Fortune Cookie

Earlier this week I went out for stir-fry.  After paying my bill, I sipped on my drink as I opened the fortune cookie.  Usually the fortune cookie has something trite and forgettable.  But this one was a little different.

Your fondest dream will come true this year.

This was an interesting fortune, in that it immediately got me thinking.

What is my fondest dream?

I remember when I used to have dreams.  As I got older, the old dreams became impossible and the newer ones seemed to become less important.  I'd have to say it's been at least a decade since I even had a dream - at least one for myself.

What if my fondest dream is for someone else?

Does that count?  What if my fondest dream involves seeing one of my sons realize his fondest dream, or involves me being able to do something really spectacular for my kids?

So I decided to run a little personal exercise.  I've made a list of all the things I can think of that could fall under the category "fondest dream".  I've rated the probability of each dream to which I might be able to make them come true through my own efforts. 

If my fondest dream does come true this year, is it due to the miraculous intervention of this little fortune cookie?  I suppose at the least I would have to credit the fortune cookie with providing the inspiration for me to make the dream come true.

I've found that only those dreams that can be realized through my own focus, dedication, and hard work have a probability above 50 percent.  What the fortune cookie has helped me realize is that to the extent that dreams can come true for anybody, the first step is to define the dream outcome and then create a concrete plan to make it come true.

My policy is to avoid publishing things deeply personal in the blog, so my dreams will never appear here.  But what I have discovered is that dreams fall into two categories: material and spiritual.  Material dreams can be achieved with focus, planning, and hard work.  Spiritual dreams can only be influenced in varying degrees, as they involve the attitudes and willing participation of others.  Material dreams are concrete and definable - you know when you're done.  Spiritual dreams are life-long endeavors, and you never really know for sure when you're done.

Now all I have to do is look at my list and decide:

Do I want this dream to come true badly enough to give the level of commitment it will require?  Even with that focused effort, there's still a pretty good likelihood I'll fail anyway.  Can I deal with that truth, or will it discourage me from maintaining that effort?  If one or more of my fondest dreams come true, will I be deleriously happy or a little disappointed?

I think I know the answers.  If somehow my fondest dreams for others were to come true, I'll be much happier than if the ones for myself came to be.

What Conclusions Would You Draw?

Based on the following stories, what would you guess the Obama administration is planning?

1.6 Billion Rounds of Ammo for Homeland Security? It's time for a National Conversation.

Drones Over America.  Are They Spying on You?

Obama and FEMA Create Civilian Army Trained in Domestic Preparedness

Janet Napolitano: Domestic Terrorism is Top Concern

Obama's DOJ Targets Religious Freedom, Again

Is there a pattern here?  How much longer do we have before the tyranny and oppression begin in full?

The View from an Elitist

I found this article on Yahoo.  It's stunning.

The title is "A Guide to the Last Anti-Gay Marriage Holdouts and What They Really Believe".

It merely reproduces excerpts from a group of mostly conservative commentators in a manner dripping with derisive hostility.  If she met me and realized that I pretty much agree with most of the quotes she cited, I imagine she'd call 911 and demand they come and arrest me immediately.

The clear message from Ms. Elspeth Reeve is basically, "I don't know anybody who actually opposes Gay Marriage, and those who still do are right-wing religious whack jobs".

I don't think Elspeth has ever met a Christian, or at least someone who attends church every Sunday.  Although I am sure if she did meet somebody like that, she'd insult him or her and turn on her heel to run away as fast as she can.

I feel sorry for her.  She's everything she accuses the Right of, and doesn't even realize it.  Closed-minded, bigoted, intolerant, and wildly supportive of religious oppression.

Majoring in the Minors

What are the most critical issues facing America?

The economy
Record unemployment
Record deficits and debt
Healthcare and the Obamacare Disaster
Tax Policy
National Security/Terrorism
Foreign Policy and the Instability of the Middle East
Direct Threats from China and Russia
Energy

How many of those are being talked about over the airwaves and in your newspapers?

Instead, you'd think the most important issues were:

Gay Marriage
Global Climate Change
Immigration Reform (i.e. Amnesty for Illegal Aliens)
Raising the Minimum Wage
Raising Taxes on the Wealthy

As far as I can tell, the first list might be better described as the list of critical issues for Conservatives.  The second list is critical issues for Liberals.

Exactly right, when you take a moment to think about it.  How can we characterize the two lists, but as a list of practical and objective problems tied to the practical and objective-thinking conservatives.  And a list of esoteric and emotional issues that are less easily quantified tied to the emotion-driven liberals. 

In other words, conservatives want to solve problems, while liberals want to feel good about themselves.

So the parties seem to have picked a side, and have sparked hatred of the feelers against the thinkers.  I don't think it would be fair to say that the thinkers hate the feelers, but they're certainly frustrated with them.

Media Blitz

There's never been anything like the media blitz happening this week on the Gay Marriage issue.  Now that the Supreme Court is hearing 2 related cases, there is a coordinated effort being pushed in every media source to push a pro-Gay-Marriage message.

TV Commercials, special news segments, and even gay-themed programming dominates the TV channels.  The morning USA Today was filled with pro-Gay-Marriage ads and stories.  Browsing the internet brings up ads and pro-Gay-Marriage stories on nearly every page.

Demoralizing.

NCAA Weekend 1 a Mixed Bag

My two favorite teams split over the weekend.  Indiana's through to the Sweet 16, Butler's done.  Too bad, I really thought Butler was going to beat Marquette a second time this year.

The Bulldogs had their chances.  Rotnei Clarke missed his late 3-point attempt rather badly, then Andrew Smith was indecisive before throwing up a terribly awkward ball at the buzzer.  If Andrew had either passed that inbounds pass over to the Freshman Kellen Dunham on the right side, or squared up and taken a decent shot attempt, they would have at least had a chance to pull out the win.  Instead, Smith seemed confused and uncertain about what to do.

Alternately, as the second half of Indiana's game against Temple went on, I was feeling less hope for them pulling out the win.  But that open 3-point shot from the top of the key by Victor Oladipo insured the victory, enabling the Hoosiers to shoot free throws the rest of the way.

Can the Hoosiers beat Syracuse?  Sure.

Will they?  Who knows.  That's why they play.

The Big 10 certainly had a good weekend.

The Waste of Time that will be a Travesty

Unfortunately I don't hold out much hope that the Supreme Court is capable of applying the constitution logically or reasonably as they hear the two Gay Marriage cases next week.

It's a case that should never have happened.  Because in truth and in fact, there is no constitutional right to homosexual marriage.  The very definition of the word "marriage" proves the point.  Add to that the fact that marriage is not a governmental institution, but God's institution, and the Supreme Court has no business even pretending to have the power to decide.

Let's be honest, the whole issue is not even the slightest bit about the liberal talking points.  "Letting two people who love each other have the same right to marry regardless of their gender" is a lie without a point.  What the whole issue boils down to is what every issue boils down to: money.

Gays want to qualify their sexual partners for government benefits.  Survivor benefits, adoption assistance, and a myriad of government entitlements that socialist lawmakers have built into American society over the last 50 years.

If the court decides to bestow a brand new "right" on homosexuals, the next step will be the trampling of the rights of people of faith.  We've already seen it form over the past 20 years or so - merely saying out loud that homosexuality is a disordered and sinful behavior is now branded "hate speech" and can result in the offender losing his or her job and being held up to public lynching for being so intolerant.

The Supreme Court won't be able to see this for what it really is, and will rule for the gays.  My prediction is within a few short months, we'll be seeing hundreds of lawsuits brought by homosexual couples against churches, priests, and pastors all over the country.  Suing them for violating their constitutional rights by refusing to perform their wedding ceremony.

The HHS and Obamacare will follow up very quickly with new mandates on employers to cover all homosexual partners under their employer-sponsored health insurance plan.  Any employers who resist, especially those who try to claim exemption on the grounds of conscience and religious teaching, will be fined intil they're forced to close the doors.  This will include Catholic schools and hospitals, as well as anybody minding their own business while trying to run their business under principles of Christianity like Hobby Lobby or Chik-fil-a.

The Church will go underground.  Within a few short years, I think we'll see many clergymen arrested and imprisoned for being caught preaching "hate" from the pulpit.  Most businesses who find the extreme level of government mandates will drop their health plans and pay the fine, at least until the fine is hiked to levels that force them to close as well.

My only question is whether anyone that might stumble across this post will realize or care when all these things come to pass?  As I've seen this president do one outrageous thing after another and noted that virtually nobody seems to notice or care, I realize just how far we've fallen.

Unless the Supreme Court actually recognizes what's truly up with this case and rules correctly, they will simple add one more giant nail for the coffin of the Late United States of America.

Got My Brackets Filled Out

March Madness, the best time of the year, has arrived.

I went online and filled out my brackets last night at CBS Sportsline.  In past years I generally tried to pick based on which team I thought would win, which meant I often picked against my heart.  That hurt me in the two years Butler ran all the way to the final game.

So my bracket is mostly heart, and much less logic.  Which of course means Indiana wins it all.  That's a difficult pick for my brain, given that Indiana laid egg against Wisconsin in the Big 10 tournament last weekend.  If they are to make a run to the Final Four, Cody Zeller has to be more assertive, Victor Oladipo has to stop turning the ball over, Christian Watford needs to step up, Yogi Ferrell needs to protect the ball and become more creative as the point guard, and the team needs to do a better job finding Jordi Hulls open behind the arc.

If the Hoosiers play the unbeatable team they showed in spurts in their game against Illinois, instead of the rattled team that forgot how to run their offense that we saw late against Wisconsin, they can win the whole thing.  But their tournament opponents merely need to get hold of the tapes of their games against Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Butler and learn how to rattle Zeller & Co. and steal a win.

Butler proved that St. Louis really is better than they are.  VCU most likely is also a better team.  Fortunately, neither of those teams is in Butler's bracket, but Indiana is.  So my dream final four is destroyed, since two of my picks are in the same bracket.  But if Butler simply makes it through to play Indiana for the final four bid, I'll be happy.

There's no dominant team this year like Kentucky was last year.  So I think all of the top 5 Big 10 schools have a shot.  Duke might have a chance, except they've been inconsistent through their season.  Miami is getting a lot of encouragement from the talking heads, but I think they're vulnerable.  I think St. Louis and VCU are going to be tough outs in the tournament.  I'm not sold on Gonzaga, partly because one of their two losses came from Butler, and they haven't really played anyone else of note.  I really don't believe the west coast schools can compete with the teams from the East and MidWest, although it is nice to see Steve Alford be successful with his New Mexico Lobos.

Now all we have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.  There will be lots of upsets, guaranteed.  That's what makes it fun, at least until it's one of my favorite teams that gets upset.

Easy Inferences

There's been a glimmer of hope showing up as the liberal press begins to ask semi-tough questions of the White House about those things they spin incessantly to try to deflect any criticism.

There's enough factual information out there on the Benghazi massacre to make easy inferences about the fundamental underlying story.  The White House has stonewalled on specific names, timelines, and details on that scandal, but it has become obvious that the president is to blame for the people who were killed by terrorists there.  We know that he received a briefing on Benghazi while the attack was taking place, then left the meeting to do whatever it is he wanted to do.  It's clear that he did nothing either to try to prevent the attack or to rescue the ambassador and his staffers once it began.  The amazingly weak story that was provided blames the Libyan government for not allowing our commandos to take off from the airport to commence a rescue mission.   It's a stunning example of presidential incompetence I don't think we've ever seen before.

Now the president's lying about the decision to end White House tours.  He of course won't tell us how or why the decision was made, but it's incredibly obvious that he or his closest advisors made the decision as part of their campaign to inflict pain on Americans for allowing the sequestration to go through.  It's disappointing that he demonstrated one of his most consistent traits, when he lied to the press in saying the White House had nothing to do with that decision. 

Now we are again recycling the same old arguments over the federal budget.  You'd think that even though the president wants only tax increases to close the deficit gap, he'd be able to identify some budget cuts, even if they're symbolic and insignificant cuts to programs that republicans like.  But he won't even do that.  Instead, he claims credit for natural spending reductions from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  But instead he continues to campaign on higher taxes for the "rich" and closing "loopholes" for industries he doesn't like (namely oil).

If he wanted to be taken seriously by thinking people, why doesn't he propose slicing the tax code to the bone, removing all of the special tax deductions, credits, exemptions, and preferences from everybody.  But of course he's the most politically partisan president we've had in my lifetime, therefore everything he does is designed to help his friends and harm his enemies.  The concept of finding policies that are good for all of America is foreign to his way of thinking.  Obama's belief is that what's good for Democrats is good for the country, and what's bad for Republicans is good for the country.

So the competing budget proposals are as expected, and Obama continues to mischaracterize the Republican plan as designed to help the rich get richer on the backs of poor and seniors.  From the Right is a budget-cutting plan that cuts the fat and repeals Obamacare.  The Obamacare repeal by itself is enough to guarantee it will be blocked by the Democrats.  From the Left is a tax-hiking plan with expansion of spending on liberal policies, which by the way completely ignores even lip service to deficit reduction.  Republicans already gave Obama his tax hike on the rich, so the Left's plan will also go nowhere.

I don't see a way out of the mess.  There is no compromise between fiscal responsibility and unlimited spending with income redistribution.  There is no middle ground between gay marriage and traditional marriage.  Between destroying babies in the womb and protecting them.  Between socialism and capitalism.  Between cradle-to-grave nanny state regulation and freedom. Between energy independence and save-the-planet government destruction of cheap energy sources.

Freedom versus Fairness.

Millions to Study What?

Stories were floating around about all the stupid stuff the Federal Government is wasting their money on, and one of them in particular caught my interest.

The story goes something like this:

The NIH has awarded $1.5 Million to study biological and social factors for why three-quarters of lesbians and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of "high public health significance".  Besides being an amazing opening for a bunch of politically incorrect fat lesbian jokes, the announcement is great evidence of a Federal bureaucracy run amok.

Then I thought about it for a minute.  I wondered how they already knew that 3/4 of lesbian women are fat?  Likewise how do they know that gay men aren't?  I've been acquainted with gay men who are fat and lesbian women who aren't, but would have to say that among my limited universe of homosexual acquaintances, those ratios do seem approximately accurate.

Then I wondered whether the study will be honest.  Because if it is, I don't think they're going to like the results.  Because given my admittedly limited universe of homosexual acquaintances, I can make these general observations.

Gay men seem to be universally attracted to the pre-teen adolescent.  Therefore they assiduously cultivate that look, presumably to attract other gay men.  I'd say gay men are on the same prowl for partners as Jerry Sandusky.  Other studies that have been very carefully buried suggest that most gay males grew up in a household with a single mother where Mom maintained a revolving door of boyfriends, some of whom molested the kid (or kids).  Which brings on a horrible self-image, sexual confusion, then ending up with the kid joining an all-too-welcoming gay community.  He wasn't born that way, but by the time he comes of age he feels like he has no other choice.

Lesbians I've found have a serious problem with men in general.  It often borders on irrational.  They mistrust all of their male co-workers and hate their male bosses.  Many lesbians I know dress like men and project a masculine attitude.  So they're pretty self-indulgent and don't have time to fuss over their figure like their straight counterparts.  If a lesbian doesn't hate you, (which is more likely if you're a co-worker and not her boss) she can be fun to hang out with, because she loves to go out to drink beer and eat pizza and watch sports.  She loves to be part of the gang. So that's a pretty easy outcome to predict.

Something I find rather universal among gays in general is that they've compromised in all facets of life.  Gay men are typically cordial and polite in the workplace, even though I can't say the same of lesbians.  But regardless of gender, if you catch them in a social situation where they "let their hair down", you will quickly find out they almost universally display depraved behavior.

I've also discovered that gays and lesbians are more likely to compromise their workplace ethics.  They'll lie, cheat, steal, scheme, and undermine anybody to get ahead.  It would be a mistake to assume a homosexual in your workplace isn't a threat to your job or workplace harmony if they covet your position.  As long as you've got nothing they want, they will become your good friend and pleasant co-worker.  Not to suggest they'll always be a problem for you as subordinates, since that certainly isn't something I've seen in every case.  Of course heterosexuals are just as capable of bad behavior, it just seems to me that homosexuals can more easily put aside moral and ethical standards because they've already done so in their personal lifestyle.

My prediction is that when the study reveals results that refute the popular culture mythology, it will be unceremoniously tossed into the trash.  Don't bother to try to ask a federal bureaucrat, "Say, whatever happened to that study you guys were doing about fat lesbians?".  The bureaucrat will not give you a straight answer.

Delusional

There isn't much sanity left.  A new law was finally passed with enough Republicans and Democrats able to find cooperation.  So it must be a good, bipartisan, commonsense law, right?

I don't think so.  It's merely one of those laws designed to demonstrate politicians' good intentions.  The Violence Against Women Act.  Who is for violence against women, right?  That's the point, I suppose.  Democrats propose a fundamentally stupid and meaningless law and name it the "Violence Against Women Act", then dare Republicans to look mean and anti-woman by opposing it.  So of course it sails through, scoring a few points for the good intentions of Democrats.

The new CIA Director is sworn into office using a 200-plus year old draft copy of the Constitution.  No Bible.  There's a story out there that Brennan is a former Roman Catholic who converted to Islam and is cozy with the jihadists.  If the story's not true, why did he break with tradition and refuse to swear in on the Bible?  If it is true, what does that mean for the future of our countrygiven that the President obviously holds the same worldview as Brennan?  Obama himself was raised in a Madrassa, is the son of a Muslim, and is considered by Muslims worldwide as one of them.  So why do we choose to ignore the facts as we know them?

Rand Paul does a 13-hour filibuster in the Senate over his concerns over Obama's obsessive use of drones.  He demanded a clarification from the Administration that drones would never be used against American citizens in direct contravention of the constitution.  Eventually, he got a one-word answer from Holder to his question, "No".  But today I read that the White House released a statement that Rand's filibuster changes nothing as far as Obama's ongoing policies regarding the use of drones.

So which is it?  Are drones only to be used against terrorists on foreign soil, or is Obama plotting to use them against all enemies of the U.S. as well as all his political enemies?  John McCain says the very notion is ridiculous, and Rand Paul's filibuster was an unneccessary stunt.  I certainly hope that McCain is right, but if he is, why haven't we seen Obama on television explaining exactly how drones will never be used to spy on or kill Americans here at home?  Instead, we get the defiant White House announcement that Rand's filibuster meant nothing.

The Obama-created crisis called the "sequester" has passed with no changes to the small spending reductions.  It's abundantly clear to everyone by the most ardent Democrat that Obama shut down White House tours, not because it was forced by the sequester, but in a failed attempt to support his claims that the sequester was a bad idea.  The whole thing can be easily resolved with a budget, which of course has not been even taken up for debate in the Senate since Obama took office.

The next Obama-manufactured crisis is only a couple months away.  Paul Ryan will introduce the Republican Budget very soon, which will easily pass the House only to be once again thrown in the trash by Harry Reid in the Senate.  If Obama submits a budget, it's reasonable to expect it will be just as ridicuous as his previous budgets, which were both voted down unanimously.  Nobody seems to know that fact.

A delusional America re-elected a president who has destroyed the economy, allowed an ambassador to be abused and killed by jihadists without lifting a finger to prevent it or rescue him, and appointed a litany of communists and enemies of America to the Supreme Court and his top cabinet offices.

I find it sad that so many have been fooled.  Obama and his friends who hated the American Republic so much could have easily left for an existing socialist state of their choosing.  I mourn the fact that they instead chose to mislead Americans into handing them the power to enslave them.

Somebody I caught talking about the American economy said we've already lost the America we grew up in.  That we will not see it again without a dramatic change of the hearts and minds of the majority of citizens, and perhaps a decade of painful reforms.  We will not see those reforms in my lifetime, and there is no reason to hope the next generation will wake up to tackle them.  My generation destroyed the greatest country in the history of the world, and I'm ashamed to have been part of that.

Rand Paul Filibuster

There he was, just like Jimmy Stewart, standing up in the Senate to engage in an actual filibuster.  When was the last time somebody actually stood up to filibuster anything in these times where all it takes to delay a vote is for a Senator to say "I'm going to filibuster that".

What was Rand worried about?  Apparently not the appointment of the new CIA director, who despite many conservative pundits was perhaps the worst possible choice for that job was easily confirmed the next day.

He was concerned about drones.  We've all been hearing that drones are being deployed in bases around the country, but there's been no "official" explanation from the government telling us why.  The story behind Rand's protest suggests that the GOP senators demanded documentation on the drone program before they would allow a vote on Brennan.  They got some letters from Eric Holder that seemed to say Obama has the authority to take out American citizens on American soil with drone strikes.

Rand was concerned that the Holder letters were telling the President he could ignore constitutional protections to citizens and just take somebody out if he deemed that person a threat to the country.  That's deeply disturbing, or should be, to any American, regardless of political party.

Funny that the Democrats, who were so certain George W. Bush was going to trample their rights, suddenly are unconcerned about Obama's actions that far exceed anything Bush ever contemplated.  I suppose they figure Obama won't come after them, since they're his friends - but he can take out hated conservatives any time he chooses.

The debate is over on Obama's political philosophy, despite liberal protestations to the contrary.  Everything about Obama, from his upbringing and closest associations to pretty much every speech he gives, clearly illustrates his Marxist philosophy.  We now know his promise to "fundamentally transform America" meant Marxist revolution.

By extension, conservatives simply look at the history of Marxism around the world.  Lenin and Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez brutally suppressed their country's citizens and murdered millions to eliminate all opposition.  Is it then unreasonable, as McCain derisively stated in opposition to Rand's one-man protest, to hold a concern about what objective Obama may have in his mind for how he'll use those US-based drones?

I don't think so.  Rand has kicked off a process that will draw many Americans, from both Left and Right, to his side out of that concern over what increasingly looks like a president who may fancy himself a dictator.

People like McCain and many Obama supporters suggest Rand is some sort of delusional paranoid.  Why of course Obama has no designs on destroying political enemies with drones in direct contravention of the United States Constitution!  But are they so sure?  In light of the fact it took nearly 30 minutes for Ted Cruz to drag a simple answer from Holder that no, using drones to kill an American in the country who isn't directly threatening anyone, it is not constitutionally permissable.  Why was he trying so hard to duck the question?

Go, Rand!

Bizarre Radio Stuff

Two things I've heard on the radio that are stunning:

First is Glenn Close doing some ad:
Have you ever cut off ties with a friend because she has cancer?
Or avoided someone with diabetes because you thought he was violent?
Welcome to the world of mental illness.

Say what?  Cut off somebody with cancer or diabetes because you think they're crazy?  OK, they must be trying to make a point that it's ridiculous to think of mental illness as any different than cancer or diabetes, but the ad never explains that.  It sounds like we should expect people with cancer or diabetes to be crazy.  What an awful, confusing ad.

The second is a little news item that keeps running about California's huge gasoline tax increase.  The reporter interviews some guy from the "Board of Equalization".  It was stunning when I first heard it, and I thought maybe I misheard.  But the little story ran multiple times, and that's definitely the name of the board.

Has nobody in California's state government ever read Ayn Rand?  Or did they name the board with the intention to rub it in the noses of Libertarians and Conservatives? 

For those who haven't read Atlas Shrugged, the "Board of Equalization" comes right off the pages of that book.  And let's just say that board was not a positive thing.

Values

I've just been thinking about how those basic values instilled in me as a child have been abandoned.  The more I think through those values, the more I come to realize that every major problem in America can be tied directly or indirectly to their destruction by the self-proclaimed enlightened Progressives.

The list of values:

Starts with the 10 Commandments.
Don't lie
Don't steal
Don't murder
Don't Envy
Respect your Parents
Love God
Take Sundays off
Don't Curse
Don't have sex outside your own Marriage

Then some more:
Do your best in everything you do
Always seek knowledge, get as well educated as possible
Give a solid day's work for a fair day's wage
Respect others
Tell the Truth
Keep your Promises
Choose your Spouse Wisely and raise children together
Mothers should stay home with young children unless its not possible
Men must protect and provide for their families
Accepting Charity from others is a last resort, then must be paid back as soon as possible
Use your excess to help others who are suffering
Live frugally, don't be ostentatious or show off your wealth
Go to Church
Make Bible Study and deepening your knowledge and understanding of Christianity a lifelong endeavor
Pray with your family daily
Love your children and discipline them because you love them
If you are able, go to College.  If you're not College Material, take up a skilled trade.  If you can't do a trade, take whatever unskilled job you can get and do your best every day.
The world doesn't owe you a living.
You succeed in this world only with your own effort and ability.
If  you work hard and persist, you will succeed.
Stay away from anything that intoxicates or alters your ability to think clearly.

What a contrast to the attitudes of today.  I think these values are timeless and true, but most people under 30 would deride me for holding to them.  Some would apply derogatory labels to me for holding them, such as racist, bigot, homophobe, sexist, right-winger, extremist, intolerant.

The popular values these days are abortion, gay marriage, welfare expansion, and a new class of government administrators who steal from the citizens under the guise of helping the poor.  Pocketing most of the money before handing the rest out to the poor only helps the administrators, while turning the poor into helpless dependents.

Woe to those who call good evil and evil good, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness.  We are living in such an age.

My Final Four is Looking Bleak

We're in March, when the best college basketball teams are supposed to be peaking.  My favorite teams from Indiana are not peaking, but rather are slipping.

Indiana no longer deserves to be rated the top team in the country after two straight losses.  Minnesota figured out the way to beat the Hoosiers is to get physical with Cody Zeller inside and play a chaotic defense against the rest of the team.  Thad Motta went to school on the Minnesota game plan and was rewarded last night.  His coaching and Aaron Craft's outstanding performance were the primary reasons behind Ohio State's win at Assembly Hall.

Unfortunately, Indiana didn't learn anything from the Minnesota loss.  Cody laid an egg last night, as did his teammates, who allowed the Buckeyes to rattle them into critical turnovers during crunch time.  When the team's best players are supposed to step up big to help win the tight game for their team, Cody folded.  Victor Oladipo tried to step into the gap, but seemed to try too hard, turning the ball over himself in the process.

So Butler last week proved that St. Louis truly is a better team and then got rolled by VCU.  They've looked so bad lately I'm afraid they won't get past their first game in the NCAA tournament.  Rotnei Clarke is a talented player, but he can't win games for Butler all by himself.

Notre Dame's been playing well lately, but they're clearly not a top 5 team.

Unless Indiana can figure out how they lost to Minnesota and Ohio State and correct their shortcomings very quickly, they're done.  Unless Butler can get Andrew Smith some confidence and get their guards finding their 3-point range again, they're done.

I'll still follow them and hope for the best, but I fear both teams are destined for early exits.

The Campaign that Must End

This morning I found the same message twice in the space of an hour.  First in USA Today's front page article about Jeb Bush, then an interview with Condoleeza Rice on Fox & Friends.  Both were focused on making illegal immigrants legal.

Is it possible all this is tied into Obama's stated priority, which is what he calls "Comprehensive Immigration Reform", but really means "Get as many illegal immigrants voter registration cards as possible before the next election".

We're the only country in the world that refuses to enforce our immigration laws.  Perhaps the most ironic example is Mexico, which happens to be the source of most of our illegal alien population.  Mexico hands out flyers with advice for their people on how to game the U.S. immigration system and the best places to sneak across the border.  But imagine somebody in the U.S. were to sneak into Mexico.  Think they'll be welcoming, as those on the U.S. side advocating open borders demand we be to those who sneak into Texas and Arizona?  Actually, if you're caught sneaking into Mexico, you're guaranteed to be treated harshly.

The unholy alliance that keeps the borders dangerous and lawless is made up of both liberals and so-called conservatives.  Liberals want open borders because they see it as the most valuable path to permanent Democrat party rule, since hispanics vote Democrat in overwhelming numbers.  Republicans want open borders because it's a source of cheap labor.

Hiring an illegal means you don't have to worry about minimum wage, overtime laws, health benefits, or any of those other restrictive government rules.  Illegals tend to show up every day and give you an honest day's work.  Americans tend to show up when they feel like it, often late, then try to give the minimum amount of work effort that just barely keeps them from being fired.  Americans are also more likely to be stoned, and more likely to join unions that promise to make employers' lives even more difficult.

So we have the rare case of Obama being joined by John McCain and Lindsey Graham to push for an open borders bill.  USA Today and Fox News are playing along with this morning's campaign messages from Republicans like Bush and Rice to tell us why we must at least give these 12 million illegals green cards, if not outright citizenship.  McCain and Graham at least say they're demanding secure borders before they'll go along with the other provisions in the new immigration law.  Bush joins Obama on that subject, claiming border enforcement is impractical and unnecessary.

What ever happened to enforcing our country's laws?  What's so wrong with securing the borders and deporting illegals whenever we find them?  Is there any other country in the world that would show sensitivity to a teenager who grew up in their country illegally because he was brought in by his parents?

These folks who are here illegally know they broke the laws.  They likely also have manufactured false ID's and bogus social security numbers which in many cases represent identify theft.

Instead we're opening the cell doors and releasing captured illegals back to the streets, as an Obama punishment to the citizens for allowing the "sequester" to go through.

I have never been more disgusted with my country's leaders, or perhaps with the idiot citizens who gave them the power to destroy us from within.

Letting a Few People in Black Robes Decide

Who would have ever thought it would come to this?

Twenty or thirty years ago, most of us would have laughed anybody out of the room who suggested we were about to hand over the question whether homosexuals have the right to marry each other.  Now it's a reality, being argued under the "Equal Treatment" clause in our Constitution.

This is not a legal issue, and it does not belong in the courts.  The only reason it's being argued in the Supreme Court is that marriage is no longer the foundation of the family, instituted by God and administered by our Churches.  Marriage now equals benefits.

The ugly truth is this:

Marriage would not be litigated in the Supreme Court if not for the transfer payments it enables.

Gay people would have no interest in getting married to each other if there were no Social Security benefits, inheritance laws, adoption rights, or health insurance benefits to be gained.

The biggest lie perpetuated by the Gay Marriage proponents on the Left is that it is somehow the only way to bring justice to a group that's being discriminated against merely because of whom they love.  The truth is that they can love anybody they want - sodomy laws were destroyed years ago, and homosexuals are only prosecuted when they choose to act out their sexual perversions with underage children.

Most unfortunate of all is that this Supreme Court may create a brand new "Right" based solely on sexual behavior.  This new right necessarily infringes on the rights of Christians and other people of faith to practice their most deeply held values.  The next step to occur immediately after this new right is made the law of the land by the tyrranny of 9 unelected people will be the criminalization of Priests, Pastors, Rabbis and Imams who refuse to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples.

Which brings me to what I suspect has been the true agenda of this Gay Marriage Activist movement all along - the destruction of Religion in America.  People of faith already live in fear of proclaiming their values out loud.  Within a few short years we will be forced to hide our faith publicly and meet in secret.

Perhaps the persecuted Church is much more powerful than today's lukewarm and apathetic form of Christianity.  My prayer is for the courage to stay true to my faith even if it means my eventual persecution, imprisonment, or execution.

I am sorry for our next generation, who will certainly be oppressed by the Satan our self-absorbed and entitled generation invited into America.

Dishonest Reporting

So the media across the board is dishonest in their reporting about the "sequester".  Even the talking heads at Fox News can't seem to tell the truth, insisting on repeating the theme that since the GOP voted for it, they share "blame" for the sequester equally with Obama.

Let's review how this thing came to be, and how we arrived at today's automatic implementation of the sequester.

There was this manufactured budget crisis, I think it was called the "Fiscal Cliff".  Obama wanted tax increases but no spending cuts.  The GOP wanted spending cuts but no tax increases.  There is no middle ground between those two goals.  So they made a temporary deal in which Obama insisted on the "sequester" idea, which was a modest across-the-board spending cut that hit Defense hardest and did not touch entitlement spending (you know, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Welfare).

Obama's strategy was that he'd continue holding out for tax increases and the GOP would eventually cave in to save the military from the big budget cuts.  But his belief that the Republicans would give in on taxes to save national security proved way off base.

The press has egregiously misreported that Obama is the reasonable party in these negotiations, failing to ever mention that he has never even met with Republicans to so much as attempt to negotiate an agreement to soften the blow of across-the-board cuts.  They've also done a criminally poor job reporting that the sequestration "cuts" aren't cuts at all, but merely a reduction in the amount of increase to each agency's budget next year.  Which may be at the root of the reason Republicans decided it's better to let the sequester go into effect than to give Obama what he wants - all tax increases and no cuts.

Obama had a meeting with Republican leaders yesterday.  It was the first such meeting to discuss the sequester, and lasted a whole 7 minutes.  Once again, I challenge anyone to find where that fact was reported outside Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio.  That's why liberals assert that conservative media lies, because if the story wasn't on ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/MSNBC, then it must be false.

So liberals and all those folks Rush Limbaugh calls "Low Information Voters" believe that sequestration was a Republican idea somehow forced on Obama against his will, that Obama spent the past year trying to negotiate a "balanced" deal that mixes spending cuts and tax increases to solve the huge deficits but the GOP refused to negotiate, and that horrible consequences are in store for all of us because of drastic cuts in funding to vital government services.

All of those things liberals now believe are utterly false.  The Obama administration has created and expertly perpetuates a national mythology blindly embraced by the majority of Americans who don't take any time to seek out the truth.  That's how he was re-elected, and how he still might get his way, which is restoring every penny of spending pulled back in the sequester while adding more spending on his pet clean energy and socialist programs and hiking tax rates so he can pretend he's being responsible about all that increased spending.

The founders warned us that when the citizens become uneducated, ignorant, and uninterested in government, the United States will lose its unique free republic.  They also warned that as soon as people figure out they can vote themselves benefits, they will destroy the republic and allow tyrants to rule.  Both have come to pass.