Saturday, March 19, 2011

US Cost of Living Hits Record, Passing Pre-Crisis High - CNBC

One would think that after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Americans could at least catch a break for a while with deflationary forces keeping the cost of living relatively low. That’s not the case.

A special index created by the Labor Department to measure the actual cost of living for Americans hit a record high in February, according to data released Thursday, surpassing the old high in July 2008. The Chained Consumer Price Index, released along with the more widely-watched CPI, increased 0.5 percent to 127.4, from 126.8 in January. In July 2008, just as the housing crisis was tightening its grip, the Chained Consumer Price Index hit its previous record of 126.9.

“The Federal Reserve continues to focus on the rate of change in inflation,” said Peter Bookvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak. “Sure, it’s moving at a slower pace, but the absolute cost of living is now back at a record high in a country that has seven million less jobs.”



CNBC's Fast Money: US Cost of Living Hits Record, Passing Pre-Crisis High - CNBC

Monsanto Sues Midwest Farmers for Saving Soybean Seeds

This just doesn't seem right to me... it doesn't

Copyright 2000 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News


When the bean police came for the Mayfield brothers, they went looking for help and found attorney Dale Reesman.

Reesman is a lawyer in Boonville, where he's practiced law since 1959 in an inconspicuous office by the riverfront. For the past 10 years, Reesman has been taking in a rather strange bunch of clients: family farmers.

"There's not a whole heck of a lot of money in it," Reesman said. "But it's great fun. If you can save one farm, that's a good thing." If he hasn't earned a lot of money, he has earned a reputation for beating the odds, even winning a case against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About two-thirds of his clients are farmers.

John and Paul Mayfield, who farm in Arkansas, came to Reesman with a case unlike any he had ever seen. The brothers are being sued by Monsanto, the multinational corporation that's a pioneer of genetic engineering.

Five years ago, the brothers bought their first crop of the company's genetically engineered Roundup Ready soybeans. When they did that, they entered into a whole new set of rules for growing crops, rules that eventually landed them in a lawsuit.

Read the whole thing
This caused me to go and get my guns and head to the range. When I was satisfied that I could end the lives of quite a few folks with accurate shooting I cleaned my guns knowing that no man would treat my kin in this manner while I still drew breath. Be warned muslims your day is coming!
A 14 year old Bangladesh girl named Hena Bugum was forcibly raped, kicking and s...creaming, by a 40 year old man on Sunday Jan 30, 2011. The Shariah court the next day sentenced her..”the rape victim” to receive 100 lashes for having engaged in an illicit “affair”. Hena was given no chance for appeal and her sentence was carried out immediately. Between 70 and 80 lashes she collapsed into unconsciousness and was taken to the hospital…where she bled to death.
These barbarians are hell-bent on bringing Shariah to our shores….in fact it has already started.
See More

Friday, March 18, 2011

Chrystal Cathedral requires worship leaders (including Choir) to agree to a covenant on Sexuality. No Homosexual lovers, No Fornicators, only sex between a married man and woman only (to each other). THE HOWLS are Loud. Gosh, what would happen if this was enforced in Chicagoland? Worship to CD?
California megachurch Crystal Cathedral Ministries is in hot water again—this time for requiring choir members to sign a "sex covenant." It seems that "God intends" sex to occur... US News Summaries. | Newser
I agree with black. It lines up with what was written yesterday on Prophet Gene. More of a secular view. BUT haven't we been weighed and shown to be lacking?
Conrad Black writes on NRO: As the world watches in sadness and admiration the tragedy of natural disaster in Japan and the courageous and civilized response of the Japanese, and beholds also the demeaning spectacle of utter pusillanimity that has been generated by events in Libya, my thoughts retur
Your guns will be gone if this happens
IF THIS PASSES, THERE WILL BE WAR Just got this...pass it far & wide. On Wednesday Obama Took the First Major Step in a Plan to Ban All Firearms in the United States On Wednesday the Obama administration took its first major step in a plan to ban all firearms in the United States.
Pretty Good Eschatology, The Japan Earthquake means that Earthquakes happen, did happen,will happen.
When the last decade ended on January 1, 2010 many were happy to see the “decade from hell” go and had hopes this new decade would be much better.
"Wisconsin Senate Republican Dan Kapanke has called off public meetings in his La Crosse area district, after his property was vandalized and had death threats.”

If it were me, I’d respond by introducing a bill abolishing public education entirely and replacing it with vouchers. Why fund a violent, entitled class at taxpayers’ expense...?
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13.....

The wife of one worker said her husband continued to work round the
clock while fully aware he was being bombarded with radiation.

...He sent her an email saying: "Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while."

Another email said: "My father is still working at the plant... they are
running out of foo
See
THE families of heroic workers battling to save Japan from a nuclear catastrophe have told of their terror.

Hillary Clinton wants OUT of this mess Obama has Made

Fed up with a president “who can’t make his mind up” as Libyan rebels are on the brink of defeat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is looking to the exits.At the tail end of her mission to bolster the Libyan opposition, which has suffered days of losses to Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, Clinton
I'm proud to a union man
I make those meetings when I can, yeah
I pay my dues ahead of time
When the benefits come I'm last in line, yeah
I'm proud to be a union man (Neil Young)
Below, you’ll find a compilation of 20 days worth of the death threats, vandalism, and intimidation practiced by pro-union thugs opposed to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill. Wisconsin is my home state. I lived there until I was 27 years-old in 1993 and most of my family,

Thursday, March 17, 2011

A Democrat Representitive gets his Rear Handed to Him - a beautiful thing

While Discussing how safe nuclear reactors in the United States are on the heels of the nuclear crisis in Japan, with Rep. Jay Inslee, (D-WA), the whole discussion drifts into global warming and the Democrat from Washington gets his rear end handed to him. It was a joy to watch in real time and is better the second time around. People that believe anything are easy marks for all kinds of deception. This guy should NOT be in the House of Representatives.












I should be dead

I should be dead, or have all kinds of problems. I don't. I just had a birthday. I'm in pretty good shape (Round IS a shape). When I was a kid we used to coat pennies with liquid mercury. It was fun. We played with it. It rolled around. I'm sure there is still some on the floor of the room we play with this in.

When holidays took place we went to my Grandma Lee's house. Huge meal. Then the coffee would be made. The house would be strong with food smells, coffee and SMOKE. All my uncles would smoke cigarette after cigarette. I know I must have inhaled pounds of second hand smoke. Yet...I'm alive. I'm not FOR smoking, I just think this second hand smoke things is way overblown.

We took a bath and washed our hands occasionally. Even when we played outside. In the mud. In the cow-pies. Yet....I'm alive. In our pastures were dead animals. The big problem we all knew about was Anthrax. Yet....

My dad had a company called Star Uranium. We had lots and lots of high potency uranium samples. Had a couple of Geiger Counters. It was fun to watch them go right off the charts. I played with raw uranium and frankly some refined uranium. I glow a bit at night, but here I am.

We all had guns. A lot of guns. We shot them all the time. AND yet no one died. We knew that if you point a gun at anything it means you intend to kill it.

When I hear all the scare tactics about second hand smoke, germs, mercury poisoning and a hundred other toxins that should kill us at once. It doesn't. It won't.

I wish people would get a grip on the fear that is everywhere.

Please

The New York Times tries to SPIKE bestselling conservative books

IF you go looking for bestselling conservative books in your local bookstore, if they follow the lead of the New York Times they will relegate them to the cook book and weight loss sections. I guess the liberals hate the competition. So they came up with this snaky way to get around it all.

This week three conservative books broke into the New York Times' bestseller list: Mike Huckabee's "A simple government: Twelve Things We Really Need From Government," Dick Morris' "Revolt!: How to Defeat Obama and His Socialist Programs" and Frank Luntz's "Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary."

But one of those authors, Morris, is taking issue with how the New York Times credited his sales. Instead of listing these books with other non-fiction books -- a list they surely would have made -- the Times categorized them has "How-to" books.

"On Sunday -- for the first time since the New York Times Bestsellers List first appeared in 1942 -- best selling political books will not appear in the Hardcover Non-Fiction List. Instead, those books will be relegated to the A'dvice, How-To and Miscellaneous List,' along with 'The 4 Hour Body' and 'Weight Watchers New Cookbook,'" Morris wrote on his blog (poor punctuation improved by yours truly). "... Apparently, too many Fox News Contributors are crowding up the hardcover best seller list, so they’ve been thrown downstairs."



Dick Morris vs. The New York Times - baltimoresun.com

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

It's not like there is anything going on in the world or anything...I mean a guy's gotta get away..RIGHT?

Obama takes family on vacation to sun-drenched, bikini-clad Rio . . . as world burns

With Japan’s nuclear crisis teetering on the verge of catastrophe, with Libya and Bahrain in violent turmoil, and with financial markets crashing in response, President Barack Obama has been adamantly sticking to his own political and policy playbook.

That has meant muscling past the red-siren headlines to hammer away at the jobs-and-education message that will be the centerpiece of his 2012 campaign, the kind of discipline that is a hallmark of his new senior adviser, David Plouffe.

And it also meant refusing to scrap a five-day trip to Latin America on Friday that will take him to sun-dappled Rio de Janeiro, among other places, rather than staying home to focus on the increasingly disastrous international news confronting his crisis-weary White House.

I guess I missed Something

The Three Little Pigs story has been rewritten.

It's very silly, but sadly it's what is happening in America.

WOW

A REAL Fix for the Economy?

What is Wrong with this Picture?:

It is time for Congress to rein in spending and fix our nation’s budget crisis. The excesses from the recession drove spending up to $3.5 trillion last year—borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar spent. The public debt is closing in on 70 percent of the economy and within the decade will exceed the tipping point of 90 percent, resulting in significant harm to economic growth and prosperity.

This short-term problem will be followed by a tidal wave of entitlement-driven spending as baby boomers flood into Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Left unchecked, these programs will drive debt to nearly 200 percent of the economy. Unless Congress changes course on spending, every income tax rate will have to more than double, according to the Congressional Budget Office.[1] Every American, especially younger generations, would have a permanently lower standard of living.

The nation is drowning in a sea of red ink, and the voters have rightly said, “Enough.” We must tame federal spending and protect our children and grandchildren from crushing debt or taxes. The policies set forth below will achieve a stronger America, one where our families and businesses are much better off.

Establish Spending Targets

Set firm budget targets to light the path for returning to fiscal sanity by lowering spending and controlling the debt.

  • Specific cuts to discretionary spending, at least $170 billion in the next year.
  • Cut total spending to no more than 20 percent of the economy, moving quickly towards a balanced budget within a relevant budget window—without raising taxes.

Fix the Budget Process

The budget process allows entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the biggest parts of the budget—to grow with no limits or long-term constraints. Other parts of the budget are likewise unconstrained, so Congress should:

  • Place firm caps on total spending, with strong Gramm-Rudman-type enforcement mechanisms to lock in cuts.[2]
  • Increase transparency. Give the public the true picture of the nation’s finances by disclosing the unfunded obligations of Medicare and Social Security front and center in the annual congressional budget resolution. Require a clear roll-call vote to increase these obligations.
  • Score major policy proposals over both short-term and long-term time horizons.
  • Take entitlement programs off budgetary autopilot with a true, long-term budget. This could be done through specific caps within each program.

Provide for a Strong Defense

Fully fund defense needs so our troops can defend America and our interests abroad. Priority should be given to modernizing and developing next-generation equipment necessary to protect the nation and our interests from rapidly changing threats. Savings from military reforms, such as performance-based logistics, should be reinvested in the defense budget to help pay for these much needed improvements.

Specifically, the base Department of Defense budget should include $560 billion in funding for 2012 and an average of $720 billion over the next five years (to be adjusted for inflation). Funding for ongoing contingency operations should be in addition to this amount.

Implement Broad Spending Reforms, Including Entitlements

Beyond discretionary cuts, major programmatic changes are needed to bring federal spending under control.

Transformational changes are needed for the major entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

  • Increase the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare and the index for longevity.
  • Move entitlement programs toward a real insurance model—aimed at increasing financial security rather than simply providing a stream of benefits. Each program should have firm spending controls and a limited budget.
  • Gradually transform the Social Security benefit into a flat benefit that protects against poverty and is indexed to wages. Include an auto-enrollment savings system and voluntary personal accounts, which would be funded with eventual savings from reforms. Existing benefits should be indexed to the Chained Consumer Price Index.
  • Move Medicare to a premium support system with a fixed contribution and long-term budget controls, giving patients maximum freedom to make health care choices without subjecting doctors and patients to artificial price controls. Greater cost sharing should be added to the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program.
  • Move Medicaid’s healthy families into private health insurance. Then, convert the remaining program for the elderly and disabled into a capped allotment with greater flexibility to states to manage the program.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, or Obamacare, touted as a deficit reduction bill, is in reality a budget buster. It created new entitlements and will drive general health care costs up, not down.

  • Repeal Obamacare and take steps to defund and block implementation of this law until Congress completes its repeal.

Welfare spending is approaching $1 trillion annually, and the 70-plus welfare programs have encouraged a pattern of cyclical dependence among tens of millions of Americans.

  • Establish fiscal constraints for all federal welfare spending: After unemployment returns to normal levels, roll back funding for all programs to pre-recession levels. Then cap this spending at the rate of inflation.

The reach of the federal government is too vast. Asset sales can bring relief to the overstretched budget and bring economic benefits to society by putting resources in the hands of the more productive private sector.

  • Implement a plan to sell, over time, federal assets, such as land, mineral rights, and unused federal office buildings.

Keep Taxes Low

Tax hikes are the wrong answer to the budget crisis. To keep our economy strong and growing, taxes must be kept low and competitive with other nations, and policies that distort markets should be reformed.

  • Make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent, including eliminating the death tax and permanently fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax.
  • Reform corporate taxes and significantly reduce the rate.
  • Reform the health insurance tax exclusion by turning it into a tax credit to assist with the purchase of health insurance.

Alison Acosta Fraser is Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

On The Fruit of Religious Observance in the USA

Despite the assertive statements of celebrity atheists, national book tours denouncing God and the perennial docket of court cases challenging the presence of religion in the public square, most Americans believe in God and many regularly practice their faith. Heritage research on the newly launched FamilyFacts.org shows that 75 percent of American adults believe in God and another 11 percent in some higher power.

Many Americans take their faith a step further—almost 40 percent of all adults act on that belief by attending religious institutions at least once a week, and over half of adults surveyed say they pray at least daily. These religious beliefs and practices can have a profoundly positive impact on civil society and defend against much of the social breakdown threatening communities.

For instance, regular religious observance has been associated with helping to sustain intact families, raise healthy adolescents, and even maintain good health. Families who frequent religious institutions tend to have higher marital satisfaction and fidelity, fewer incidents of domestic violence, and greater conflict resolution. The religious practice of parents also seems to have a significant impact on how adolescents will view marriage, pre-marital sex, and cohabitation. Likewise, adolescents whose families regularly attend church services are less likely to be sexually active or experience teen pregnancy.


READ THE WHOLE THING

The only class struggle in WI is the one between those with class and those without it

Ann Althouse on the Wisconsin Protests
The protests have been on behalf of well-paid people with excellent jobs — better jobs than the average Wisconsinite's. And the protesters got massive extra doses of freedom to express themselves in the state capitol for over a month, without any threats of violence or even arrest for the crimes they committed in full view of the police. I mean, I know they have their complaints, but they are not even the bottom sector of the Wisconsin economy. If there were to be a class struggle here, they would be taken aback to find themselves in the role they actually have in this economy: the oppressors!

10 poorest cities in the United States



City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level
1. Detroit , MI
32.5%
2. Buffalo , NY
29.9%
3. Cincinnati , OH
27.8%
4. Cleveland , OH
27.0%
5. Miami , FL
26.9%
5. St. Louis , MO
26.8%
7. El Paso , TX
26.4%
8. Milwaukee , WI
26.2%
9. Philadelphia , PA
25.1%
10. Newark , NJ
24.2%


What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

  • Detroit, MI (1st on the list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961.
  • Buffalo , NY (2nd) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1954.
  • Cincinnati , OH (3rd) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1984.
  • Cleveland , OH (4th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1989.
  • Miami , FL (5th) has never had a Republican mayor.
  • St. Louis , MO (6th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1949.
  • El Paso , TX (7th) has never had a Republican mayor.
  • Milwaukee , WI (8th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1908.
  • Philadelphia , PA (9th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1952.
  • Newark , NJ (10th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1907.
IS THERE ANY CAUSE AND EFFECT OF THIS??

Einstein once said, 'The definition of insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'


It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats
yet they are still POOR!

"You cannot help the poor
by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak
by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity
by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up
by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man
by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage
by taking away people's initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently
by doing for them,
what they could and
should do for themselves."

Obama's First Two Years a Disaster for America

Recall the euphoria that surrounded Barack Obama during the 2008 election season and after he was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. Life was going to be blue skies and rainbows, or at least we were told, with hope and change on the way. The American people would be better off and so would our nation with Obama in control. After a little more than two years as the President, those blue skies have turned gray with not the slightest hint of a rainbow.

Some professed that with Barack Obama as President, the staples of life would become affordable if not altogether free. Surely you remember Peggy Joseph who said, at a Barack Obama campaign event in August 2008, that she would not have to worry about paying for her gas and mortgage. Consider what has happened to those staples of life during the Obama presidency.

Read the whole thing

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Itamar's Children

What all this shows is that Netanyahu was wasting his time calling on world leaders to condemn the murder of the Fogel family. What does a condemnation mean? France and Britain condemned the massacre, along with the US. Does that exculpate the French and British for their embrace of anti-Semitism? Does it make them friends of the Jewish state? And say a British playwright sees the YouTube censored photographs. No self-respecting British playwright will write a play called Three Jewish Children telling the story of how Palestinian parents do in fact teach their children to become mass murderers of Jews. And if a playwright were to write such a play, The Royal Court Theater wouldn’t produce it. The Guardian wouldn’t post it on its website. Liberal Jewish community centers in America wouldn’t show it, nor would university student organizations in Europe or America.

Itamar's Children

Why North Dakota Is Booming

And I had to leave 25 years ago...BUT I'm OK

Why North Dakota Is Booming

Obama driving me nuts

IF I could have a birthday wish it would be one. That BHO would resign, and Joe Biden would abdicate. Leaving the Speaker of the House. Not perfect but better.

I am very discouraged with Barack Obama. He is not only a poor president, he is becoming dangerous.

I don't want any martyrdom, none better assassinate him. That's how we got Johnson.

I just want him gone. 2012 won't be soon enough.

USA Inc is bankrupt

IF the USA was a company, would you lend it money?

Not if you read this....

If the United States were a company, what financial shape would it be in? And what would it make sense to do to put the company on a sounder footing? These are the intriguing questions that a group of investment analysts from Kleiner Perkins, headed by Mary Meeker, set out to answer. The resulting report, which includes 460 Power Point slides, is here. It is titled "USA Inc."

American Thinker: J Street: 'Maybe Israel really ain't a good idea'

Does anyone really think like this? YES. The idea is that if we just gave the Muslims Israel then they would be happy. Really? No hegemony? What a bunch of ..you know.

American Thinker: J Street: 'Maybe Israel really ain't a good idea'

Monday, March 14, 2011

On Libya and budget, President Obama votes 'present'

In the Illinois legislature state Sen. Barack Obama voted "present" 129 times. Today he seems to be voting present on two major issues, Libya and the budget. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told reporters Thursday that the United States and other nations have "taken a range of steps . . . to squeeze Gadhafi, isolate him, really turn him into a pariah."

But the steps the United States has taken may well have bolstered Gadhafi's determination to crush the rebellion against his regime.

On the one hand we supported the United Nations resolution giving the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to prosecute Gadhafi and his minions. That means we have blocked off any escape route to a safe retirement.

On the other hand we have interpreted the Security Council resolution ordering an arms embargo as applying to the Libyan rebels as well as the Gadhafi regime.

Or at least that's the interpretation of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. An anonymous White House source said maybe the resolution doesn't apply to the rebels.

The White House has said the United States will send aid to the rebels and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with their transitional council next week.

Aid, not arms; a meeting, but (unlike France and Portugal) no official recognition. The president seems to be voting "present" once again.

It is understandable perhaps that he has not c




Why Obama has no business being President of the United States: Reason #2,558

He is dangerous when he does things.... he is less dangerous when he doesn't do anything...WOW. What a conundrum.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

This is Stunning

This sat photo study before and after is amazing. The cursor will allow you to move across the devastation from the Earthquake.

Look at this. You won't be sorry.

Obama is way over his head. How did he even get elected?

A beleaguered President Obama has told aides it would be so much easier to be the president of China, The New York Times reports.

There are two ways to read the remark, which is attributed to anonymous aides. One is that Obama resents the burden of global leadership that comes with the American presidency. The other is that he longs for an authoritarian system, where he need tolerate no dissent.

Under either or both interpretations, his confession carries a dose of self-pity that means Obama has hit a wall.

Maobama
Maobama

He is in over his head, and he knows it.

Even before the horror in Japan, the president faced a litany of nightmares. From Libya to Iran to Afghanistan to gas prices, unemployment and rising debt, Obama is surrounded by serious trouble.

His responses range from halfhearted to wrongheaded. Nothing is working. Unhappy voters already repudiated his first two years and might fire him when they get the chance. It is a moment that brings home the truth of the sign on Harry Truman's desk: "The buck stops here."