Boy Scouts of America announce a new motto: If you can’t beat em, join em!
And introduce a new badge:
Contact San Francisco BSA Council for Requirements.
The new badge will replace the previously offered Orienteering Badge. Having lost their moral compass, the organization will now remain perpetually “lost.”
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Related:
Sad. Less than a year ago the BSA was being applauded for their courageous stand: Thank-you BSA!
Don’t expect the mainstream media to spend much time on this story:
Before he was overthrown and killed, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi warned jihadists would conquer northern Africa
The sock puppets in the network news are much too obsessed with butt-kissing to hold the Obama White House responsible for the disastrous results of their hapless foreign policy.
So if, like me, you prefer to live in the real world, you have to go to sources like the (Canadian) National Post for legitimate journalism these days ~
During the dying days of his four decade rule, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi cast an ominous prophecy. If his regime fell, jihadists would subjugate northern Africa, inflicting widespread violence and terror.
The Islamists would pour in from Afghanistan, Algeria, and Egypt, he warned, saying, “These are beasts with turbans.”
Now, with France locked in a battle with extremists in Mali; with al-Qaeda-linked groups carrying out a massive hostage taking in Algeria, and with Britain, Germany, and France telling their citizens to leave Libya because of an unspecified threat, the man many considered mad may not have been so crazy after all.
Qaddafi was no paragon of virtue, but he did keep the jihadists under control.
For years, Mr. Gaddafi warned of radical Islamists bubbling below the surface in north Africa. Repeatedly, he proclaimed himself a “stalwart of stability.” 🙄
Albeit, with a penchant for flamboyant caftans.
… by 2011, the Libyan people were finished with the Gaddafi regime. Early that year, protests began spreading across the country, providing NATO with the grounds to intervene. By October, Mr. Gaddafi was dead. Days later, the West ended their military campaign, and just as Mr. Gaddafi predicted, Libya fell into chaos and the opportunity arose for jihadists to seize power and weapons.
With power vacuums consuming Libya and Mali, radical Islamists mobilized.
And brought us Benghazi… and the growing unrest across north Africa ~
Mr. (Scott) Stewart (vice-president of analysis at Stratfor Global Intelligence) said you could connect the dots between the fall of Gaddafi, the civil war in Mali and the Algerian hostage crisis when Islamists seized hundreds of hostages at a gas plant in In Amenas two weeks ago. At least 37 foreign workers died in the kidnapping either at the hands of the extremists or when Algerian forces tried a rescue attempt.
The Libyan conflict was yet another international situation in which U.S. should have avoided choosing sides, but our fearless leaders knew better. Senator John McCain for instance…
Andrew C. McCarthy (at National Review Online) describes the strategy that McCain and his fellow international affairs masterminds in D.C. advocated ~
The reason the “rebels” of eastern Libya hated America so much had nothing to do with their totalitarian, incorrigibly anti-Western ideology. No, no: The problem was that we sided with Qaddafi, giving the dictator — at the insistence of, well, McCain and the State Department — foreign aid, military assistance, and international legitimacy. If we just threw Qaddafi under the bus, the rebels would surely become our grand democratic allies.
How’d that work out for Ambassador Stevens and the three other Americans gunned down in Benghazi?
We should have listened to the dictator.
Just a little something to keep in mind as the week begins…
Conflict resolution is simpler if we worry less about who’s winning and more about finding a mutually beneficial solution.
Good advice to remember at work – and maybe more importantly – at home. 🙂
Video from the High Calling
Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:
Michigan Teachers Union to members: “Pay up or we’ll sue!” ~ Doggedly trying to get around the state’s new right-to-work legislation. The MEA’s not real big on choice – because, of course, “Parent’s DON’T know best.”
Life imitates art… Liberals see the world as they imagine it is, not how it actually is ~
Politicians on the left no longer look to objective facts to define the world around them. Rather, they look at the world as they would like it to be and interpret it accordingly. How else could one explain the lunacy that pervades the Democrat party today?
Fuzzy, distorted art has lead the Left to a fuzzy, distorted worldview. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to live with the consequences of their warped philosophy.
Shock claim: Obama only wants military leaders who ‘will fire on U.S. citizens’ ~ “Shocking,” primarily because it’s coming from a fairly credible source.
Less credible, but a whole lot scarier, is this story: Obama Death Squads Fan Out Across America As Rebellion Looms
Ted Nugent on Bloomberg: ‘What Kind of Idiot Thinks That Our Founding Fathers Were Protecting Deer Hunting?’ ~ I’m with “the Nuge” ~ “Those who would take away the right to keep and bear arms or infringe upon it in any way are the enemies of freedom,” Nugent said.
And while we’re on the subject of weapons ~ Gun Violence is Not a Republican Problem, It’s a Democratic Problem. It’s not Bible-clinging conservatives doing the shooting ~
There are, as John Edwards said, two Americas. America is a country that runs pretty well. And then there’s Obamerica. Not all of Obamerica is broken, but a lot of it is. America does not have a gun violence problem. Obamerica does. And Obamerica has a gun violence problem for the same reason that it has a drug problem and a broken family problem…
… If Obama really wants to get serious about gun violence, then all he has to do is turn to the man standing next to him (Jay-Z). But Obama, like every Chicago politician before him, don’t [sic] want to end the violence. The death toll is profitable, not just for rappers writing bad poetry about dealing drugs and shooting rivals, but for the politicians atop that heap who score money and gain power by using the problems of Obamerica as some sort of call to conscience for the rest of the country.
Pakistani doctor’s fate is still undecided ~ Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped the U.S. find bin Laden, has been sitting in a Pakistani jail since the raid on the terrorist’s compound (May 2011). And our feckless government hasn’t done much of anything to get him released.
Running down the clock on Benghazi ~ Well-written re-cap by Doug Hagmann at CanadaFreePress of Wednesday’s Benghazi farce ~
Conducted as fact-finding hearings, many Americans were hopeful that the officials they elected to represent them were finally going to get to the bottom of a deadly event that has been mired in deception since the minute it began to unfold. Instead, Americans were sorely shortchanged by a combination of inept questioning and lengthy monologues of professional praise, the latter which served as an effective tactic to run down the game clock while limiting any errant exposure to the truth.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was showing up at all the right places this past week – and saying all the Right things:
• Wednesday, Jan. 23rd ~ Harassing Hillary Clinton at the Benghazi hearing
• Wednesday, Jan. 24th ~ Questioning John Kerry at his Senate confirmation (Secy of State) hearing: Sen. Kerry Grilled By Rand Paul
Everyone knows that Lurch Kerry is going to get a pass from the poltroons in Congress, but at least Sen. Paul had the brass to question him about his past support of the past unauthorized attacks by America, his views on what the Constitution allows for military policy and his support for unilateral interventions by America.
Why is Paul the only senator who seems to understand that the purpose
of congressional hearings is to get answers and hold people accountable
– not kiss butts?!
• Wednesday, Jan. 25th ~ Speaking at the 40th annual March for Life on the National Mall in D.C.
“Can a nation long endure that does not respect the sanctity of life?” Paul asked. “Can a nation conceived in liberty carry its head high if it denies protection to the youngest and most vulnerable of its citizens? Can a country founded on God-given rights continue to thrive without understanding that life is a precious gift from our creator?
“I believe that great nations and great civilizations spring from a people who have a moral compass,” he said. “Our nation is adrift, adrift in a wilderness where right and wrong have become subservient to a hedonism of the moment.
“I believe our country is in need of a revival,” Paul continued. “I believe our country is in need of a spiritual cleansing.
“We march today for change, but change will only come when we begin to change attitudes. We must preach a gospel so full of compassion, a gospel so full of justice that it cannot be resisted.”[Source: CNS News]
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Thank-you Senator Paul. In a Congress full of sycophants, liars and buffoons, and in a political party currently suffering a dearth of sanity, faith and courage, you give me reason to have hope for the future.
With the anti-gun lobby in full spin mode – totally supported by the always-dizzy mainstream media – it’s well near impossible to get the facts about gun violence in America, so let’s check a few shall we?
For instance, have you seen this story [Washington Post 12-19-12] on the network news: Homicide rates have dropped steadily in U.S.?
The national homicide rate for 2011 was 4.8 per 100,000 citizens — less than half of what it was in the early years of the Great Depression, when it peaked before falling precipitously before World War II. The peak in modern times of 10.2 was in 1980, as recorded by national criminal statistics…
… And, no matter what your favorite politician says about gun control or the lack of it, the homicide rate has been near stagnant or falling for 21 consecutive years — even as images of violence have proliferated, even as the stock market has soared and crashed, as political upheavals have come and gone, as drugs have waxed and waned, even as the number of high-profile mass killings like the one in Newtown has risen.
The data indicates that there’s something much more than guns behind these multiple victim shootings, why are they the only type of homicides up significantly?
But hey, why take the time to analyze the trend? After all, as Chicago’s mayor once famously opined;
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
~ Rahm Emanuel ~
Real facts and figures about guns and gun-related crime are available in several articles at The Patriot Post. Here’s a particularly informative one: Sensible Gun Control Policy? The Assault Weapons Ban: Fact v Fiction ~
The 2011 FBI data shows that there were 323 murders committed with rifles of any kind. However, guns defined as “assault weapons” by the federal government are not defined in any subcategory because they are used in crimes so infrequently — less than 0.5% (one-half of one percent) of all murders with guns in 2011, according to best estimates.
By comparison, 496 murders were committed with hammers and clubs, and 1,694 murders were perpetrated with knives. Notably, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that drunk drivers are responsible for nearly 10,000 deaths each year in the U.S. — far more than the number of deaths involving guns of any kind in 2011. (Should there be federal background checks every time someone orders a beer or glass of Chardonnay?)
Additionally, according to the demographic and geographic profile of most violent crimes, the vast majority of perpetrators who murder with guns are associated with gangs and/or drug cartels, which thrive on urban welfare plantations. (The violent culture spawned on those plantations is, of course, the direct result of social and cultural degradation institutionalized by socialist Democrat welfare state policies.)
Because extensive gun control is the dream of every progressive politician, whenever a tragedy like Newtown occurs they can’t wait to start passing new legislation. And in typical knee-jerk liberal fashion, they shamelessly appeal to emotion rather than calling for any thoughtful analysis. Facts be damned.
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those
who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. …
Such laws make things worse for the assaulted
and better for the assailants.”
~ Cesare Beccaria ~
While the House and Senate Democrats were slobbering all over themselves to extol her virtues yesterday, it occurred to me that the only thing that’s actually “praiseworthy” about our singular Secretary of State is her masterful ability to prevaricate. And every good liar, by definition, is also a talented actor.
One of my favorite scenes from yesterday’s drama on the Hill was watching Secretary Clinton’s ridiculous tantrum in response to queries from Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) who wanted to know why the administration wouldn’t drop the phony “spontaneous riot” narrative after they were clearly aware the truth.
Frustrated at Johnson’s persistence, Clinton went into a snit, got knocked a bit off her game, then asked and answered her own question in the same oxymoronic statement:
With all due respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans. Whether it was because of a protest or because guys outside for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans. What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again Senator.
Breitbart has a video of her stellar performance video HERE.
Here’s the thing Madame Secretary – just how will you be able to “figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again” if you don’t even know what actually happened?
How could it not make a difference?!
Buffoon.
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But that wasn’t the best part. For me the highlight of the Hillary Show was Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) “gotcha” moment ~
Although Paul referred to what happened in Benghazi several times as a “failure of leadership” and “inexcusable,” and suggested that he’d have relieved her of her post had he been president, he did complement Secretary Clinton for accepting responsibility for the tragedy – “because no one else is.” He continued on in this vein for a minute or two and then completely shifted direction and dropped this question (at the 2:35 mark):
“Is the U.S. involved with any ah, procurement of weapons, transfer of weapons, buying, selling, anyhow transferring weapons to Turkey, out of Libya?”
Feigning total surprise, Clinton managed to blurt out: “Well Senator you’ll have to direct, direct that question to ah, the agency that ah, ran the annex.”
“The agency”?
Even mentioning “the agency” was as close as old Hilly got to the truth all day.
“The agency” is the CIA. The annex was a CIA safe house. And Ambassador Stevens (ex-CIA) was facilitating the collection and transfer of weapons out of Libya, through Turkey, to Syria (to further destabilize that country and hasten Assad’s downfall).
Canada Free Press had all the details on this debacle almost two months ago:
Benghazi explained: Interview with an “Intelligence Insider” ~
Part I ~ Part II ~ Part III
If you really want to know what Benghazi was all about forget the Congressional dog & pony shows, ignore the mainstream media, and read these three articles by Doug Hagman. Sadly, we’re never going to get the truth about this disaster out of Hillary Clinton – or anyone else in the Obama Administration.
It’s one of those freedoms of choice that the “progressive” Left really doesn’t want anyone to have (unless you’re an elitist who can afford other options): the freedom to choose which public school your kids will attend. It’s certainly not a cause Obama supports (freedom of choice to end the life of your unborn child – OK – but you don’t get a say in your living child’s education). As the Daily Caller reported during election season last fall: Obama declines to support school choice in debate ~
Giving school choice the cold shoulder is a familiar move for Obama, who has consistently opposed letting parents choose where to send their kids to school, and sought to eliminate charter school programs in Washington, D.C. shortly after taking office.
National School Choice Week kicks off this Friday, January 25th with various events across the country. Promoting public awareness, sponsors of National School Choice Week believe that;
… parents should be empowered to choose the best educational environments for their children and supports a variety of school choice options — from encouraging increased access to great public schools, to public charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, private schools, homeschooling and more.
To learn more and/or find an event near you go HERE.
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Related:
MLK’s unfinished legacy and the fight for school choice
Why is school choice important? ~ MI Educator: “Parent’s DON’T know best” **Updated 2-17-12**
Want to learn the truth about fracking? Forget about “Gasland.” Skip Matt Damon’s little propaganda piece; “Promised Land” [partially funded by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates 😉 ]. And check out “Fracknation” – the latest project from journalists Phelim McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney ~
FrackNation was made after Phelim McAleer confronted GASLAND filmmaker Josh Fox at a Q&A in Chicago. McAleer asked Fox about instances of water being lit on fire well before fracking occurred in America and why he didn’t include that information in GASLAND. Fox said the information “wasn’t relevant.” McAleer disagreed and put their exchange on YouTube. Fox sued to have it removed. That’s when McAleer realized there was more to the story of fracking than Josh Fox was letting on…
Ed Morrissey at HotAir recently reviewed the documentary ~
Fracknation will air on Tuesday evening (January 22nd) on Mark Cuban’s AXs cable television channel. It’s a brilliant effort by Phelim and Ann, and it’s appropriate for all ages. The only violence in the film comes, unsurprisingly, from people who don’t want to have Phelim asking inconvenient questions.
Catch it tonight – if you can – at 9:00 p.m.ET. Check HERE for availability.
Unfortunately, our cable company doesn’t offer AXS.tv (Thank-you Bright House Networks!) BUT – as an official backer of the film, I will be getting my own copy of the DVD shortly. 🙂
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Related:
North Dakota’s Fracking Phenomenon
George Washington, in his first Inaugural Address on April 30, 1789, had this to say about America’s future:
“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never
be expected on a nation that disregards
the eternal rules of order and right,
which Heaven itself has ordained.”
Back in 2009 Barack Obama was still pretending that he actually believed in a higher law – at least when it came to marriage – an Heaven-ordained union of one man and one woman.
Four years later he’s “evolved,” along with the rest of the secular Left; now completely unmoored from Biblical morality.
It’s painfully obvious that he now intends to completely disregard the eternal rules of order and right that President Washington was referring to. Particularly revealing in this regard was the brush-off given to Atlanta pastor Louie Giglio. Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., summarized this snub in a January 10th article: The Public Inauguration of a New Moral McCarthyism ~
… a Christian pastor has been effectively disinvited from delivering an inaugural prayer because he believes and teaches Christian truth.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment. By its newly articulated standard, any preacher who holds to the faith of the church for the last 2,000 years is persona non grata.
Which really makes God Himself persona non grata.
In fact, Lawrence O’Donnell , host of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” thinks Obama should just drop the pretense of deferring to a higher authority and chuck the Bible entirely from the inauguration ceremony ~
“As I’ve pointed out … no one accepts all of the teachings of the Bible. No one. … Still, the president, following one of our most absurdest traditions in the government that invented the separation of church and state, will put his hand on this book filled with things he does not believe — filled with things that no one in the United States of America believes — and with his hand on this book he will recite the oath of office.”
[Source: Daily Caller]
(“No one” Larry, you arrogant Leftist? If you say it’s so – it must be? Nice try.)
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Considering today’s events in Washington D.C., and the Left’s rejection of the eternal rules of order and right, it’s interesting to note where the term “inauguration” came from. It actually goes way back to Roman times as I learned recently while reading an informative little book; “Ancient Rome: How it Affects You Today”* ~
In Rome’s early years, around 600 B.B., the kings claimed to have divine or magical powers, one of which was the power to make up laws. Kings were chosen by a group of soothsayers called augurs. In a kind of black magic, the augurs would talk with the gods and get their advice about who to make king. Thus the king was “inaugurated” – given magical powers – a process still used today.
Inauguration is the ceremony in which a government official is put in office either to make up laws or to enforce these laws.
The belief that there is no law higher than the government’s law, that the state is supreme, is a feature of all fascist regimes. And now that we know it’s Roman roots, “Inauguration” seems a totally appropriate beginning for the Emperor Obama’s second term. Unfortunately, with his “magical power” to make up laws, it won’t end well.
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Related:
* “Ancient Rome: How it Affects You Today” is part of a series called the “Uncle Eric” books written by Richard J. Maybury. Written to be easily absorbed and understood by most anyone in middle school and beyond, taken together these 11 slim volumes are a crash course in world geo-political history and economics, topics sorely needed but rarely covered in today’s public schools. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about Western Civilization – and where we’re headed.
So I was just wondering…
In remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr. on his national day of recognition, are we allowed to “judge” these guys on “the content of their character” yet?
“Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar,
but is a stab at the health of human society.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
This past week the Washington Post reported (via Investors Business Daily) on another sad reality facing us in this depressing Obamaconomy:
One out of four U.S. workers with 401(k) retirement savings accounts has been forced to cash them out or borrow from them at high costs just to stay solvent.
Poor money management skills? Not really.
In a June 11th article about declining personal net worth, Mr.ToughMoneyLove explained:
The bursting of the housing bubble caused 75% of this decline. There is lots of blame to go around for this. Congress and its “home ownership for all” mentality. Freddie and Fannie’s lack of reasonable underwriting standards. The big banks. And homeowners who became speculators and gamblers via the act of purchasing something that they could not afford if economic conditions changed.
The resulting fallout; disappearing jobs, and
… millions of Americans, caught between flat wages and high expenses for everything from sending children to college to making home repairs, feel as though they have little choice. The (401k) withdrawals have grown substantially in the wake of the financial crisis.
[Source: Washington Post]
Also a factor; well-founded concern over the insatiable gluttons in D.C. ~
Congressional Democrats constantly threaten to expropriate 401(k)s and replace them with Argentine-style “guaranteed retirement accounts.” Alarmed savers on Internet financial bulletin boards have started talking of emptying their 401(k)s as a defense.
[Source: IBD editorial]
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Unfortunately, it’s a Catch-22 situation – skimming from retirement savings inevitably exacerbates the problem. And the reduction of individual net worth is already a major concern, as CNN Money reported earlier this year: Wealth implosion: It’s not just housing ~
Wealth: It’s not getting redistributed – it’s disappearing!
Median household net worth is now comparable to what it was in 1984. 🙁
And with Obamanomics firmly in place for another four years, this figure will only decline further: President Obama’s Cat-Food Future For Retirees ~
… (401k) withdrawals have drained $70 billion, or an astonishing near-quarter of the total $293 billion, in America’s retirement accounts “undermining already shaky retirement security for millions of Americans.”
And the timing couldn’t be much worse , because the feds themselves have been raiding the national “retirement” fund for decades ~
…new retirees will outlive Social Security’s official trust fund, a bankruptcy that will force a 25% cut in benefits.
Some 69% of retired workers already are dependent in “major” part on Social Security as their main retirement income, according to a 2012 study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, with worker savings off sharply for those in the below-$35,000 income bracket.
The Investors’ Business Daily editorial summarizes:
(T)he problem isn’t financially foolish workers. It’s bad policies that make the problems worse. And none of this is being discussed rationally in Washington.
Even so, as sure as the sun will rise, it’s a coming disaster for millions of people in America who will spend their retirements in shocking poverty.
Better stock up on the cat food before the other shoe drops and runaway inflation kicks in.
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Related:
Tough Money Love ~ No-nonsense $$ advice; how the big picture affects your wallet and what to do about it ~ The Hard Truth about Money and Personal Finance
Copyright © Designs on the Truth ~ Anno Domini MMXI-MMXIX