The Whitewash of History Continues..

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the whitewash of history is as alive and well in Berlin as in other parts of the world.

"The publicly funded Multicultural Center's (Werkstatt der Kulturen) decision to remove educational panels of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, who was an ally of Adolf Hitler, from a planned exhibit, sparked outrage on Thursday among a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit, and the Berlin Jewish community.
The curator, Karl Rössler, told The Jerusalem Post that it is a "scandal" that the director of the Werkstatt, Philippa Ebéné, sought to censor the exhibit.
"One must, of course, name that al-Husseini, a SS functionary, participated in the Holocaust," said Rössler.
The exhibit covers the "The Third World during the Second World War" and three exhibit panels of 96 are devoted to the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis.
The grand mufti delivered a talk to the imams of the Bosnian SS division in 1944, and was a key Islamic supporter of Nazi Germany's destruction of European Jewry.
Ebéné denied that there was an "agreement " reached with the local German-Muslim community to shut down the exhibit. She termed media queries regarding an agreement as "Eurocentric."

Meanwhile, the TimesOnline is reporting that Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi has been 'set free for oil'.

"The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.
Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards."

The first inkling that I got about the al-Megrahi deal not being on the up and up were articles like this one which stated that...

"It emerged that the prognosis that Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi had a life expectancy of only three months or less was supported by an unnamed doctor who had no expertise in terminal prostate cancer. The final report on al-Megrahi's condition, which went to Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, was drawn up by Dr Andrew Fraser, director of health and care with the Scotttish Prison Service."

I seemed to like it better when it was assumed that the public had some common sense and an elaborate ruse had to be staged in order to pull the wool over everybody's eyes. Now, they just go ahead and do whatever and hope that Brittany/Jessica/Lindsay do something mildly outrageous in order to divert media attention and coverage.

WHY TED'D WANT HIS DEATH EXPLOITED

It's the title of today's article from Jonah Goldberg who provides some interesting insight in it.

"IF you read the papers or watch the news, you'll encounter a long list of accomplishments by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy You're less likely to hear, however, that in his death Kennedy proved Rush Limbaugh right.
In March, the talk-show host and bete noir of progressives everywhere said that the health-care bill wending its way through Congress would eventually be dubbed "the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill." At the time, the official position of the Democratic Party was outrage and disgust. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee initiated a petition drive demanding that the Republican Party formally denounce Limbaugh for his "reprehensible" and "truly outrageous" comments.
Fast-forward to a few hours after the announcement of Kennedy's death. Suddenly, naming the bill after Kennedy would be a moving tribute."

Kudos to Goldberg for (again) exposing the rank hypocrisy of liberals in congress. Click on the link above for the rest of this interesting article that discusses, among other things, the reasons why JFK wasnt nearly the liberal lion that revisionist historians have made him out to be.

The Obama administration's fascination with dictators

I saw this piece a couple of days ago concerning the US State Department's decision to limit the number of visas issued to Hondurans in the wake of the expulsion of Hugo Chavez wannabe, ex prez Manuel Zalaya.

"The Obama administration has urged Honduran authorities to accept proposals put forward by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, whose efforts to end the crisis have stalled over the de facto government's refusal to allow Zelaya to return to power."

Then yesterday I saw this item posted over at Drudge titled "U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras". I coudnt believe what I was reading.

"U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be declared a "military coup," a U.S. official said on Thursday, a step that could cut off as much as $150 million in U.S. funding to the impoverished Central American nation.The official, who spoke on condition he not be named, said State Department staff had made such a recommendation to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has yet to make a decision on the matter although one was likely soon."

The Obama administration could have used this opportunity to support the decision of the Honduran Supreme Court and recognize that a dictator thug cannot declare himself president indefinately. Instead, they seem to be pushing to not upset the apple cart and pressure government officials to restore Zelaya. All of this seems to be a surreal sort of Alice in Wonderland situation in which up is down and down is up. In years past, the US government would support dictators ala Pinochet or Duvalier due to their anti-communist ideologies. Now it would seem that the socialists in charge of the show at the federal level have found a kindred spirit in Zelaya who has openly allied himself with far-left socialists in that part of the hemisphere.

It's not exactly the Reichstag fire but still....

This will probably be the only time I ever link to the faux journalistic craphouse known as the Huffington Post, but for illustrative purposes, I will reference them here.

"Twenty-four-year-old Maurice Schwenkler was arrested on Tuesday morning on suspicion of smashing eleven windows at the party's Denver office. The state party chair, Pat Waak, told local press that the vandalism seemed tied to the ongoing health care debate. Windows that were shattered contained posters that praised Obama's efforts to push through health care.....UPDATE: Newsradio 850 in Denver reports that alleged Colorado Democratic Party headquarters vandal Maurice Schwenkler had done work for Democrats in the past. Schwenkler was paid $500 last November to knock on doors for the Colorado Citizens Coalition, a 527 that supported mostly Democratic candidates in Colorado. The Denver Post also reports that Schwenkler was charged with misdemeanor unlawful assembly on the final day of the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Upon hearing this, Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak backed off of a statement made yesterday that the vandalism was part of "an effort on the other side to stir up hate.""

Help me out here... Was there even a single republican protester arrested at the democrat's convention last year? Here is the link to the youtube video of the news report of Schwenkler's arrest. The democrat party is increasingly being hijacked by it's far-left fringe and is hardly the party of Harry Truman or JFK anymore. The republican party has lost it's way over the course of the last couple of years, spending like so many democrats when they last had control of both the senate and house of rep.'s but if there is one of the two major parties in this country that stands a chance of being salvaged, the GOP is in better shape towards that end than the socialist democrat party.

EDIT: Today's article by Joseph Farah cites the moment on the senate floor when Ted Kennedy pretty much admits to being a socialist.

While our enemies giggle..

Yesterdays article from Rich Lowry underscores this administration's willingness to play "Wag the Dog", dredging up old accusations and try them publicly while other domestic and foriegn policies fail. One must have pity on Mr Panetta, no matter what your party affiliation...

"Such is life at Langley under an administration betraying liberalism's typical contempt for covert action and its inevitable moral complications.
No wonder ABC News is reporting that Panetta recently uncorked a profanity-laced tirade about the Justice Department at the White House and is contemplating quitting. (The CIA denies it.)
If Panetta were shrewd, he'd make a play for a position that would command more respect -- say, assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Panetta has had to write another letter to CIA employees meant to keep their morale up. For those keeping count, it's his sixth.
No matter how many missives he writes earnestly committing himself and his agency to looking ahead, the rest of his administration and party drags him back into the past."

With friends like these, who needs enemies? Small wonder that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is wondering aloud whose side the administration is on.

Sen. Edward Kennedy 1932-2009

I don't know quite what to make of this development concerning Ted Kennedy. I've heard it said that it's not a good thing to speak ill of the dead so I will try to not do so here. I did not agree with Mr Kennedy's politics, at all. I especially disliked when he, like many others in his party, tried to make political hay out of the decision to go to war in Iraq when he had access to the same intelligence that Bush did. A recent piece by Pat Buchanan come to mind at this time. His article stated in part....

"Consider two beloved Americans: Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Since he was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, Sen. Kennedy has had excellent care, including surgery and chemotherapy, which have kept him alive and, until very recently, active.
For a decade, President Reagan, because of round-the-clock care, lived with an Alzheimer's that had robbed him of his memory and left him unable to recognize his own family and close friends.
In the future, will a man of Kennedy's age, with brain cancer but without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept alive, operated on, given chemotherapy -- by a government obsessed with cutting health care costs?
Will a bureaucracy desperate to cut costs keep alive for years the tens of thousands of destitute 80- and 90-year-old patients with Alzheimer's, as was done with Ronald Reagan?
What if, in 2050, Palin and her husband are not here. And 42-year-old Trig, with Down syndrome, has been in an institution for years, and the cost of his care and that of hundreds of thousands like him with Down syndrome is draining the resources of the health care system?
Will there not be voices softly suggesting a quiet and merciful end?"

I've never been much for the whole "Camelot" mystique however it seems like JFK was the last democrat president that seemed to want to reduce taxes rather than raise them so I admire the guy for it. Ted never lived up to that level and yet the mindless lemmings people of Massachusetts kept putting him in office time and time again. I first heard of Mitt Romney through his senate campaign in which he almost unseated the perennial favorite. No special words of wisdom here. I'm sure that the professional talking heads will have something more profound or intelligent than you can find here. I just hope they paint an accurate picture of the guy and don't overly glorify someone who was every bit as human as any of us and who had his faults as well as good points.

The question no one asks

It's the title of today's article by Mychal Massie. Today's installment from Massie raises the following, among other points....

"It's bad enough that Obama claims belief in the God of Christianity while advocating the wholesale slaughter of the unborn. It's bad enough that he has misquoted and twisted scripture for his own narcissistic ends, but now, he has exited his adytum with the idea of using liberalism masked as Christianity to bludgeon the opposition into submission by painting them as insensitive, and if necessary, as racist. For a president to make tools of those whom he, as a self-professed Christian should in no way encourage, bespeaks of his narcissistic character. It's all about him and what he wants – and to that end, he will do anything to attain it."

Click on the link to read the cited article to see what the actual "question" is that is mentioned in the article's title (OK, it has to do with healthcare). I have linked Massie's archive over to the right of this page and I encourage anyone that likes this article to check out his other work as well.

EDIT: Today's article by Thomas Sowell is just as good....

"While it is true that black mothers get less prenatal care than white mothers and have higher infant mortality rates, it is also true that women of Mexican ancestry also get less prenatal care than white women and yet have lower infant mortality rates than white women. But, once people with the prevailing social vision see the first set of facts, they seldom look for any other facts that might go against the explanation that fits their vision of the world."

To read the entire article click here

Report: Arizona Rep. considering birther lawsuit

I'll let the article speak for itself....

"Taking the birther thing to a new level, archconservative Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) is considering filing a lawsuit to put President Obama on the spot over his birth documents, according to a Mohave Daily News readout of a Franks town hall meeting over the weekend."

I doubt it will ever go through and the story has been updated and it sounds more like bluster on the part of Franks more than anything else. But hey, a guy can always dream, can't he?

UPDATE: It would appear the Franks is stating that he would be willing to let Obama slide for now but for his 2012 presidential run, would make him prove his eligibility. Link to full article.

Lou Holtz has completely lost his mind

I came across this today while surfing the net...

"You have to really work at it to listen to Lou Holtz in midseason form, when weeks of shouting at games have taken their toll and his voice devolves into a kind of gruesome, gravelly Daffy Duck simulacrum. In August, though, his tones are dulcet and his articulation smooth, which is why we're absolutely certain we just heard him predict a Florida-Notre Dame title game.
What apart from his usual blatant homerism would possess Dr. Lou to make such a risky pick? Pragmatism, believe it or not. He doesn't think Notre Dame will be the No. 2 team in the country. He does, however, estimate it'll be "the best team in the stadium" for most of the year thanks to, yes, an extremely favorable schedule. "

Ok, if Notre Dame beats USC this year, I'll eat my hat. Just thought I'd pass this along and oh, btw, don't U of Penn tickets go on sale tomorrow?

I laughed out loud....

Yesterday I was getting caught up with my Thomas Sowell articles and I came across this installment from August 11th and yes, I literally laughed out loud...

"Different people have very different reactions to President Barack Obama. Those who listen to his rhetoric are often inspired, while those who follow what he actually does are often appalled....Many years ago, there was a comic book character who could say the magic word "Shazam" and turn into Captain Marvel, a character with powers like Superman's. Today, you can say the magic word "diversity" and turn reverse discrimination into social justice....Perhaps the scariest aspect of our times is how many people think in talking points, rather than in terms of real world consequences....Since no one seems overly concerned about putting a racist on the Supreme Court-- provided it is a politically correct racist-- the moral of the story seems to be that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, that doesn't matter if it coos like a dove at Senate confirmation hearings."

I have his archive as well as current articles linked on this page over to the right. Nobody tells it like it is than Thomas Sowell and although I don't agree with him all of the time, I consider him a national treasure and wish him great health in order to stick it to the mindless lemmings of the liberal set for years to come.

The mystery of Obama's birth

Is the title of today's article by Joseph Farah. I got a laugh out of it.

"The more we learn, the less we know.
Those who want to accept, at face value, the president's assertion that he was born in Honolulu Aug. 4, 1961, to Barack Obama Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham say asking questions about the president's constitutional eligibility is crazy because "you don't have any evidence to challenge it."
Try going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a driver's license without any documents and tell the clerk he or she doesn't have any evidence that you're not qualified to drive.
That's not the way it works. The onus should be on the person claiming the highest office in the land to provide the evidence that he is eligible.
So far, Obama has not provided even a shred of evidence to suggest he is qualified. "

Couple that with the fact(s) that it has now come to light that Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was in Seattle with baby "O" a mere 15 days after giving birth to him, had already found an apartment and was registered for classes. The article states that airlines prohibited air travel by infants of less than 6 weeks old until 1972 which only serves to thicken the plot.

All of this seems only mildly suspicious when it's becoming quite clear that O's parents did not reside at the 6085 Kalanianaole Highway address that was listed on his birth announcement in local newspapers. I'm certain that the MSM is getting around to reporting all of this to us, however they seem to be more interested in the fact that firms tied to Obama and his top aides are profitting handsomely for pushing the hard sell on national health care.

The Naivete of the American Public

When the Kenyan-American president was running for office as the most liberal of all senators in the entire US Senate and as someone who had never once voted to protect human life at any stage of prenancy, was there any doubt among clear-thinking individuals that federally-funded, abortion on demand would be far behind? Kudos to House Minority Leader John Boehner for calling out Chairman Obama on this.....

"When most Americans talk about the need for health-care reform, they’re usually talking about the need to address rising health-care costs; they aren’t talking about the need for taxpayers to subsidize abortion. In fact, a November 2008 Zogby poll revealed 71 percent of Americans oppose government-funded abortion.
It seems Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill don’t share this perspective, however. With the unequivocal support of President Obama, they’ve written a health-care bill that won’t lower health-care costs for American families, but will require them to subsidize abortion with their hard-earned tax dollars."

The article makes for an interesting read as does today's article from Jill Stanek who questions why there is sudden silence on the behalf of Planned Parenthood and NARAL as the health care issue is debated...

"The other side does nothing without a plan. The plan is to stop talking about abortion 1) in hopes the controversy will die down, and 2) to regroup and reframe the argument..... on Aug. 12, an ad popped up on Craigslist by Planned Parenthoods in Chicago and New York recruiting workers to push abortion in health care: "Right now anti-choice forces are trying to hijack health-care reform. They want to exclude reproductive health care. And, they want to cut out trusted community health-care providers. … We need your help to build up public support for this campaign! Full-time and management positions available NOW. … Earn $335-$535." So pro-aborts are still pursuing the goal of taxpayer-funded abortions, just stealthy. "

None of this paints a picture of an administration that would like to see instances of abortion to be "rare".

Who most resembles 'Nazis'?

It's the title of Joseph Farah's article today. Mr Farah raises some legitimate points such as....

"Lately, both sides of the political spectrum have suggested their political opponents resemble Nazis or fascists. Are both sides equally wrong?
Let's talk about "national socialism" – because that, indeed, is exactly what Barack Obama and his friends in the Congress are actively promoting and enacting in America today.
The very word "Nazi" is indeed an acronym for national socialism – the political and economic system Hitler infamously imposed on Germany in the 1930s. It was then and remains today, despite the denials historical revisionists, a "left-wing" idea. All socialism is, by definition, a left-wing notion.
If the left-right political spectrum has any meaning, it is that those on the left tend to favor government intervention while those on the right favor non-government solutions to problems. That is the traditional and accepted definition – much as those on the left would like to blur that understanding.
National socialists, whether they seek to kill Jews or old people or the disabled or unborn babies, will always be national socialists – no matter what kind of lipstick they put on the pig.
Furthermore, people like our Founding Fathers, who sought to diffuse power because they understood its unchecked and unlimited centralization represented a grave threat to personal liberty represent the polar opposite of national socialists."

I mostly agree with Mr Farah's asessment however there are a few points raised in his article that I'm not in agreement with. Later on he cites a long list of similarities between the Obama administration and Fascism or National Socialism. However such items listed like "Keeping tabs on political opponents" or "Secrecy" arent necessarily limited to left or right wing phenomena. I highly recommend Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism which explains in great detail the distinctions between Nazism and Fascism and vividly points out that in the US, the American hard-left is more closely resembles either one and ideals of the American conservatives are the polar opposite.

Is there a (real) doctor in the house?

Of course, we all know that the MSM was getting around to informing us all of this but they seem to be too busy painting town hall participants as white supremacists and neo-nazis. It seems that the so called "doctor" by the name of Roxana Mayer, (standing, in white skirt) who lent support to President Obama's socialized healthcare plan at the town hall meeting of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) is no more a doctor than my four year old niece. From Thursday's Houston Chronicle .......

"U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on Thursday distanced herself from a University of Houston graduate student and Texas Obama delegate who falsely identified herself as a pediatric physician at the congresswoman's health care reform town hall meeting this week.

“I've never met her,” Jackson Lee said as she prepared to take questions from doctors and other health care workers in a session at St. Joseph Medical Center.

Roxana Mayer, who warmly embraced Jackson Lee at the close of Tuesday's session at a Fifth Ward community center, had spoken in favor of the president's health care package. The Texas Medical Board, which oversees doctors in Texas, has no record of Mayer, 31, holding a physician's license."

The woman sitting down next to her, circled, is according to the Lone Star Times, Maria Isabel. Perhaps you might remember her from last years presidential campaign as being the

"unhinged moonbat who ran a Barack Obama campaign office, complete with Che Guevara flag."

EDIT: Here's the YouTube link to the sham of an exchange between the two.

Who is this guy?

We see that at Rep. John Dingall's town hall meeting on last Thursday that a young black male and middle-aged white woman have joined forces in expressing their outrage at the Obama administration's power play to nationalize 17 percent of the US economy (Healthcare) by holding up a poster of Obama with a Hitler moustache. Are we now to believe that middle-aged yentas and young black males who Obama won overwhelmingly in tha last election are now seeing through the mau mau messiah? The Blogprof is reporting" that the black male pictured here (there are more photos at the link) is actually a John Dingall supporter who later on was passing out Dingall (D-MI) campaign flyers.

Attempting to marginalize your opponents by making them out to be something that they are not (in this case it would appear to be National Socialists, aka Nazis) is right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. Look for an uptick in so-called "Nazi" or "white supremist" accusations to be thrown around with no basis in fact as opposition to the turkey of a health care bill grows in intensity.

Some types of dissent are more equal than others

Today's article by Dennis Prager sums up nicely the feelings of alot of conservatives who have endured (rightly or wrongly) 8 years of mindless slogans from the left hurled at George W. Bush when there was real, legitimate criticism to be found. Who can forget the leftist mantra "Dissent is Patriotic"?

"another popular liberal bumper sticker proclaims, "War Is not the Answer." It, too, is completely meaningless. If the question is, "What is the square root of 8?" war is not the answer. But if the question is "How do you stop genocidal regimes?" war probably is the answer..... As concerns "Dissent is Patriotic," the fact is that dissent is neither patriotic nor unpatriotic. Sometimes it is one, sometimes the other, sometimes it has nothing to do with patriotism. The right to dissent is a basic American value. But that is not what the bumper sticker says...The worst part of the liberal mantra "Dissent is Patriotic," however, is not that is meaningless. It is that it is apparently meant solely to defend liberal and left dissent. Dissent against the right is inherently patriotic."

In addition to Speaker Pelosi's recent comparison of town hall protestors to Nazis, the latest faux pas by the left is the father of a handicapped child who claimed he was threatened after a confrontation with Rep. Dingell. This is fast becoming a nightmare and the sheer speed in which the "Nazi" and "Fascist" cards are being played by people who have a fundamental misunderstanding of both concepts is indicative of the desperation that they are facing.

PZ Myers is a wuss

It seems that since PZ Myers declined the first debate with Vox Day on the subject of the existance of God, that Myers will finally prove he is a complete wuss by chickening out on another debate proposed by Day.

" "Well, my dear Dr. Myers, since you were previously afraid of a radio debate with me on the evidence for the existence of gods, perhaps you'll be more willing to engage in a written debate on the scientific evidence for evolution. After all, if the issue is so comprehensively settled in evolution's favor, it should be no trouble whatsoever to make your case to everyone's satisfaction, however initially dubious they may have been. And since you have now asserted that there are no Worthy Opponents, you no longer have any need to hide behind your stated belief in my supposed crackpottery."

Here's the link to the thread on Pharyngula where Day proposes that they debate, this time on the scientific evidence for evolution. I don't care if the Darwin set flocks to the PZ's blog to vent their frustration against a God that supposedly does not exist. What I cannot understand is why they continue too hold him (Myers) in high regard when he is just sniping from the sidelines, refusing to debate a game programmer with a Bachelors in Econ. in the area of his own expertise.

I posted too soon

Yesterday's entry re: Deroy Murdock's article on healthcare reform, was from the middle of July. Yesterday's article from Murdock contains more information than could be hoped for insofar as a comparative study of the healthcare system in the US as opposed to socialized medicine. First, in the UK....

1. Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain, the Vatican of single-payer medicine, breast cancer extinguishes 46 percent of its targets.
2. Prostate cancer is fatal to 19 percent of its American patients. The National Center for Policy Analysis reports that it kills 57 percent of Britons it strikes.
3. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data show that the UK’s 2005 heart-attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America’s. This may correspond to angioplasties, which were only 21.3 percent as common there as here.

The article goes on to make some comparisons to Canada where we find....

1. Canada has one third fewer doctors than the OECD average. “The doctor shortage is a direct result of government rationing, since provinces intervened to restrict class sizes in major Canadian medical schools in the 1990s,” Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian physician and Manhattan Institute scholar, told the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee on June 24. Some towns address the doctor dearth with lotteries in which citizens compete for rare medical appointments.
2. In 2008, the average Canadian waited 17.3 weeks from the time his general practitioner referred him to a specialist until he actually received treatment,” Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes, a Canadian native, wrote in the July 2 Investor’s Business Daily. “That’s 86 percent longer than the wait in 1993, when the (Fraser) Institute first started quantifying the problem.”
3. Such sloth includes a median 9.7-week wait for an MRI exam, 31.7 weeks to see a neurosurgeon, and 36.7 weeks to visit an orthopedic surgeon.

And there are other statistics cited in the article as well. All of this points to a more rational decision to help the small percentage of uninsured in this (US) country. What seems to be alarming people and prompting them to atend town hall meetings for the first time is the breakneck speed in which volumous amounts of legislation is being fast-tracked to socialize medicine and nobody ever informed these voters of the potential downside of passing this turkey until now.

The Muddled Mess that Health Care Reform has become

It would appear that the idea to try and sell socialized medicine is a bad one in light of the "near riot" that occurred outside of Tampa yesterday. Also In Connecticut, a similar town hall style meeting was disrupted by chants of "Dump Chris Dodd". One thing that I have advocated for in various forums is for the government to promote Health Savings Accounts which would give individuals choice over what treatments to seek, help drive down costs and provide portability in case someone loses or changes jobs. Self impowerment appears to be at odds with the current administration though.

A recent article by a columnist that I feature over to the right (Deroy Murdock) Provides some intersting ideas insofar as reforming healthcare in the US.

"ObamaCare is propelled by the oft-repeated Census Bureau statistic that 45.7 million Americans lack health insurance. Even if that number were accurate, why should Washington turn the healthcare industry upside down for all 300 million Americans in order to help 45.7 million? In fact, as Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes demonstrates, public policy should concentrate on a far smaller group of hard cases...From those 45.7 million uninsured, subtract 17.5 million who earn more than $50,000 annually. Though they can afford coverage, they evidently have other priorities. Of the remaining 28.2 million uninsured, some 14 million are eligible for, yet have not enrolled in, the Medicaid and S-CHIP programs. Meanwhile, as many as 10 million uninsured may be illegal aliens. All told, Pipes estimates that only about 8 million Americans are uninsured due to chronic illness or working-poor status. The latter have incomes too high for assistance and too low for insurance.Why not help these 8 million rather than overturn medicine for all 300 million of us?

You can link to the cited article here. One other thing that I came across this morning is the (so far) baseless accusation of Rep Nancy Pelosi of the town hall protesters carrying swastikas. Again we see the fundamental misunderstanding of equating small-government conservativism which strives for limited government with National Socialism with it's emphasis on nationalizing broad segments of the economy.

Breaking the Cease-Fire Between Science and Religion

It's the title of a recent article by David Klinghoffer. I agree with it in principle but I have some disagreements as well.

" (Chris) Mooney chides popular blogger and University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers, an ebullient atheist, for publicly desecrating a Catholic communion wafer — an “incredibly destructive and unnecessary” act, Mooney complains, “exacerbating tension between the scientific community and many American Christians.”

I don't consider the act of idiocy exhibited by Myers to be the act of a "scientist" as much as that of a poorly adjusted, angry, bitter, nihilistic, argumentative internet atheist. That he is a professor of biology is secondary.

"The origins of modern science, from about 1300 onward, were overwhelmingly religious. Isaac Newton regarded the universe “as a cryptogram set by the Almighty,” in John Maynard Keynes’s phrase. Scientists from Copernicus to Kepler, Boyle, Linnaeus, Faraday, Kelvin and Rutherford all sought to understand God through His creation. Because nature was the product of a mind acting freely, it made sense to them to try to understand that mind through its actions."

I notice that there are several apologists that have citing this fact recently. It would appear that their religious beliefs did not hinder and actually inspired their research.

"But remember — alongside the secular Enlightenment view of science, there runs a parallel tradition, seeking to explain nature without preconceptions, secular or otherwise. That way of thinking still exists among individual scientists, though it is in need of a good revival. With that tradition — older, grander, more open-minded, even more enlightened, you could say — there is no need for a truce with faith, no need for a separation, no need for a divorce."

I think that is something we could all agree on, no matter what our worldview. Especially the "open-minded" part.

30 Days and counting

Yes friends, just 30 more days until Thursday September 3rd and the new college football season kicks off. Just click here for a full rundown of the opening week's games and venues to wet your appetite for the upcoming season.

I'm going to try and score a couple of tickets to see the U of Penn Quakers vs. the Bucknell Bison on October 10th at Franklin Field. Being that the game is at U Penn, they have the sporting public by the cahones as all tickets will go on sale August 24th at 10:00 AM. I'll set my phone for speed dial and give it a try.

Maybe it's just me but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with pro football as the years go by and I find myself enjoying the college games on TV much more. The greater purity of the (supposedly) unpaid, amatuer athlete still seems to play with more intensity than his NFL counterpart. The marching bands, the pageantry, the smell of leaves in the fall, it brings back memories. After tomorrow it'll only be 29 days. :-)

EDIT: Since looking over the opening weekend's activities I must say, kudos to Cincinnati, Florida State, Oklahoma, Georgia and Boise State/Oregon for scheduling such good games to start off the season. By the same token, Penn State, Utah, Ohio State, West Virginia, Texas, USC and Texas Tech, SHAME ON YOU for scheduling such meaningless, also-ran, toothless patsies for the pickings in that you would be better off scheduling an intrasquad game for all the entertainment value your respective openers will provide your fans. I ESPECIALLY hope that Ohio State gets a scare from the Midshipmen.

Certifigate just became that much more interesting

This just in. While surfing the net just now, I came across this little item at VD's blog.

"California attorney Orley Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barak Obama's eligibility to serve as president has released a copy of what proports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and had filed a new motion in US District Court for it's authentification. The document lists Obama's parents as Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham, the birth date as August 4, 1961 and the hospital of birth as the Coast General Hospital in Mombassa Kenya. No doctor is listed. But the alleged certificate bears the signature of the deputy registrar of Coast Province, Joshua Simon Couya. It was allegedly used as a certified copy of the original in February 1964.

WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison and the documents appear to be identical."

Of course we still don't know about the authenticity of this document so it's too early to say anything. The most interesting part of this entire episode will be watching the White House try and spin this as just another crank who doesnt know what he's talking about. Is anybody out there willing to wager that the MSM will pick this one up and actually run with it?