Calista is a musician, a liturgical singer, plays instruments in a local orchestra. She is accomplished in running the documentary movie production business of her husband.

Judge them on their policies. Their wives- that's really their business isn't it?

Ways to Do Things

When the Angel Investor turns into the Devil Pilferer

Any company in distress needs an Angel investor to infuse cash flow. There are ways to 'turn around' failing companies. They can merge with stronger ones in their fields of production, they can engage in capital improvements to upgrade machinery or processes, they can buy patents to make more things and a host of other things that can improve corporate standing and performance. Any outside investor or Angel who wanted to help could consider any or all of those.

When you look at the companies that Mitt said had to fail you realize that these companies did not have to fail and fold, they are in industry sectors that are alive and kicking, he just
manoevered and engineered them into the ground after driving hard bargains that gave him controlling interest. Take Kay Bee Toys for example. Did he suggest a merger with Matel that could have saved jobs? Did he suggest that they consolidate stores or did he suggest that they improve efficiencies by capital improvements? The Toy Industry is alive and kicking and it is a multibillion dollar industry. Why did Kay Bee toys have to fail? If you do this with any of the many companies he said "had to fail" you realize that they did not- he could have reconfigured them successfully, but chose instead to pilfer them, rape and pillage them. This is an Executive's worse nightmare.

He did it also in a way that decimated entire communities for miles and miles in towns that had but one major plant that he shut down. He did this in a way that robbed people who worked their whole lives in some cases in a place of their pension or hit the government with the Pension Guarantee Trust liability while he profited off the sale of the assets they did have.

This is when an Angel investor turns into a Devil Pilferer Raping and Pillaging for his own profit.

That is not someone who is going to save the country. That is someone who is going to save
companies that have a Mormon Board and ship the assets to Mormon banking enterprises.

People are crazy to vote for him.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

As Goofy-Arsed

As a Three Dollar Bill.

Why is Romney so opposed to releasing tax returns?
Where does he hide his half a billion dollars? That is enough to make or break any smaller US bank with one giant wire transfer.
Mormon Finance is something to pay attention to- becuase it is goofier than a three dollar bill.

http://www.mormoncurtain.com/topic_kirtlandbank.html

Actually Mormons had their own bank. Now what does a private equity guy do with half a billion dollars? Hide it in his fridge. Is he worried about the discovery of an unregulated outfit, not meeting federal banking regulations that services Mormon enterprise? Does he own his own bank and lend in a manner not compliant with regulations? He's got lots of splainin to do lucy.

The Republicans should never vote on someone who keeps secret the hiding place of a half a billion dollars in private equity money and assets. He could buy a lot of things with half a billion. Like all the foreclosed properties banks want to dump. Or a few states treasuries.

Why does Mitt Romney want to own the EDGAR publishing system that publishes all the SEC records ? Is there something he wants to keep secret from the public? Think of what power there is if one individual owned the EDGAR publishing system of the SEC.

There is more shenanigans here than meets the eye. And all is not kosher in the state of Utah.

The Rap is Back

In retort to the I love Jesus but not religion guy.

Battle of the rappers gets interesting as this one surfaces in defense of the church and 'religion.'


Oh The Third Thing

That's crazy about neo-republican sensibilities.

Why do you all have to prove you kill animals? Who cares whether Mitt shot moose or elk? It's ALL twisted. Why do you need to prove you can kill animals to be a president? It's a precursor for all the people you are going to be insensitive to killing if you think you have to across desert sands? Recall when Palin made a big deal about the fact she hunts moose dead, and Bachman had to prove she liked hunting for sport. Recall Cheney moosehunting and blowing the guts out of his friend who felt compelled to say- hey, no big deal. I have miles more intestines, what's a few miles of guts blown away? What is it with these second amendment types? Don't they realize that the second amendment came about during a time - revolutionary times- where there were still alive pockets of royalists who wanted to arm themselves against the colonists so the second amendment was meant to protect militias not private vigilantees? Recall there was a War in 1812 where the British nearly burned down the White House to the ground and invaded even the Baltimore harbor? There the second amendment came in handy. Are we actually in danger of a loyalist or royalist insurrection again? Do you realize that most of the arming of the mexican drug lords and cartel is by us and unregulated gun shops on the borders? Most of the weaponry confiscated by mexican drug runners is stuff bought in the US. We are making weapons that kill ourselves. And no one thinks it wierd that people interpret the second amendment to involve private war weaponry to vigilantee citizenry as opposed to 'militias'- or the right to bear arms against the British loyalists? One might think Gingrich at least understands the historical context of the second amendment. Guns don't kill people do? Have you ever seen a person shoot another person with a carrot? Guns kill people.

The Wierdest Things

About Neo-Republican Sensibilities

There are really wild things about the neo-republican sensibilities, aside from the obvious that strike one as alien or just ignorant.
For example, why is it a scandal that Mitt (who I am no fan of) speaks french, as opposed to the fact that he speaks it badly with a terrible brutish american accent? The republican fear of francophones is silly and ignorant. Note how in the Newt Superpack attack add it includes Mitt saying "Bonjour, je m'appelle Mitt Romney" and ends with some sort of A bientot french phrase as if to mock the frenchiness of it. It is not uncommon for Europeans to speak four and five languages- and that makes them smarter not dumber, more fluid in appreciating different cultures next door. What is wrong with speaking a few languages? Isn't that why we teach foreign languages in schools? The anti-french hit is just stupid. French was the diplomatic language of all the western world until about a century ago or less.
Then there is the aversion to all things public education with people championing the abolition of the Department of Education. A solid strong public education is what propels the country forward in advancement in all areas that make us globally competitive. There is a bizarre glorification of ignorance or lack of education. Then there are some who say that no one can do it better than the parents, so they are homeschooling. The teaching profession is a profession for a reason with credentialling criteria and advanced degrees by experts. All parents don't know everything and it is arrogant to think that they have the intellectual resources to inform their children of what citizens need to learn. It is almost a more elitist posture to take to suggest that as parents no one can teach your children better than you, regardless of how you got your education. There is an objective 'excellence' in education- and it isn't always found at the kitchen table. Public schools need attention, resources and the best teaching professionals and we should be a country that is devoted to improving public education for all. We should also give people choices of and access to good religious schools if they want their children getting religious education. But to champion home schooling as a higher virtue is an odd sensibility and arrogantly elitist of a different variety. Santorum is also not telling people that he enrolled his kids in a Cyber Magnate school in Pennsylvania while they lived in Virginia and got the county where he maintains a residence around Pittsburgh in Penn Hills to foot the bill, afterwhich the Penn Hills school district sued him for the roughly 100k back because he didn't really live there. So he is not opposed to Magnate schools, currently at least one or more kids is in a private school while he claims he homeschools all his kids. Maybe up to a certain age, prior to when they went Magnate and were in a private school. So the trashing of educational excellence outside the home plays to an ignorance that is stomach churning.
Reason and intellectualism are not incompatible with catholicism- but there is an ignorant strain of religiousity that is. When neo-republicans cater to that they insult the country, and their faith.

There is more, obviously, but that is so far the take from the walnut gallery.

Why gaybashing is politically dumb

Morality aside

There is religious disagreement concerning morality or lack of morality in gay behavior or identification. Is it inate, intrinsic to a person or a behavior that can be modified. Jury is out for some. But what is rather incontrovertible is that the manner in which one presents either side can determine success or failure in appealing to a national audience in the following demographic regard.
It is estimated by Gallup that as much as ten percent of the US population self-identifies as gay.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/6961/what-percentage-population-gay.aspx



Ten percent of a 300 Mil population is 30 Million people. Canada is estimated to have a population of about 34 Million. Nearly the size of Canada is the population of self-identified gay people according to a Gallup poll.

Gay people do not sprout from pods or grow on trees, they come from families, and statistically larger families. Thus the circle of people who know and love gays expands exponentially just within their families. Then there are those who know and love them who are not in their families, in their churches, their places of work, schools, their neighborhoods or apartment buildings, their clubs and places of recreation. That exponentially expands their circle of love and support.

So just looking at the numbers, and looking at the demographics it is political suicide to trash gayness in any respect. The issue of marriage of gays comes from the Constitutional principles, not of separation of church and state as some may think, but of the fundamental right of everyone to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for all and equal protection under the laws for all.

If Rick Santorum can find me one heterosexual person who chose not to have heterosexual relations or marriage because they know someone gay who wants to get married I might reconsider, but so far I find the proposition preposterously ridiculous. Gay people do not inspire non gay people to not want heterosexual sex. It's too good to be convinced otherwise.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Bain Bait and Switch

Campaign Strategy

And lessons learned by watching the corporation Mitt set up.
Look at how Bain functioned- and see what he is doing on the campaign.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-romney-ran-bain-capital-his-word-was-not-his-bond/2012/01/12/gIQACvQxwP_story_1.html

It's titled 'When Romney ran Bain capital his word was not his bond.'

Labels

Turns politicians into the guys at Supermarkets with the handheld price ticket machines

slapping on labels on the nighshift at the A&P. That one is on sale. That one is three for a buck.
That one is a 'massachusetts moderate ' and Huntsman endorsing Romney is like a 'moderate endorsing a moderate.' Militant moderation is what Secretary of State Albright use to say was what the country should want. Moderation in all things was a mantra of my Republican father, who wanted the best education possible for his daughters.
What do these labels mean? Are they supposed to evoke a set of values and principles? Is it supposed to mean that a girl with a law degree sits at home teaching elementary grade subjects to all her kids because they rather not spend the money on private catholic schools?
Conservative to a lot of people means neanderthal reactionary throwback to Father Knows Best days where women didn't get to think for themselves and sat at home darning socks and popping over the counters to dull the boredom. Conservative evokes images of cigar smoking zip up sweaters and plaid slippers telling Molly she can't go out with that black boy down the street.
Conservative to a lot of people evokes fears of handcuffing women to a bed post to make them deliver a baby when their boyfriend left them for dead by the side of the road because abortion should be 'illegal' without a thought about what legislative structure would do that without criminalizing women. Why does anyone think that the label 'conservative' is going to win a national election? What does it say to you?