Author Archives: Vérité

Click the title and head over to gop.gov for some interesting reading about the 3.8% real estate sales tax that was created as part of Obamacare.

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,”
President Obama, September 12, 2008

Keep the change!

USA Today is doing a poll. Participate and check out the results here. You’ll be glad you did!

I recently received a misattributed article entitled “The Gun Is Civilization” by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret) which was actually written as “why the gun is civilization” by Marko Kloos, and which is well worth the read. Among my favorite of Kloos’s points:

1. We can only persuade other people with reason or force
2. Guns are great equalizers of physical strength, size, or numbers between potential attackers and defenders.
3. I carry a gun because I’m looking to be left alone.
4. Carrying guns doesn’t restrict those who would interact with me through reason, only those who would use force against me; therefore, carrying one is the ultimate civilized act!

(see the whole article here)

Today I started reading “Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America.” (see it at Amazon) Has anyone already read it? My aunt recommended this book. To put her POV in perspective, she voted for Obama and I’m pretty sure she believes what she sees on CNN.
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The past two years have been, for me, about growing up and growing closer to God. Right now I’m feeling distinctly led to surrender my entire life to God and to encourage fellow believers to do the same. This is scriptural. I believe we are rapidly seeing this age come to a close. I’ll share a summary of impressions I have coming into 2011 for my fellow believers–I expect the rest of you to think I’m a nut.
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David Horowitz has a very revealing interchange with a young woman who is a UCSD student and a member of the Muslim Student Association.  The interchange is not only chilling, it leaves very little room for our Muslim observers to defend her.

After viewing this, I’d like to put the same questions to anyone who defends Islam (“Will you condemn Hamas or Hezbollah?”)

SodaHead asks, “Should Beck Be Suspended for His Comments About Soros ‘Sending Jews to Death Camps’?”

Beck is being vilified for exposing the facts about Soros’ boyhood in Hungary. At that time the circumstances of Soros’ survival required complicity with the anti-Jewish activities of his guardian. Fast forward 60+ years, Soros backs Barack Obama (and just about every other pinko cause he can find). Of course the man is the archetypal elite, so why would anyone be surprised. At the back of my Bible we know the world is going to oppose Israel. The real problems are that 1) Soros is, himself, a Jew, and 2) anyone who criticizes the elite will pay dearly.
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Professor Harold (Hal) Lewis is one of America’s most distinguished physicists. He has been a member and major contributor to the American Physical Society for 67 years! Yet he resigned his membership in that organization in protest over the politicization of climate research and the stifling of scientific debate. He claims that global warming has become a “scam” driven by “trillions of dollars” which has “corrupted” scientists; calling man-made climate change “the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud” he has ever seen. Note his age: he is 87. He has very little to lose (mostly his reputation among those who don’t know him)–but he stands to gain far less! So why would he do this? And why do so many old scientists renounce propagandist science? Maybe it’s because their conscience demands they speak out against the lies and corruption. Maybe, in the end, they want a legacy that is good and true. But, I think it’s mostly because going public any earlier demands significant job changes!

As a scientist and science educator, I would personally argue in favor of the Darwinian model of speciation for the title, “the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud,” but I’d certainly give global warming very high standing (in the pseudo-science-serving-social(ist)-policy department).

There is a great deal of money to be made and literally billions of people to be enslaved by advancing the agenda of global warming. A number of other Ph.D. scientists in climatology, mathematics, economics, biology, geology and other fields have come out against it. Some argue that America is the only hold-out. In reality, our universities house such a high percentage of the world’s great minds, that it’s really more accurate to say that our “wise-as-a-serpent:docile-as-a-sheep” ratio is too high to get America onboard with a number of idiotic global initiatives (the Kyoto protocols and universal acceptance of Darwinism being two fine examples).

I say, Bravo Dr. Lewis, it may be late (in your career), but we’re glad you made it nevertheless! Perhaps some of your younger colleagues would care to join us for a couple of toasts.

Here’s to open inquiry and honest science–wherever it leads us!

Here’s to Truth, may she be never hidden and ever victorious!

You can learn more about this at Suite101.com, Global Warming Policy Foundation, WUWT, and Escape Tyranny.com.

To God alone be the glory!

I came upon a very interesting-if-technical legal blog today.

In the trial of the lawsuit against the state of Arizona, perhaps reading this will clarify what the Constitution and those who wrote it demands in such cases.

God Bless America!

Sometimes I wonder why conservatives or Christians (much less those who identify with both groups) continue to be surprised by their treatment by the secular and non-Christian world. If we would believe what the Bible says, this is to be expected. It’s even supposed to keep getting worse! So how can folks a lot like me, who are inclined to forgive anything, expect to be treated consistently with those who are easily offended? How can we compete with those who file lawsuits and even justify murder upon the slightest hint of provocation? Christians must never harbor the illusion that we live under the same standards applied to everyone else.
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At first blush this doesn’t seem relevant to ConClub, but I’d like to suggest that what I’m about to share is very much at the heart of our problems in America today.

If you follow the title link (or click here) you can read more about author and megachurch pastor Francis Chan’s decision to leave his church and pursue God 100%. I am almost in tears reading it for two reasons. First, because of how strongly I support and hope to encourage him in this–a big part of me wants to join him! On the other hand, I’m downright heartsick to read that “everyone” (his megachurch pastoral peer group) thinks he’s “cuckoo for cocoa puffs.” If senior and renowned pastors can’t understand what moves him, I’m profoundly troubled! What am I to make of that? Either the Church is Christ’s bride and body–made up of people like me–slaves called to be totally sold out to him…OR…those leaders are businessmen, teachers, and musicians playing a lucrative game on a bunch of suckers. What gives? Are those leaders sheep, goats or wolves? What would Jesus say?

For myself, I’d rather be in a church of 5 deeply flawed and unordained peers that have surrendered everything to Christ, than in a body of 30,000 lukewarm mega-pastors/preachers/teachers/worship leaders, exceptionally talented staff, and gifted/interesting congregants! Why? Because Jesus wants our hearts to be totally his.

My prayer is this: Lord, let my life resemble that of one of your prophet’s, not become one motivated by profits. Amen!

As I feel the thread became stale on “Politicizing Science: A Plague On Both Your Houses,” but as I’d promised a rebuttal, I’ve decided to continue with a new post instead. The link above will allow you to read the earlier comments.

Obviously I don’t agree with you Zazu. I would like to consider your assertions point-by-point. None of this is coming from some creationist or I.D. book. It’s just my thinking based on my personal training in science, mathematics and philosophy at Michigan State University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Colorado State University.
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In this economy lots of people have heard that their mortgage is underwater or their car loan is upside down. That means more is owed on something than it’s worth. I’d like to suggest that in Presidential politics the same principle applies when a President’s approval rating is below the disapproval rating.

According to Gallup, that’s exactly where we are now. Since late May the polls have flirted with this; however, allowing for error, it’s been basically a 50/50 situation. The latest approval numbers move us firmly out of error country, most Americans are now unhappy with President Obama.
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Here’s a NYT story which may open some interesting lines of discussion. It comes after Obama’s comment that Muslims, like anyone else, “have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.”

Can we order or prioritize freedoms? Can one person’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as enumerated in the Declaration of Independence ever trump another’s? Do First Amendment rights supercede those? These are not easy questions. Why did Obama make such provocative and politically damaging statement? Rather than pouncing on him, I’d like to better understand what moves the man.

And no body nose this mor then me

This isn’t aimed at any particular person (FYI, I’m making mistakes on purpose).
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I got a great email from The Manhattan Declaration entitled, “Judge strikes down Prop 8, but we can still win this national battle.” I agree and totally endorse what they’ve written. You can see it online here), or read it here verbatim…
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I just received a great video from my father-in-law. Everyone speaking is intelligent, thoughtful and what the left calls minorities (or persons of color). I can best honor them by saying they represent the same colors I do: red, white and blue!

It’s a longer video, but I think very much worth watching. Alan Keyes is in attendance; however, he doesn’t speak. The lady speaking second to last strikes me as a great potential Republican candidate (knowing nothing more than what I see in the video). If anyone knows who she is, please reply and let us know.

God Bless America!

Does anyone know if the website Great Moments In Liberal Bigotry is accurate? If so, how do we add it to the blog roll?

Let me set my personal stage:
1) I’m a Christian who reads his Bible pretty strictly, and that shapes everything about me.
2) My mother’s brother, Steve, and dozen if not hundreds of my friends and acquaintances are/were homosexual (Steve died of AIDS 17 years ago)
3) I’m a straight guy who is married to a really amazing woman, we have a 16-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son.
4) Uncle Steve’s gay pals used to make comments about and toward me and hit on me.
5) By the time I was in college at UC Santa Cruz I was a huge gay rights advocate, and even dated a bisexual lady (she was only ever lesbian before we met and I think since then as well).
6) I’m in California right now visiting my mother’s sister. I’ve listened to all sorts of folks take all kinds of positions on this issue and only thought one argument was truly interesting:
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The title links to a great and encouraging article from the Wall Street Journal. I think it hints at a response: win back local politics and gradually take back our nation. Perhaps a great deal of the problem lies in partisan polarity. My thinking is that we should all work to have two proven people (one R, one D) who both closely approximate the statistical population center on the issues running for every office. I think we could truly restore government to the people in as little as six years. Am I naïve? Maybe, but perhaps a bit of hopeful naïveté keeps bitter and jaded people from turning the world into the dark and hopeless place they inhabit.

…to talk of troubling things: of tests and tax and teaching lies, of kindergarten and kings.’

I hope this post encourages spirited discussion if not lively debate!

Everyone should read this primer in the history of education in the United States. but it’s long, so maybe this Q&D version is a bit easier to digest.

Now let’s do a bit of learning about the NEA .

I’d certainly suggest a visit to John Taylor Gatto’s Odysseus Group dedicated to challenging the myths of modern schooling.

WorldNet Daily’s post Let’s Celebrate Communism! is great stuff.

Finally, here’s a link for COVD, the College of Optometrists in Vision Development. Their medical intervention, Visual Therapy (and only VT), significantly helped my dyslexic son. The public schools including their reading specialists, psychologists, OTs and speech pathologists have given him nothing effective to address his issues.

What are YOU reading about education, home schooling, religious schooling, propoganda, mass media and academia?

Please share!

A hypothesis that I love is that aggregates are “smarter”* than their constituents–be they economic markets, political structures, social networks, ecosystems, fluids or thermodynamic systems. This can be obvious such as the case in science wherein a total system is more than the sum of its parts. However, it’s especially subtle and mysterious when it comes to human affairs (because we, the constituents, are embedded in the system) leading to the following implications:
1) Markets are smarter than people.
2) Social success does not follow directly from personal giftedness.
(*later I’d love to get into a discussion about what intelligence is and how relevant it is to anything really significant, but I digress)

Along these lines we find Thomas Sowell’s excellent article (which RC posted in his article roundup). It’s so good that everyone should see it firsthand, so I’m re-posting the stand alone text.
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My fellow conservatives:
In a reply the other day I said, lets write a song about democrats. So let’s create a children’s song titled “The DEMOCRAT Anthem.”

I started with D and Rudolph Carrera answered with E.

D is for double standards: our flags wave proudly in the westerly breeze…
E is for enemy: They willingly side with idiots and cretins rather than the sane.
M is for Machiavelli: mendacious mutterings with ease. . .
O is for outrage: A never-ending mantra that fills their waking and their dreams
C
R
A
T

We also need to critique it, suggest modifications and otherwise make it really good, funny and stinging.

THEN…once we’re done, the first person to get a group of kids (preschool through 2nd grade) to sing it wins—so keep it clean folks

P.s. If you are actually a democrat (or any other symPATHETIC bleeding heart / pinko / rainbow / Obamanista leftist type), feel free to organize a Republican song…but in order to maintain the spirit of healthy political animosity, please don’t try to influence this one.

In short, Stein says No Way, No How and I believe him. I think he’s one of the sharpest minds in America today. (Therefore his movie, “Expelled,” has been effectively banned from public schools and dismissed unseen throughout academia!)

Briefly, Stein observed that of the unemployed he knows, many have poor work habits and difficult personalities. At the moment I’m unemployed, and I’d have to concede that shoe fits me pretty well. But I’m unemployed more by choice than bad luck. Most of us are if you really dig–we’re not willing to take ANY job.
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I was going to reply to Dave’s Quote with this, but I think it makes a better post unto itself.

Wayne Allyn Root’s “Overwhelm The System” article is not to be missed. Really. Read it now at Obama’s Agenda

I’ll wait.
.
.
.
Annoyed yet? Seriously, this is important!

If Root’s correct and Obama intends to crash America, then what’s the right and dutiful response of anyone who’s ever sworn a federal oath? Each has sworn, in part, “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The irony here is palpable–it’s a genuine dilemma–and I’d can only conclude our old adversary Communism is its author.

Theoretically, at least, what would an oath-bound defender do when faced with an enemy who occupies his nation’s highest executive or judicial office? Here’s an even harder one: in a republic such as ours, what happens when the majority of the people are clearly enemies of the constitution? Who’s to say who is or isn’t an enemy?

While this mustn’t be construed as a call to action, it certainly is a very real call to meaningful dialogue and debate.

May God bless America in His wisdom, mercy and righteousness because I can’t think of any human solution to this mess.

Bill Wilson’s adroit insight on our world economic outlook.

partial excerpt 

One item that stands out in last week’s World Economic Outlook produced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), besides the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) likely to grow far slower than projected by the Obama Administration, is the seemingly remarkable pace that emerging and developing economies are growing.

So, after years of flooding the U.S. with its products and soaking American capital as the U.S. diminished its manufacturing capacity, and purchasing U.S. debt, China looks like it is about to pivot. However, the American intelligentsia and power elite are so narcissistic and self-involved with more “stimulus” and deficit-spending, they cannot see the forest for the trees.

China is prepared for any downturn. Are we? No. We’re not. While the threat of a U.S. credit downgrade looms as soon as 2018 and the economy teeters, the White House Office of Management and Budget projects the U.S. will incur $10.6 trillion in new debt (likely) amid robust growth for the next ten years (unlikely).

Hi gang, if you have a few minutes, take a look at Illusions of Opportunity By JOHN E. SCHWARZ and share what you think.

[Honesty (AKA Hate Speech) Warning--Continue reading at your own peril!!!]

Lately I’ve been a bit surprised to see America’s intellectuals at once troubled by where our nation is going while simultaneously being the force driving us away from our core values. It’s like they’re saying, “Welcome to Nowhere Land where everyone is entitled to OUR rarefied, ivory tower opinions (because they are obviously too stupid to form opinions of their own).”

Of course they would probably lay the mess at the feet of the TEA Party since they’re sure their formula: “more taxes and fewer freedoms” best answers every societal problem.

This is my first post, hopefully it will encourage a lively discussion!

As a teacher, I often find myself reminding students that the old ways, while not always as good as the new ways, were sometimes just as good, often more insightful and occasionally just plain better.  For example, lately mom has had a terrible time garaging her Prius using the pricey laser pointer system my brother-in-law bought her.  Oddly, the co-linear hanging tennis balls I’d installed at her old house never failed to line up a perfect approach.  Now we’re discovering that the Russian sleeper agents were still using the old standards of espionage like invisible ink, shortwave radio, and transposition ciphers to great effect.
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