But for Chief Justice Roberts’ illegitimate decision…

I’m becoming more and more convinced that ObamaCare will never go away. It just doesn’t matter how many people have to suffer – or even, God forbid – die. The “takers” in this country now out-number the “makers,” and most of them are simply greedy “sheep” who no longer care about (and thus don’t even deserve) freedom.
 
But I’m reserving most of my frustration and disgust for the one man who could have stopped this train-wreck last year…
 

Dear Chief Justice Roberts,
 
Washington D.C. is full of innumerable tyrants on whom to place the blame for the destruction of America – starting with the one sitting (when he’s not out living it up on the taxpayers’ dime) in the White House. But you sir, didn’t have to join them. You Justice Roberts, were in a position to stop the worst of the damage. You, the final guardian of our Constitution, could have upheld your solemn oath to be faithful to that document. You sir, could have done the right thing!
 
Instead, the vast majority of Americans are now effectively sentenced to perpetual serfdom, our very existence subject to the whims of an elite ruling class.
 
My husband and I are rapidly approaching retirement age, a time in our lives that we once looked forward to. We thought we’d earned a little rest; we’ve been helping pull the proverbial wagon for decades.
 
But now we’re filled with dread. How will we afford health insurance in the years ahead? (Our Blue Cross premium just doubled.) We’re both law-abiding, hard-working, responsible Americans who took care of our home, raised a family, planned ahead and set up IRAs. But between the horrible economy and the out-of-control cost of healthcare, our savings may not be nearly enough to see us through those “golden years.”
 
We are just two of millions across the country; shocked, confused and yes, angry.
 
Just as we’re nearing retirement, the government we’ve supported with our tax dollars for our entire working lives tells us they have other plans. Not only do we not get to un-hitch from the wagon – we’re suddenly forced to start pulling one that weighs twice as much.
 
With all due respect, you sir are one pathetic quisling.
 
Designs on the Truth

 
 
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
 
~ Samuel Adams ~

Posted in Fruits of Their Labors, Good vs.Evil, Pieces of My Mind | Leave a comment

Ex-KGB agent explains Statist strategy

Well comrades, this video explains a lot. Not sure there’s anything more we can do about it – other than bracing for impact – but it sure explains a lot ~
 

Whoever edited this made some interesting bumper choices ~ 😕

 
Fundamental Transformation:
 
1. Demoralization – this has actually been going on for decades
2. Destabilization – begun in earnest five years ago
3. Crisis – Buckle up
4. “Normalization” – our utopian future

 
 

Posted in Fruits of Their Labors, Good vs.Evil, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

Whatever things are lovely…

Sunday reflections ~

 
Time perhaps,
to step away from the crude, rude, noisy and crass in our daily lives
for a few quiet moments,
and ponder the Truth…
 

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things
are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report,
if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy –
meditate on these things.

 
~ Philippians 4:8 ~

 

 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘Kyrie’
From the Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina (1524 – 1591)

 
Photographs of three different churches/cathedrals/basilicas in France accompany the music:
1. L’èglise des Jacobins, Toulouse (where the remains of St Thomas Aquinas are kept)
2. Notre-Dame de la Garde, Marseille
3. Notre-Dame de Fourvrière, Lyons
 
Performed by: The Tallis Scholars
Directed by: Peter Phillips
1980 ~ Gimell Records

Posted in Comfort & Joy | Leave a comment

Saturday Shorts – 11-2-13

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 

Patti Davis (Ronald Reagan’s leftie daughter) deletes tweet asking Obama to explain why she lost her health insurance ~ Dissent is not permitted in the Brave New World of Progressive Land.
 
Here’s another useful idiot ~ Sean Penn: Tea Partiers Should Be Committed By Executive Order or Something ~ Not only does this genius know nothing about the nation’s history, he clearly never read Solzhenitsyn.
 
Government is Magic ~ Sultan Knish nails it. Despite all painful evidence to the contrary, this is what the progressives and their sheeple still believe ~

The United States government is the ultimate giant unworkable mess. It is a living cargo cult where everyone marches around following routines that are supposed to yield great prosperity, but never do. The processes themselves are broken and make no sense, but the cargo culturers of the government cannot and will not hear that. They know that the government will magically make everything work […]
 
Build a website and it will work. Pass a law and they will come. Get a degree and you’re competent.

 
Writer of “The Exorcist” Says Kathleen Sebelius’ Abortion Support is “Demonic” ~ 😈 You don’t have to convince me. William Peter Blatty is also calling for the removal of Georgetown’s (his alma mater) Catholic and Jesuit designations – unless they return to traditional tenets. A noble effort.

 
Obama’s AFA Oath Games ~ The End Run on Faith in the Military.
Why is no one standing up to this Stalinist regime?
We need more generals with the brass to speak out – like Hazelmary Bull! ~

An Older Christian Woman Puts Today’s Compromised Preachers to Shame ~ British bed & breakfast owner refuses to compromise her faith to comply with contemporary secularism. Awesome!

 
The Republican Embrace of the Welfare State -The establishment GOP has accepted progressivism’s central premise ~ It’s all about expediency, inconvenient principles be damned. Andrew McCarthy at National Review Online on the Vichy Republicanism of Charles Krauthammer and the destructive policies of the welfare state.
 
Adult Stem Cell Research Has Defeated Embryonic Stem Cells for Funding Priorities ~ Good news!

Money talks – and our new report shows a growing preference to fund ethical stem cell projects nationwide. This reflects the scientific community’s belief that the best hope for rapid medical advances lies with morally unproblematic alternatives.

 
As Freedom Destroys Itself ~ Posted several weeks ago, this is an EXCELLENT article by Sarah Palin in defense of the 2nd Amendment. But it’s primarily about America’s soul ~

Laws can’t protect a society that has lost its way […]
 
The question we should be asking is: “What can we do to nurture and support a people capable of living in freedom?”

 

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A bridge too far?

As long as marriage is being redefined by the progressives these days, is it any wonder that some women have decided large inanimate objects make perfectly suitable spouses? Last year we had Babalonyia Wedding a Warehouse in Seattle. This summer it was an Australian woman getting hitched to a French bridge; Rock-solid love: Australian woman marries a bridge in France.
  
The UK Daily Mail has the story ~

Jodi Rose married Le Pont du Diable Bridge in Céret, southern France after falling head over heels for the ‘sensual’ 14th century stone structure[…]
 
Although her new husband may struggle to express his feelings, newlywed Jodi said ‘his being is very present, and I feel at peace in his strong embrace’ […]
 
‘He makes me feel connected to the earth and draws me to rest from my endless nomadic wanderings. He is fixed, stable, rooted to the ground, while I am nomadic, transient, ever on the road.

 
The groom, being the strong and silent type, had little to say – much less any choice in the matter.
 
Gee, isn’t rejecting God’s transcendent truth and embracing moral relativity fun?
Actually, I find it quite depressing. In fact, in this case it seems particularly appropriate that Rose’s new “husband” is named The Devil’s Bridge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

Related:
The whole “marriage-equality,” “just-wanna-marry-the-one-I-love,” agit-prop was of course a devious ploy all along. The end goal was to make a sham out of matrimony itself; Gay Marriage Makes Just ANY Relationship OK ~

Ultimately, those that stood against gay “marriage” were 100% correct. Allowing gay marriage is just the first step in destroying the institution of marriage altogether, eliminating the family, opening the door to libertinism and license, and the complete destruction of responsibility and all this will certainly harm our children who will find a lack of stability in their lives as a result.
 
So, guys, do you want to “marry” four women? Gay marriage has given you hope. Do you want to marry your dog? Your couch? Get ready to walk to the altar. All you child porn-loving pervs out there, do you want to marry a kid? Thank the gays for taking you one step closer to realizing your sick dream.

Posted in Arrested Development, Cultural Erosion, Fantasyland | 1 Comment

Killing “FrankenCare”

 
Can “We the People” still stop this ObamaCare disaster?
Jay Clarke at the American Thinker thinks so. He suggests that we starve the beast ~

What if we all just… said… “NO!”?
 
What if millions upon millions of Americans refused to be a part of the ObamaCare national takeover and refused to purchase insurance through the exchanges?
 
What if tens or hundreds of thousands of young, healthy people refused to purchase health insurance at all?
Answer: ObamaCare would fall.

 
Clarke has some good advice. And, invoking MLK Jr., the Declaration’s signers and everyone who’s ever stood up to tyranny, he offers some inspiring words ~
 

Refuse to comply with immoral and illegal laws.
 
Refuse to participate in ObamaCare. Defy its mandates and penalties.
 
Refuse to accept ObamaCare’s subsidies and tax credits stolen from fellow Americans.
 
This is where this American generation must draw the line and where we must make our stand for freedom.

  

In the story of Frankenstein, the “monster” was really just a brutish uncontrollable drone; unintentionally scary. The real monster was Dr. Frankenstein. Presuming to play God, he arrogantly believed he could recreate life, and instead produced an obscenity; a grotesque parody of life.
 
What we have with ObamaCare is an an obscene behemoth, produced by an arrogant ruling class, ready to be unleashed on citizens who no longer consent.
 
The Affordable Care Act is a grotesque parody of affordable healthcare; intentionally scary. Let’s kill it!

Posted in Fruits of Their Labors, Good vs.Evil | Leave a comment

And now for some lighter Halloween fare

Vintage Disney ~ 1929

 

Inspired by ~ Danse Macabre (Dance Of Death) ~
 
In 14th century Europe, it’s estimated that 40 to 50 percent of the total population fell victim to the “Black Death” (bubonic plague) during just one four-year period. The poem, Danse Macabre, was inspired by a legend going back to those medieval times; a cultural acknowledgement of the fragility of life.

Come All Hallows Eve, Death calls the dead to rise from their graves. While he plays his fiddle, the awakened spirits dance until the rooster crows at dawn.
 

Source, along with an even earlier (1922) video featuring the original music by French composer, Camille Saint-Saens: GypsyScarlett’s Weblog

 

Here’s another unique version of the haunting Danse Macabre composition.

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Not frightened yet? “You will be…”

In case you’re not scared yet, here’s another spooky ObamaCare video ~
 

Video from Sen.Ted Cruz ~ #MakeDCListen

 
 

BWAHAHAHAHAA!

Posted in Fruits of Their Labors, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

“ScaryCare” – Just Opt Out

Just in time for Halloween, here’s a really scary video for the young and the healthy, albeit misguided (many of whom unwittingly voted for this hopeless change) ~
 

 

So if you’re relatively young and healthy,
click on the above graphic to learn about
Opting Out of ObamaCare.

Posted in Unvarnished | Leave a comment

Thou shall not covet…

Why? Because – in the extreme – it might lead to this: Jealous butcher ‘killed mom, 4 kids because they had too much.’
What a horrible tragedy!

An illegal Chinese immigrant, bitter over his failure to achieve the American dream, repaid his cousin’s kindness by butchering the man’s wife and four young children, cops said Sunday.
 
Mingdong Chen, 25, showed no remorse when he confessed to slaughtering the family that allowed him to live in their Brooklyn apartment and admitted that he committed the atrocity because he envied their way of life, a police source told The Post.

[Source: New York Post]

 

(Yes, I understand the guy was nuts. He would have to be. But I contend it was the envy, the coveting, the jealousy, that drove him to that point.)

 

Thou shall not covet is the last of God’s commandments – but certainly not the least. If Eve hadn’t been jealous of God’s omniscience she wouldn’t have been susceptible to Satan’s deceit… that apple wouldn’t have been so tempting… and everything might have been different…
 
Or not. Jealousy is such a ubiquitous human emotion, none of us is entirely immune to it.
 
And or course, these days it’s everywhere in our culture. Facebook thrives on it. Progressive politicians agitate for class envy.
Our local newspaper recently started a new feature called “Michigan House Envy.” Each week they profile a gorgeous home listed for sale somewhere in the state.
Now, I have to admit this is maybe the only section of the paper I look forward to reading – it’s kind of fun to dream about how the “other half” lives.
 
Last Sunday’s “mansion” was a $16 million showplace, with indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, even a putting green, with 265 feet of frontage on Lake St. Clair. Wow!
 

Hey, that’s not fair! Why are they billionaires and we’re not? We deserve the same thing! Grrrrrrrr!

 
Yeah. It’s all too easy to get caught up in that kind of thinking. But in our rational moments we realize it’s completely unrealistic – not to mention destructive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
Great authors like Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare understood the destructive nature of jealousy; it was a frequent theme in their works. Things never ended well for characters who succumbed to its snares. Shakespeare, especially, favored the vice as a powerful motivator for his most memorable dramas. His Othello became so enraged with jealousy that he killed Desdemona, the object of his desire, and then he killed himself.
 
These literary giants and others like them understood human nature. And because they did, they also understood that God isn’t some killjoy who made up a bunch of rules to impose on His creatures just to prevent us from having fun. Jealousy can make us miserable, ruin relationships, distract us from what’s really important and prevent us from truly enjoying life.
When it becomes obsessive, jealousy can even kill.

Posted in Good vs.Evil, Timeless Principles | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Lady Liberty!

President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty on this date (October 28th) in 1886. Construction in Paris took almost ten years and when completed, the statue was disassembled into 350 pieces, shipped across the Atlantic and reassembled on her pedestal.
 
Everyone knows that Lady Liberty was a gift from France, but more appropriately we should say a gift from the French. As B.K. Marcsu explains in Lady Liberty: An Unauthorized Biography [Hat-tip: UncleGlenn] ~

France’s national government did not contribute, but thousands of French schoolchildren made small donations. A copper company donated the metal sheets that would form the statue’s skin.

 

There was also a lottery held by the French-American Union, with prizes donated by Paris merchants. At one point the sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, even charged admission and sold souvenirs.
 
In America the government didn’t have much to do with funding either, other than providing the small island for the statue to stand on. It was newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer who got behind the project and;

… began a popular campaign for private donations to complete the base of the statue. His campaign attracted more than 120,000 contributors. Most gave less than a dollar.

 

Interestingly, Bartholdi originally had a completely different concept and location in mind for his project.

The original statue was to be an Egyptian woman—a fellah, or native peasant—draped in a burqa, 😯 one outstretched arm holding a torch to guide the ships on the great waterway over which she would stand.
 
Bartholdi had wanted to place his piece at the northern entrance to the (recently completed) Suez Canal in Port Said because the canal represented French greatness in general and engineering greatness more specifically. His statue was to be a synthesis of French art and French engineering, as well as a political symbol of the progress that France offered the East.

 
Apparently he couldn’t generate enough enthusiasm for an “Egypt Enlightening the World,” so he had to go with plan B.
Happily, Egypt’s loss was our gain.

 
Lady Liberty has been holding freedom’s torch over New York Harbor for 127 years now.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Posted in Comfort & Joy, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

The World’s War on Christendom – Latest Dispatch from the Front


 
Radical Islam is spreading like an especially virulent cancer across the African continent. And for non-Muslims it’s every bit as deadly as that disease. One of the countries in which persecution of Christians is on the rise is Kenya.
 
Al-Shabab, the Islamic terrorist group responsible for the deadly massacre of dozens at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi last month, proudly admitted that they specifically targeted non-Muslims for slaughter.
  
And just last weekend, as reported by Morning Star News, Two Pastors (were) Killed in Kenya’s Coastal Area ~

Christians at Vikwantani Redeemed Gospel Church in Mombasa, Kenya arrived for worship Sunday morning (Oct. 20) only to learn that their pastor had been shot to death in their building the night before.
 
Those attending the service began to weep as a church member described what he and others found when they went to the church building late the previous night: the body of Pastor Charles Matole slumped in a plastic seat, blood streaming from his head.

 
Another pastor was murdered the same night ~

… in Kilifi, 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Mombasa. Ebrahim Kidata of East African Pentecostal Church appeared to have been strangled and left in some bushes, authorities said. He had been riding his motorcycle, which was stolen[…]
 
The murder of two pastors over the weekend has caused much fear among churches and especially church leaders in the coastal region, where many Al Shabaab militants flushed out of Somalia by Kenyan-led African Union forces have taken refuge, said another pastor who requested anonymity.

 

According to Open Doors which ranks the African nation as 40th on their World Watch List, Kenya is said to be a majority Christian country…

… but in the Muslim-majority areas there are high levels of intolerance and hostility towards Christians. As with Tanzania and Uganda, there is a real Islamist drive to get Kenya under the African ‘House of Islam’, with pressure to enshrine this in the constitution. Al-Shabaab and similarly inspired extremist groups were last year responsible for a high level of violence against Christians; 22 were killed and more than 10 churches were burnt, looted or destroyed.

 

Seeing as how this is Kenya, land of Obama’s birth ancestors, you’d think, with his opportunistic propensity to randomly insert himself into various tragedies, the president might address this violence against Christians. After all, either of these men could have been his brother.
Actually, they were – his brothers-in-Christ. Well, assuming he truly is the Christian he said he is…
Yeah. 🙄 So much for that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
Although Pastor Matole’s life ended so tragically, there was comfort in the fact that he died with a Bible in his hand. A martyr, clutching his his passport to eternity – with Christ.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
~ Revelation 2:10 ~

Posted in Good vs.Evil, Unvarnished | Leave a comment