Turf's Up 2009

Sevens member and Norwell pitching coach Kurt Gray has scheduled his annual "Turf's Up" Golf Outing / Norwell Baseball Fundraiser for 1:00 p.m. on September 26th at Timber Ridge. Click on the image above to view the flyer in more detail. Call or email Coach Gray at his contact points listed in the flyer to register.

Heaven of Delight

Isn't that green, mosaic ceiling pretty?  You'd hardly know, looking at it, that it's made of one and a half million beetle wings.

The Ossian Rampage

Although the opening paragraph is confusing, I believe what this article from the Berne Weekly News is saying is that Toby Schwartz, the guy who went on a drug-crazed rampage through Ossian back around August 20th, was cooking Meth out of his garage with the intent to sell. His home in Berne is within penalty range of the elementary school, and his girlfriend, Aaron Crew (wouldn't that be "Erin?"), has been arrested now as well. But the biggie here is that this guy was arrested for making Meth near a school on August 11 and was given home detention.

Home detention for making and dealing Methamphetamine near a grade school? Home detention for a Meth-head? And during the home detention the guy goes nuts and attacks people, steals their cars, robs people and stores, crashes into police cars? Am I reading this correctly Adams County?

A Broom In Alabama Standing On Its Own!

OK... we have a broom like this so I tried it with my own broom and it stood on it's own almost every time I tried. Katie's in fifth grade this year and she got the broom to stand on it's own as well..... what's the big deal? Below are a couple of pictures of my own free standing broom among the grape jelly we canned today.

Norwell 17, Heritage 0

The Knights defeated Heritage 17-0 on a wet field Friday night to move to 2-0 on the season.

Junior quarterback Noah Patten hit fellow junior tight end Jeff Shatto for a 12-yard score at the 8:45 mark, putting the Knights up 10-0. Patten's touchdown was set up by a fantastic 61-yard run down the right sideline by Fiechter on a third-and-23 play.  Fiechter, who finished with 154 yards rushing on 26 carries, scampered 68 yards for an exclamation point touchdown with 1:05 to play in the fourth quarter for the final score.

Way to go, guys!

The Star Wars Cast

I don't believe I've ever seen this picture before.

August Rush

OMG. I caught August Rush on HBO and if you like music and haven't seen it.... well... find a way to see it. The scene above, in the movie, is the first time this kid (a music prodigy in the movie) ever plays a guitar. There are several scenes like this in the movie.... very, very enjoyable.

And yes, that's Robin Williams, who plays a musical Fagin to Freddie Highmore's Oliver Twist.

A New Era of Celebrity

An interesting thought:  you all remember Andy Warhol's 1968 comment that "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."  Well, here we are 40 years later and darned if somebody famous isn't dying every fifteen minutes -- so Warhol's statement must have come true.  Michael Jackson, Les Paul, John Hughes, Farrah Fawcett, Eunice Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Robert Novak, Dominick Dunne...

The ascent of the microcelebrities, the 24 hour news cycle, citizen journalism, and our darkest fantasies all collide on Twitter now. The website's question "What are you doing?" sometimes feels more like "Who died today?"

Knights fall to Huntington North

The Knights Volleyball Team slipped to 3-3 on the season despite 15 kills and 23 diggs by Amanda McAfee (above), falling 1-3 to Huntington North on Wednesday.  In addition to Amanda's stats,

Norwell setter Mallory Bushee had 23 assists. Lauren Klansek had three blocks. Breanna Wilson had 32 digs and Liz Ault added 22 digs.

 

Should a thirteen-year-old sail around the world alone?

There's an old saying that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.  The parents of a thirteen-year-old girl in the Netherlands are seeking permission to let their daughter take off two years of school to sail around the world by herself.  The government, of course,

... want Laura Dekker to be made a ward of court, so that her parents, who support her plans, temporarily lose the right to make decisions about her.

Laura's father, Dick Dekker, has had a request for her to miss two years of school turned down.

Laura had a yacht by the age of six and began sailing solo when she was 10.

"Since I was 10 years old, I've known that I would like to sail around the world," she told Dutch television.

"I want simply to learn about the world and to live freely."

 

Her fierce desire to live freely went in the opposite direction the moment she asked for permission... and now she finds herself on the verge of state imprisonment.  There was a time, when the world was less civilized, when teenagers had much expected of them.  Today?  Today not so much. Today you're a child until you're in your 20's.  A thirteen-year-old girl sailing alone around the world is a scary, scary thing.  What would any of us do if our own children asked for this? 

Eric Pulfer, Airman 1st Class

Eric Pulfer (Norwell 2007 and son of Sevens member Larry) has graduated basic training for the Air National Guard at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX

Thanks for your service!

A way to thank our servicemen and women

Hand out free coffee cards to our men and women when you travel

Hugh Hewitt's Practical Idea to Defeat Health Care

Hugh Hewitt's idea to defeat the health care bill? Donate $10 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's opponent and let Reid know why. Click the link for more details.

Wireless Speakers

I picked up these Audio Unlimited Wireless Speakers on Amazon since I couldn't find any at Walmart or the mall or Best Buy.  They used to be around $170 but I got them for the current price listed, $99.99.  I must say, I hooked them up this evening with ease and the sound is perfect, just what I was hoping for.

Why do I need remote wireless speakers? It's not that my hearing is in any way impaired by my age... don't be silly.  No, our LCD TV is placed in such a location that the sound bleeds out the back and into other rooms just as easily as it comes into the room where the TV resides.  So when the TV is loud enough in one room, it's too loud in the other.  With the 900 MHz wireless speakers, I can put a speaker right where it's most needed (next to my chair and in the back of the room).  I can control the sound on the remote speakers with a little remote and keep the sound on the TV down as low as I want.  I can even mute the TV and still get sound through the remote speakers since my TV has audio out.  Excellent!

Additional features include being able to hook up your iPod to the wireless speakers and being able to use the speakers on battery power if desired -- so you can put speakers outside, if you want, anywhere within a few hundred feet.  I don't have any old 900MHz phones, so I have no problem with any interference.

Who's minding the store?

The Ossian Hardware was robbed on Monday 8/24 at 9:10 am Check out the link for the video.

Hat tip, Jerry Battiste at the Bluffton News-Banner.

A trip through Decatur and Markle

I ran across a nice description of a woman out of New York who is driving across country.  She stopped in at Decatur and then Markle.  Her descriptions of people and places is good reading, despite her obvious displeasure at seeing a sign for the Dan Quayle museum.

H1N1

So Norwell has a couple of diagnosed cases of H1N1, a student and a teacher.  The White House (in the middle of a health care debate) makes a prediction that the nation's hospitals will be filled to the brim with flu cases this flu season:

According to what the advisory report describes as a "plausible scenario," 30 percent to 50 percent of the country's population will be infected in the fall and winter. As many as 300,000 patients may be treated in hospital intensive care units, filling 50 percent to 100 percent of the available beds, and 30,000 to 90,000 people may die, the report said.

As the article says, predicting the flu season is even harder than predicting the weather, so perhaps we should take the White House prediction with a grain of salt.  This is the same White House, after all, that doesn't want to let a serious crisis go to waste.  The climate is in crisis, the auto industry is in crisis, the economy is in crisis, the health care industry is in crisis... the nations hospitals will be overflowing, more than 100% full this year... yeah yeah... cry wolf and all that.

Sad News from Purdue

Landon Siela, son of our Sevens classmate Ron Siela, was fatally shot by friends while visiting the West Lafayette campus. Siela's two friends thought it funny to point their pistols at their friend and pull the trigger, not realizing one of the guns was loaded.

Our prayers are with Ron and his family on this sad weekend.

Update: Homestead Grad Killed

Update: Ron Siela knows they didn't mean to kill his son

Artificial Life

Dr Craig Venter research team has overcome one of the last big hurdles to making a synthetic organism

Researchers successfully transferred the DNA of one type of bacteria into a yeast cell, modified it and then transferred it into another bacterial cell.

Since that worked, they feel they can do more advanced experimentation, including...

The first artificial life form is likely to be a simple man-made bacterium that proves that the technology can work. But it will be followed by more complex bacteria that turn coal into cleaner natural gas, or algae that can soak up carbon dioxide and convert it into fuels. They could also be used to create new vaccines and antibiotics

I don't know, though... reading the article it seems like so much cut and paste, to me... I don't see where the man-made part comes in. And much of this, of course, is how so many science fiction disaster novels start out... take a worthy goal of converting coal into natural gas, let it loose in the environment, and suddenly all the oil on the planet seeps into the atmosphere, or all the plastic in the world turns into gas... Scary, worthy stuff. As long as it isn't Ice-Nine.

Norwell Volleyball defeats Heritage

The Norwell girls are 2-0 on the season and looking good

Kelsey Kline and Amanda McAfee each had eight kills and McAfee had four blocks. Mallory Bushee had 21 assists and served up four ace serves. Lauren Klansek added two aces. Breanna Wilson had 28 digs.

Way to go, girls!

Norwell defeats Leo

The Norwell football team started off the season right, defeating Leo 28-19.

one big boost for the Knights was senior tailback and defensive safety Klay Fiechter, who had a whale of a game. He carried 35 times for 246 yards and three touchdowns and also had two fumble recoveries that hurt the Lions.

Nice!

Ossian Excitement

Drug spree leaves trail of thefts, wherein a Berne man stole cars, tried in invade homes, ran a police car into someone's front yard, robbed the Ossian Market, tried and failed to steal a Senior Citizen's purse, and finally fled into a cornfield only to have a seizure before being captured.

update: The Bluffton News-Banner has much, much more

• 7:29 p.m. 911 called about a man assaulting a woman on Branstrator Rd.
• 7:33 p.m. 911 called about a man trying to break in to home on County Line Rd.
• 7:42 p.m. 911 called by Autie Lewis on 1100N, car speeding onto his property
• 7:44 p.m. 911 called by Lisa Gresley (wife of Sevens member Jeff) about man inside her house, stole her minivan
• 7:49 p.m. 911 called about a man robbing the Ossian Market on Metts street
• 8:21 p.m. after a police car chase and a foot search, a lock down of road 1 and the Norfolk Southern Railroad, Schwartz was captured around 850N and 800N

Prayers for all who are affected by this guy and thanks for the hard working police.

Top 15 Films of the New Millennium

A nice collection of recent films as ranked by John Nolte.  Although I'm a fan of Westerns, I don't recall Nolte's number 1 pick "The Assassination of Jesse James" being in the theater...I'll have to look for it.

Farm Bureau Chat Held at Baker's Farm

A very interesting article about the recent Farm Bureau Chat with public officials held in Sevens member Tim Baker's big barn on Monday night.  As with most of the country, tax revenues are down because people are not only out of work, but spending less.  In particular, I found the discussion about the County Wheel Tax interesting:

Less money at the state level means less at the county level—and fewer services locally, as well.

One of those services, Woodward pointed out, was the county road paving program, which has come to a dead stop. When Baker asked Woodward why the county wheel tax was not being used for the road paving program — which Baker said it was his understanding that's why it was adopted — Woodward responded that the county never earmarked the wheel tax for anything specific. And, he added, revenue at the county level has also been declining and it's taken the wheel tax — and even CEDIT funds — to just keep the county roads maintained.

So the problems we have nationally, that all money given to the government is thrown into one big pot and spent without regard to the purpose for which it was collected, it true locally, as well.  Why is that?  Why is it that even at the lowest levels of government no way exists to tag tax money to specific efforts?  So all the Wheel Tax money has been spent on other services than paving just as all our Social Security taxes have been spent on whatever bright bauble has caught the eye of Congress this week.

Taxing your existence

Never before has the United States Government taxed its citizens just for existing.  Both the proposed House and the proposed Senate health care reform bills plan to tax you if you fail to participate.

Does the American public truly understand the impact of allowing the federal government to tax individuals based on what such individuals do not do, the equivalent of a tax on one's mere existence?

Taxing inaction destroys our right to be left alone, which is one of the foundations of liberty in this country. The implications of such a tax as a tool of political coercion truly are revolutionary.

The Mars Hoax Returns

Every August since 2003, the emails start coming... Mars is going to look at big as the moon!

What's going on is this. Back in 2003 (that's 2003 with a 3, folks), Mars had an especially favorable opposition, coming close enough to Earth to appear 25 arcseconds wide. That's still pretty tiny even in a telescope — smaller, for instance, than Jupiter always appears.

Back then, someone somewhere pointed out that at a magnification of 75× in a telescope, Mars would appear as big in the eyepiece (½° wide) as the Moon does unmagnified. True enough. But two things happened, as often do with chain letters. First, it got rewritten bit by bit to improve the story as people passed it around, so that the "75×" was downplayed or, in some versions, left out. Second, the chain letter kept going and going long after August 2003 receded into the mists of history.

Don't forward that mail!

BELLAGAIA 5min sample

Bella GAIA is a 45 minute movie meant to give an appreciation of the capability of satellite data... this is just a five minute clip from the movie.

American Seniors Association

Are you leaving AARP because of they seem to care more about Democrats then Seniors?  Consider the ASA, the American Seniors Association.

The American Seniors Association is flat-out against President Obama's plan, which calls for $313 billion dollars in Medicare cuts over ten years. The AARP is widely viewed as supporting the President.

Last week, Obama told a town meeting in Portsmouth, NH, "We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors."

AARP also split its purpose back in April when it decided to become an HMO.  Perhaps Seniors are wondering just how an HMO can also lobby for Senior Care in the current environment... just whose side is AARP taking behind closed doors during this health care debate, is AARP in bed with those who want to cut health care costs out of Medicare, or those who want to increased and better care for Seniors?

Cash for Clunkers

Comedian Drew Hastings:  Cash for Clunkers:  a Death Panel for cars. 

WOW! Bolt goes 9.58, taking .11 off his own world record...

(Bob Beamon, fyi, raised the long jump record by over 6.6 percent by in 1968... so "Beamonesque" might be a little big of an exaggeration... but still... this is a huge jump in the 100 meter record.)

Where is the Honesty Czar?

I hear all over the place that the President is willing to drop the public funding of health care in order to get more Republicans on board... the thing is, everything the President says is words, he has nothing on paper beyond the House bill everyone talks about and some ongoing discussions in the Senate. So when the media talks about giving up the public funding, the government run, option.. it's not like anyone is taking out a Bi on paper and striking out any words... this is what's so strange about all these town halls and all the presidential speeches: He seems to be making it up as he goes along... does he have a czar somewhere off in the wings keeping track of his promises? An honesty czar?

If the bill everyone was discussing was small and easily read, we wouldn't have to worry that despite public discussion, the end result will be totally different.

Ft. Wayne Health Care Town Hall

Rep. Mark Souder will be holding a Health Care Town Hall meeting at IPFW's Auer Performance Hall on August 28 at 7pm.

Leah From Manchester on Health Care - Part 1

What a great speaker on Health Care Issues

How minimum wage increases really work

What really happens to low-income people when the minimum wage is increased? Well, my son has worked at Starbucks for more than four years. When he started out, the minimum wage was $5.15. A price that was set in 1997. He's a good worker so he managed over time to get a raise and was making $6.25 an hour in 2007 when the minimum wage was increased to $5.85. Starbucks couldn't afford the increase, so everyone making over $5.85 received a decrease back to the current minimum wage. So my son lost $0.40 an hour in 2007.

But, as I said, he is a fine barista and he eventually climbed back up and was making $7.00 an hour in 2008 when the minimum wage was moved again, up to $6.55 an hour. Of course, you guessed it, Starbucks had to reduce the higher wages to fund the minimum wage increase again... so once again my son lost $0.45 an hour in 2008.

Does the story end, no... it repeats... just this July our wonderful, caring representatives in Congress increased the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour which caused my son to lose another $0.30 an hour as he was once again reduced to minimum wage. Add to this continual disincentive the fact that Starbucks 1) reduces its workforce more and more due to the higher cost of labor (making those who remain work all the harder for their reduced wages) and 2) increases the cost of their drinks to fund the labor increases but lose customers which results in fewer workers -- you can see that not all low wage workers look forward to minimum wage increases.

On the Post Office Analogy

The President compared the public health care option vs private insurance companies to the United States Post Office vs. FedEx and UPS (making the case that there are room for both to succeed, I assume, and not the case that future health care workers would end up 'going postal')... here are some interesting comments on the President's analogy.

Air Congress

So what if Congress canceled their half a billion dollars worth of Gulf Steams...

Frequent flying by Congress is a growth industry. As the Journal's Brody Mullins reported this month, House members last year spent some 3,000 days overseas on taxpayer-funded trips, up from about 550 in 1995. This month, 11 separate congressional delegations will visit Germany.

No one begrudges members visiting U.S. troops or conferring with key leaders in other countries. But with so many trips, boondoggles are inevitable.

The total cost for congressional overseas travel is never made public because the price tag for State Department advance teams and military planes used by lawmakers are folded into much larger budgets. Members of Congress must only report the total per diem reimbursements they receive in cash for hotels, meals and local transport.

They don't have to itemize expenses—a convenient arrangement since most costs are covered by the government or local hosts. Some trips subtract some hotel and meal costs from the per diems, others do not. "The policy is completely inconsistent," one House member told me. Total per diem allowances (per person, including staff) can top $3,000 for a single trip. Unused funds are supposed to be given back to the government, but congressional records show that rarely happens.

Whether they control their own planes or not, "Air Congress" is living a jet set lifestyle on our dime.

H.R. 3200: The Health Care Bill

H.R. 3200 ... read it yourself.  This is the House Bill, nothing else is written or available.  Chuck Norris doesn't like page 838, which is about the government providing home visitations to help parents with their children... but like a lot of the bill, it's just a suggestion, just a voluntary program, just a starting point.  America doesn't lack for people pointing out that the government run public education system is failing... what makes anyone think inviting the government into your home to train you to raise your children would be a success?

Honey bees not in crisis

Science Daily reports that there is no global collapse in the population of honey bees... when will the articles retracting global warming begin?

By analyzing data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for temporal trends in the number of commercial bee hives, they found that the global stock of domesticated honey bees has increased by about 45 percent over the last five decades.

Got that?  Honey bees have increased by 45% in the last 50 years, but last year Time Magazine's review of "Fruitless Fall" a book about the world's honey bees dying off:

By exploring the mysterious phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that is wiping out honey bees worldwide, Jacobsen lays out a case for why we need to care — and it has very little to do with honey. A spiritual successor to Rachel Carson's seminal eco-polemic Silent Spring, Fruitless Fall walks us through the various theories put forth as causes of CCD —genetically-modified crops, global warming, God's wrath, cellular phones, loss of habitat and a nicotine-like pesticide to name a few. Jacobsen concludes that a return to simpler times — for example, before honey bees were pumped full corn syrup and bred to pollinate monocrops from California to Florida — may be the only answer to the decimation of these vital insects, upon which our food supply depends.

So in 2008, Time Magazine throws skepticism out the window and seems to promote Rowan Jacobsen's idea that we, as a nation, need to return to our rural days to save the bees... when in reality the world has a vastly increased bee population.  Something to consider whenever you read Time Magazine.

Norwell's Parker Brothers

The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel had a little blurb on how the Parker Brothers are doing in their professional baseball careers.

Film Location in Indiana

Film Indiana and Hickory Pictures are looking for a frontier-like piece of land in Indiana for a movie location.

Hickory Pictures is particularly interested in properties with some of the following features: vast and heavily timbered old growth forests, spacious meadows with tall grass, an area with a deep ravine, hollows and caves and lands with a small creek.

Well, I guess that about rules out Northern Indiana...

Fishy

A wonderful article about current America by Victoria Jackson (of past Saturday Night Fame)

Onstage, I try out a new song, "White Men," dedicated to Sonja Sotomayer.  One audience loves it.  One is completely silent.  I decide to skip the song for the rest of the shows.  After the show, one lady comes up to me and grasps my hand in both of hers.  She whispers, "Thank you so much for speaking up, about our country."  Her eyes look deep into mine. I feel like we have both scratched the fish symbol into the sand, during the Roman Empire times. The fall of the Roman Empire.

Read the whole thing, but I really liked that last little bit above...

The things that come into my email folder...

xxxxxxx -- Thanks for answering the President's call to support health insurance reform. All throughout August, our members of Congress are back in town. Insurance companies and partisan attack groups are stirring up fear with false rumors about the President's plan, and it's extremely important that folks like you speak up now. So we've cooked up an easy, powerful way for you to make a big impression: Office Visits for Health Reform. All this week, OFA members like you will be stopping by local congressional offices to show our support for insurance reform. You can have a quick conversation with the local staff, tell your personal story, or even just drop off a customized flyer and say that reform matters to you. We'll provide everything you need: the address, phone number, and open hours for the office, information about how the health care crisis affects your state for you to drop off (with the option of adding your personal story), and a step-by-step guide for your visit. According to our records, you live near Sen. Evan Bayh's office in Fort Wayne, IN. Sign up now to visit Sen. Evan Bayh's office in Fort Wayne this week. (Not your representative, or think there might be another office that's easier for you to get to? Click here to find a different office.) As you've probably seen in the news, special interest attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about health reform, and it's getting ugly. Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats. We can't let extremists hijack this debate, or confuse Congress about where the people stand. Office Visits for Health Reform are our chance to show that the vast majority of American voters know that the cost of inaction is too high to bear, and strongly support passing health reform in 2009. Don't worry if you've never done anything like this before. The congressional staff is there to listen, and your opinion as a constituent matters a lot. And if you bring a friend, you'll have more fun and make an even greater impact. Click below to sign up for an Office Visit for Health Reform: http://my.barackobama.com/OfficeVisit Wherever you live, these visits matter: Many representatives are pushing hard toward reform, and they are taking a lot of heat from special interests. They deserve our thanks and need our support to continue the fight. But those who are still putting insurance companies and partisan point-scoring ahead of their constituents must know that voters are watching -- and that we expect better. Earlier this week, the President wrote that "this is the moment our movement was built for" and asked us all to commit to join at least one event this month. This is the way to answer that call, and rise to the challenge of this moment together. Thank you for going the extra mile when it matters the most, Mitch Mitch Stewart Director Organizing for America

Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee -- 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to: xxxxxxxx@xxxxx.com To unsubscribe, go to: xxxxxxx

John Stossel on Health Care

Impossible Health Care Promises, by John Stossel

When retirees begin to feel the effects, AARP will scream bloody murder. The elderly vote in large numbers, and their powerful lobbyists will be listened to.

The government will then give up that strategy and turn to what the Reagan administration called "revenue enhancement": higher taxes on the "rich." When that fails, because there aren't enough rich to soak, the politicians will soak the middle class. When that fails, they will turn to more borrowing. The Fed will print more money...

But AARP, perhaps, will not have so many members by then, and they won't, perhaps, be as powerful as they are now.

Someone Once Told Me...

An interesting project where people hold up a sign that contains something someone once told them... click on "Previous" to start backing through the project.

The Literature Map

I've seen a visual thesaurus which wonderful, but just way too costly, but this literature map, using the same technology, appears to be free.  You can use it to find authors similar to those you like to read.  Very cool!

Top 5 John Hughes Scenes

RIP John Hughes... your movies are among those I can watch again and again, year-in and year-out, and they never get old.

Hawaiian Health Care

On the island of Maui, there is only one acute-care hospital, the state-run Maui Memorial Medical Center...

For years, residents of Maui have complained that the hospital does not meet their needs — too few beds, not enough specialists, and long waits in the emergency room. State bureaucrats finally cleared the way earlier this year for a small private hospital to be built, but only after scuttling plans to build a larger, more accommodating private hospital. A larger hospital, they said, would have an adverse impact on "the existing health-care system." In other words, it would compete too effectively with what is now a state-run monopoly.

In addition to Maui Memorial administrators and employees, a consortium of interests on the neighboring island of Oahu, the seat of state government, got in on the act. Jan Shields, a nurse who worked at Maui Memorial and later became an advocate for Malulani, explains why: "Maui is the money island," she says. "The rich get care, because they hop on a plane and fly over to Oahu and go to one of the private hospitals. But the middle class who can't afford to fly over, and certainly the poor, are stuck with the government hospital."

That's the gist of it, isn't it.  Once the State controls health care, they effectively maintain their monopoly except for the rich, who go where ever they want.  Read the whole article to see how the Hawaiian government has blocked private health care on Maui for years and are only now, during the great budget crunch of 2009, allowing a small private hospital alternative.

Is Big Labor the British in this Tea Party?

Peggy Noonan writes about the powers in Washington trying to shut down the voice of the people:

But every day the meetings seem just a little angrier, and people who are afraid—who have been made afraid, and left to be afraid—can get swept up. As this column is written, there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced he'll be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health care's critics.

Somehow that doesn't sound like a peace initiative.

Read the whole article... she talks about how both Congress and the President would benefit in the polls of the public eye if they would just drop health care... but they won't... they don't ever back down.

Banning Children's Books

Did you know that last year it became illegal to sell and purchase children's books published prior to 1985?

Just one more unintended consequence of your Congress in action.

Presidential Narcs

President Obama asks that anyone disagreeing with the Universal Health Care Bill be reported to the government -- from the White House:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Number one, the stupid bill isn't even written in any final form, so how can anything anyone says about it be "disinformation?" And number two (fittingly) who the Hell does he think he is, asking Americans to snitch on other Americans for exercising their God given right to free speech!?

The Gary Busey's, a family portrait

Now that just ain't right.

Sea Lion Reflections, Fort Wayne Children's Zoo

Blown Glass, Indianapolis Children's Museum

Ronald Reagan Rose

Tough Guys

Who, today, can match Lee Marvin or Ernest Borgnine?  Many stars from the past served in the military, stars like Charles Bronson, who was a tail gunner on B-29's over Japan, Charles Durning who earned a Silver Star in the Army Rangers at Normandy, James Arness (first out of the boat onto Anzio Beach during the invasion of Italy), and Jimmy Stewart as a bomber pilot over Germany.  But, of course, many tough guys didn't serve (John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, etc.).  For some reason, though, some of the current tough guys just don't seem believable... Christian Bale?  Viggo Mortensen?  No..... I'd rather see Chuck Norris and Scott Glenn tear up the screen any day.