2008--THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY

2008–THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

As a tumultuous 2008 draws to a lurching close and a turbulent 2009 waits in the wings for the Times Square ball to drop tomorrow night, it’s an apt time to look back on the past year.

However, since every broadcast and cable network is already presenting its 2008 Year in Review, it would be redundant to do so here. Instead, I humbly offer my picks for the best, the worst, and the ugliest ”things” of 2008.

All of those categories feature multiple, worthy contestants although there are far fewer candidates vying for the peak of the good heap than there are for the bad and ugly top spots.

Far and away the best thing to happen to America over the past year would also have to be the choice for the past seven years as well, namely a non-event, the fact that the nation has not suffered another terrorist attack in almost 88 months.

That fact has led to a distinctly blase’ attitude among many Americans who have pushed memories of 9/11/2001 to back burners or have pushed it off the stove entirely, which is extremely unfortunate since those who forget the past historically ended up reliving it in the future.

Despite one’s view of President George W. Bush, he has to be accorded his due. Our national security programs and systems are deeply flawed, as has been pointed out in this space, but they have evidently been sufficiently effective, so far.

What the future holds, what 2009 and ensuing years have in store for us, is speculative at best but, as of now, we are relatively secure as a nation so the best thing not to happen to America in 2008 is easily the absence of another assault. For that, Americans should be deeply thankful and should be praying the situation continues. GWB deserves tip of the hat.

I struggled to choose the worst thing about 2008 because of the more subjective nature of such a choice....
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HOOKING UP

HOOKING UP ISN’T HARD TO DO, OR CAMPUS SEX

Now that college freshmen are home for winter/holiday (no longer Christmas) break, toting his/her wash and maybe some of that “freshman fifteen” excess poundage, it may be time for another of what we used to call a sitdown.

That was our word for heart-to-hearts when the kids were in high school and in their early college years and we felt a need to impart more of our extensive, mature knowledge, mostly gained from years of making our own stupid mistakes.

Sitdowns, of course, were aimed at imparting sage parental advice on the pitfalls, temptations, and vicissitudes of growing up and moving on down that landmined road of life, delivered in solemn tones, and usually received with poorly-concealed and barely-audible groans.

One notable hazard on that road today is the practice of hookups, a contemporary alternative to dating which itself was fraught with dangers although hookups make those threats to physical safety seem miniscule.

And, despite decades of women’s lib propaganda and graphic sex classes on contracting what used to be called a “social disease”–a misnomer if there ever was one–members of the female gender tend to bear the emotional and physical brunt, no pun intended, of today’s sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s).

Hooking up, simplified, is the modern practice of avoiding relationships and emotional entanglements by having sex. It also serves to relieve the stress of all those books to read and papers to write, and parties to attend, by coupling with someone. In some cases, it simply serves to pass the time and stave off boredom.

That someone could be a “friend with benefits,” a euphemism for a good buddy with whom you copulate as a favor, as a reward, or simply as a way of extending friendship to an ultimate extreme.

Or, it could be someone you just met at a keg party...
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HERB AND MARION SANDLER PURGE SNL

THE SANDLERS DIRTY HANDS AND SNL’S PUSILLANIMITY

Anyone who remembers the early years of “NBC’s Saturday Night,” later called, “Saturday Night Live,” or “SNL,” with its not-ready-for-prime-time-players, is aware that all subsequent efforts to replicate the original have fallen far short of both its success and its innovative brand of humor.

Of the original cast, the pratfalling Chevy Chase is now washed-up, the insanely riotous John Belushi and Gilda Radner are long dead as is the later arrival but almost as funny, Chris Farley. Such personalities as Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Bill Murray went on to some limited measures of post-SNL success.

The notoriously-unfunny Al Franken, who always played his schleppy self, went on to host a failed, liberal talk show and is now in process of stealing a United States Senate seat from Republican, Norm Coleman.

With the exception of Franken, the old, improvisational SNL players had at least a modicum of comedic talent as opposed to the newest crew which should be ready for prime time a few months after hell freezes over.

Even after enticing producer Lorne Michaels back to the show some years back, it’s obvious that SNL will never reclaim its former glory, reasons for which include a lack of talent and the fact that SNL is rarely funny anymore since it has subjugated its humor to Big Media’s Political Correctness.

AmericanThinker.com perfectly illustrated the latter in the recent article on the former “Paper of Record” which prints all the news that fits, the soon-to-be-defunct New York Times: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/the_new_york_times_finally_get.html.

Some bodacious and foolhardy SNL writer(s)...
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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!


“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

THE NOBEL POLITICAL PRIZE

THE NOBEL POLITICAL PRIZE

Does the Nobel Peace Prize Selection Committee ever rescind one of its priceless awards and demand return of its money? If not, it should.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), divvied up the Nobel Peace Prize (Nobelpriset, in Swedish) cash with Al Gore in 2007, splitting the approximate $1.6 million award. Both should cough up their shares since neither has advanced the cause of world peace even an iota.

Gore should have rejected it on the spot, given the fraudulent nature of An Inconvenient Truth, the “documentary” which won him an Academy Award in Hollywood and which must have convinced the Swedes that he knew what he was babbling about. He didn’t, as shown by, among many other sources, this Canadian analysis which described the award as a “travesty:” http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/261.

Now the IPCC has been outed for what it truly is, a group of intergovernmental blowhards pretending to be climatologists committed to saving the planet from itself–and from Americans dirtying up the atmosphere. In actuality, the IPCC now concedes its dire predictions as to the effects and even the existence of global warming aren’t even predictions. Rather, they are “projections:” http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7116.

The IPCC began its word play in 2001 when it altered its nomenclature: “Projections are distinguished from predictions in order to emphasise that projections involve assumptions concerning e.g. future socio-economic and technological developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty.”

Huh? Simplified, that means the IPCC admitted it guesses the future and may very well be totally wrong. Expressed another way, it assumes the climate’s future is predicated on what could happen, and we all know what happens when we assume.

I’m guessing those climatologists looked out a window, sniffed the air, and decided to hedge their language though not their cataclysmic “projections,” which are dependent on which direction the political winds are blowing. In the case of the IPCC, its prevailing winds are always blowing from the Left of the political spectrum.

It’s sad really what has happened to the Nobel Peace Prize. It is now conferred...

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THE T.S.A.

TSA: TRANSPORTION STUPIDITY ADMINISTRATION
If it were simply guilty of stupidity, the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, could almost be forgiven.

Almost.

It’s true that we haven’t suffered a terrorist attack in over seven years but whether that is due to the vigilance of the TSA, due to the investigative skills of the FBI and CIA, due to local police forces, or due to dumb luck is very debatable.

Established in the aftermath of 9/11 because, apparently, America had no need for security prior to that date, the TSA has proven itself to be an inept, lard-ridden, bureaucratic mess staffed with undertrained, underpaid, and undermotivated agents who are seriously in need of remedial classes in common sense and courtesy.

Anyone who has travelled in the last seven years and wended his or her way through the warren of security checks at airports has no doubt encountered a few TSA people up close and personal. I know I have and I’ve seen a few reading newspapers, one doing her nails, and some actually working.

Meanwhile, we have dutifully removed belts, shoes, the contents of our pockets, surrendered our bottles of Perrier, and subjected ourselves to X-rays and in some cases friskings and even body searches. John Gotti endured less official harassment.

The TSA, which is charged with keeping America and Americans and foreign travellers in our land secure, is performing that task in one godawful way. For two analyses of TSA failures, please see http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2007/09/11/TSA-Security-Problems and http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul220.html.

In defining itself and its mission, the TSA website states, ...

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THE USS LIBERTY: INFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION

When I posted the article, “The Shame of the USS Liberty,” I never anticipated such a ruckus over its contents. I felt it was a one-shot deal, just a pertinent reminder of what many still firmly believe was a miscarriage of military and political justice.

The often venomous reactions to my two most recent articles have served as assurances that the subject is well worth a retrospective commemoration, at the minimum or, preferably, an exhaustive re-investigation.

To relegate the memory of the USS Liberty to nothing more than a blip in America’s history would be the equivalent of forgetting Pan Am Flight 103 which was blown out of the night sky over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988.

Simply because Libya has finally admitted its responsibility in that terrorist atrocity and has finally paid reparations doesn’t mitigate the horror of that attack nor does it relieve the burden of Libyan guilt.

So, too, with the Liberty and Israel, which indemnified the victims with some $7 million dollars. Unlike Libya, however, Israel has never admitted any guilt.

Baseless charges of anti-Semitism have been lodged because I have dared to criticize Israel, (as well as my own government), for Isreal’s unprovoked attack on the Liberty. Almost as repulsive have been suggestions that I am a supporter of President-elect Obama since I expressed the sarcastic hope that maybe he would re-open the matter of the Liberty.

Israel is an autonymous, democratic state. It is not a theocracy and to offer valid critiques of that state and its actions represents no more an attack on the Judaic religion than, for example, criticizing the actions of the Canadian government would indicate a disdain for the Canadian people.

Likewise, objecting to the Jewish Lobby in America and finding fault with its inordinate power does not constitute an exercise in hatred of Judaism any more than disdain for lobbyists for Big Oil would imply contempt for gasoline.

As far as I am concerned, allegations of anti-Semitism arising from a discussion of the Liberty, or of the Jewish lobby, is a misleading and dead issue.

Less dead are fair questions as to why I choose to revisit rumors, allegations and facts relating to the events of June 8th, 1967 at this time–or at anytime.

The chief reason would be that the vast bulk of available information on the Liberty does not involve mere rumor and the case has never been closed. Indeed, it was never adequately investigated.

Contrary to some of the sounds and furies which have arisen and critics’ claims that I had ulterior purposes in writing about the Liberty, I simply feel that to forget what happened in 1967 would be to dishonor the forty one innocent men who died and the 174 who were injured and maimed.

Any more than Israel would want the world to forget the horror of the Holocaust, I refuse...
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BURY THE USS LIBERTY STORY? I THINK NOT!

THE USS LIBERTY AND JEWISH CONSTERNATION

What is it about the story of the USS Liberty and the 1967 Israeli attack on that unarmed, American intelligence vessel that so riles people of the Jewish-American community?

Because I posted my previous article, “The Shame of the USS Liberty,” on other websites I have been inundated with accusations of anti-Semitism, threats of expulsion from those sites, and even revocation, sans explanation, of my posting privileges by one, FreeRepublic.com.

That revocation was disappointing but with some 200 million other websites available on the internet it is hardly devastating.

What is devastating is the realization that there are so many people out there who not only resist hearing/reading the truth about Israeli influence on American foreign policy but who then actively campaign to muzzle those who only seek to place a very significant issue on the table, that issue being, What really happened on June 8, 1967 and whether the actions of Israel’s military were by design or simply a gross, and bloody, “mistake.”

If I were the only one “dredging” up the issue, I’d cease my inquiry.

However, I’m far from unique in my quest for an ultimate answer and for a final resolution. Such individuals as Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, United States Navy (Retired), former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, also want definitive answers: http://www.gtr5.com/evidence/moorer.htm.

That resolution cannot be expected shortly, considering the forty-one year old cover-up by our government and by our military, but this names-redacted exchange with the webmaster of one website gives some inkling as to how pervasive that cover-up is and the reasons for it:

(My response to that webmaster precedes his query.)...

(Read the interchange at http://genelalor.com/.)

THE SHAME OF THE USS LIBERTY

THE SHAME OF THE USS LIBERTY

Fortunately, or unfortunately, some news stories have lives of their own. It’s as if they don’t want to die, which is sometimes a very good thing.

Such a story is the disgraceful tale involving the USS Liberty, a disgrace which began more than forty one years ago and continues to this day.

Neither the disgrace nor the shame of the USS Liberty applies in any way to its crew or to its captain, William McGonagle, who subsequently received the Congressional Medal of Honor in recognition of his bravery and refusal to leave the Liberty’s bridge despite being wounded. The shame is on America, the shame is on our shameless politicians, and the shame is on Israel.

For those still unaware of what transpired on the afternoon of June 8th, 1967 in the waters off the Sinai Peninsula, the USS Liberty was a converted Victory ship, a 455 foot vessel then being used for intelligence gathering during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It was attacked by Israeli air and naval forces, strafed and torpedoed, leaving 34 sailors dead and 174 injured, many severely.

A confessed news junky, I had never heard about the Liberty until a decade or so ago. Back in January, 2008, I posted an article here, an interview with Rick Aimetti, a petty officer first class assigned to Damage Control aboard that U.S. Navy vessel. He was one of the survivors and still vividly recalled the events of that day.

The fortuitous circumstances of that interview are detailed here, “Remembering the USS Liberty,” (January 10, 2008, http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=19.)

A calm, composed man, Rick was nevertheless passionate in his recollections, especially about the friends he lost, but also in his certainty that it was a deliberate attack by a presumed ally on an American ship.

That assault continued for hours even though the Liberty was clearly marked and flying the stars and stripes.

Israeli helicopter gunships first took out the ship’s antennae and shot down the flag mast before launching torpedoes in an attempt to, first, cripple the Liberty’s communications and, second, to sink it.

It struck me that with a new president taking office precisely one month from today there was a possibility, however remote, that President Obama would do what seven presidents before him failed to do, namely, give official, government recognition of the Liberty heroes who died that June day, and to acknowledge why they died and were wounded.

That Israel attacked and killed 34 and injured 174 Americans on the Liberty is indisputable. Israel ultimately admitted as much and paid reparations. What it never did was concede intent. Instead, Israel to this day alleges it was a “mistake,” a mistake which could only have been made by two blind Israeli helicopter pilots and three blind Israeli torpedo boat captains.

Petty Officer First Class Rick Aimetti was a witness and a survivor of the attacks on the USS Liberty but he can hardly be considered an objective observer. Running for cover, seeing your dead and bleeding fellow sailors, and trying to keep your ship from going down aren’t situations conducive to objectivity.

His status as an eye-witness has been supported by numerous other accounts, however. Our military and our politicians just love investigations, studies, and inquiries even if they rarely uncover the truth, that whole, nothing but the truth that scares the uniforms off our military and which makes our politicians dive for cover when they can’t admit it.

Such is the truth of the USS Liberty. It has festered on the American conscience for over four decades now.

Five years ago, the National Security Agency, which was instrumental in the outfitting and in the mission of the Liberty, declassified, (under pressure), documents, recordings, and interviews relating to the assault on the USS Liberty: http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/.

Although that wealth of material and information is fascinating, it nevertheless is transparently slanted as can be seen in the interviews of personnel who admit to being pro-Israel and even in the greatly redacted translated transcripts of the Israeli pilots: http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/recordings.cfm.

Far more objective is this analysis of the events of June 8th, 1967: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/margolis12.html. There Eric Margolis dares to spell out the truth and dares to explain and substantiate what really happened that day.

It’s an ugly and shameful truth about the USS Liberty.

Perhaps President Barack Hussein Obama will address that truth and redress the grievances of the crew members such as Rick Aimetti?

One can always hope for “change” from Obama, no?

Festering stinks, literally.
(http://genelalor.com/)

OLD NEWS, BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS

NEWS THAT JUST WON’T GO AWAY:

Back in the Really Ancient History Department, as in 1925, a guy named Adolphus Knopf and others of Margaret Sanger’s coterie, advocated the study and application of eugenics to foster the extermination and enforced sterilization of blacks in America. They also “spoke of purifying America’s human ‘breeding stock’ and purging America’s ‘bad strains.’ These ’strains’ included the ’shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South.’ ” (http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html)

Lest one conclude that those ideas went the way of high button shoes and the Third Reich, be aware that it was that ilk that founded the ABCL, the American Birth Control League, forerunner of the PPFA, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

That repugnant organization is still very actively involved in effecting the precepts of the ABCL, especially the extermination of unwanted babies.

(See “Planned Parenthood, or Rabid Racism,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=48 and “Planned Parenthood, Corporate Racist/Abortionist,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=690.)

INVENTED NEWS:

Bob Cesca of the HuffingtonPost.com is busy here with vainly attempting to prove a negative: “Obama Is Tainted by Crimes He Didn’t Commit,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/obama-unfairly-tainted-by_b_150011.html.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek, he asks whether the Chicago Obamassiah was a co-conspirator with Chicago’s Mayor Daley the First or with Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, who didn’t really burn down Chicago. More than anything else, the wind in the Windy City did.

Sooner use the reductio ad absurdum defense than to confront the truth that nothing happens in or near Chicago that Daley II’s machine doesn’t approve. If Daley Junior and Obama Junior didn’t personally have a sitdown to discuss who would be awarded–dare we say, sold–Barack’s seat in the Senate then it’s certain that the sun rises in the west and sets over Chicago.

Is the President-elect complicit as sin?

That would depend on your definition of sin. If we leave that definition to Rahm Emanuel, we would have to conclude that an Obamassiah, just as Christ, is sinless so if any sins were committed, they would have to be Republican sins.

RENEGADE NEWS:

Next we have the last best hope of Republicans, a man who has all the answers and all the remedies for what ails the Republican Party in 2008. Colin Powell believes the cure starts with Republicans turning off Rush Limbaugh: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/12/022329.php.

Limbaugh’s response: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_121508/content/01125106.guest.html.

My response: Not only did Powell desert the Republican Party by endorsing Obama, in the past (in 1996), he refused to run for the presidency on the Republican ticket because his wife was afraid for his safety as a black man: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-2365633.html.

Let’s see now, a skinny civilian from Illinois, also black, sort of, wasn’t fearful, and he ran, and won. But Alma Powell says, “Colin, I’d be worried if you ran for president,” and a retired, 35 year and much-decorated army veteran, a battle-hardened general, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says, “Fine, dear.”

Methinks something stinks.

Colin, like Eisenhower, had a friend in all the right places. Ike had Eleanor. Colin had and has Alma Powell to keep him safe all those years. Then, having endorsed the totally unqualified Democrat Obama, he criticized both McCain and Palin, attacked the idea of more conservative justices on SCOTUS, and dismissed any connection between Obama and Bill Ayers: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTEzNDA4MDQzOGEwMDc1OTQ2MThlM2VkMmJhYTIzYTY=.

And he presumes to lecture Republicans?

Much more Reagan conservatism, and much less input from pseudo-Republicans such as Colin Powell, are what the Republican Party needed in 1992, 1996, and in ’08, and will need in 2012 to win back this country. As for GWB’s “compassionate conservatism,” that was a joke from the outset and he proved it by spending like a drunken Democrat.

CHRISTMAS NON-NEWS:

A dinner companion brought up the pictures and statuettes we see this time of year showing Santa Claus, head bowed, kneeling beside the infant Christ Child and called it a stupid representation.

I had to object.

Kneeling before the Christ Child puts the secular Mr. Claus in his rightful place as subservient to the true reason for the season and in that vein I offer this apt website on “The Meaning of Christmas,” http://llerrah.com/truemeaningofchristmas.htm.

The site identifies the musical accompaniment as “The Joys of Christmas,” a beautiful piece with music, lyrics, and performance by Margi Harrell. No matter though. It’s the meaning of Christmas as explained in the text which is most important and worth the read.

LIBERAL PRIORITIES

PRIORITIES, PRIORITIES, PRIORITIES

From MassResistance.org:

Budget crisis brings massive cuts in MA state programs - but $700,000 for homosexual programs in schools remains “sacred cow” of politicians. We need to change that!

It’s a time like this when you realize the incredible power the homosexual movement has over our top elected officials.

Massachusetts is in an unprecedented budget crisis. Millions of dollars for programs and services are being cut. But the state’s top elected officials refuse to budge on the $700,000 of your money that’s going to homosexual programs in the public schools. (In October it was lowered slightly from $850,000. That’s still obscenely high — ANY amount is too much — and a huge weapon for homosexual activists in schools. And we hear they’re getting the rest of the money from another government source.)

What is being cut instead?

Massachusetts has a $1.5 billion budget shortfall - and it’s growing. On Tuesday a new estimate predicts the deficit will rise to $2.1 billion by the middle of next year.

Two months ago the budget slashing began. Here are some of the cuts, highlighted in recent news reports, that the Governor and Legislature have made to programs and services in Massachusetts:

1,000 jobs from state payroll.
Head Start pre-school programs ($1 million)
Opiate addiction treatment facilities ($5 million)
Infant immunization facilities ($5 million)
Job training programs ($9 million)
Senior home care services ($3.9 million)
Beach preservation efforts ($368,000)
Aid for thousands of children in homeless families ($250,000)
Help for ex-prisoners re-entering society ($200,000)
Funding for University of Mass. system ($24 million)
Closing four state mental health institutions: $80 million annually.
Plus: Cutting state aid to cities and towns. Last month, House Speaker DiMasi announced that all Massachusetts cities and towns will probably get a 10% cut in local aid - a total of $530 million. All this is in addition to are raising corporate taxes in Massachusetts by more than $400 million (which will affect businesses staying here).

From state website: October list of cuts by the Governor

Politicians claim “Everything’s on the table”

Things have gotten so bad in recent weeks that the phrase “Everything’s on the table” is being thrown around a lot by top politicians. But is that really true in this case? We decided to find out.

Last week, Senate President Therese Murray was quoted in the Boston Globe saying “Everything’s on the table. Things are that bad.”


The bottom line right now, the homosexual lobby pretty much owns the State House. The list of politicians who’ve caved in is quite amazing. It’s pretty clear that the funding for homosexual activism in the public schools - as hideous and destructive as it is - isn’t going to get cut, even as every other program gets slashed to nothing. This will continue unless “something terrible” is done, as Margaret Thatcher used to say. (And she would do it!)

What to do?

At the very least, letting them know we’re outraged is always tremendously important. They need to hear from citizens. They need to know that we’re never going to give up. These are the legislative leaders who are protecting the funding.

Governor Deval Patrick - 617-725-4005

Senate President Therese Murray - 617-722-1500

House Speaker Sal DiMasi - 617-722-2500

Senate Ways & Means Chairman Steven Panagiotakos - 617-722-1630

House Ways & Means Chairman Robert Deleo - 617-722-2990

Need to build momentum

Every time we’ve beaten the homosexual lobby, it’s because we played to our strength. Their strength is money, influence, and the media. Our strength is large numbers of people. We plan to organize thousands of more people this year. That’s the only thing we’ve concluded is going to stop this. And as Margaret Thatcher would say, maybe we need to make a more “terrible” impression on them than the homosexual lobby does.


(For a companion piece, see next article on how New York State is handling its budgetary crisis. Hint: As a sister “liberal state,” there’s not much difference: http://genelalor.com/.)

WANT TO LIVE LONGER? MOVE!

WANT TO LIVE LONGER? MOVE!

There’s a killer on the loose, a killer responsible for some 20,000 deaths over thirty-five years, an uncontrollable, mindless, inhumane killer: Mother Nature.

Sure, there were worse killers during the period 1970-2004. According to a study on natural disasters, heart disease claimed 652,091 lives, cancer, 559,312, stroke (cerebrovascular diseases), 143,579, chronic lower respiratory diseases, 130,933, and accidents (unintentional injuries), 117,809.

That’s some toll and those are some pretty gory numbers but those merciless marauders are (somewhat) preventable and, when they strike, their victims are usually isolated and the damage they cause limited in scope. When Mom Nature really goes on a tear, the devastation is much more widespread and not confined to people.

We in the Northeast seem relatively safe, compared to those living in the South or on the Gulf Coast, except when the freak blizzard dumps a few feet of the white stuff on us or when an errant hurricane decides to roar up the coast. We more than paid our dues with the unnamed 1938 storm that ripped a hole in Long Island and people in the far reaches of Maine tasted Atlantic seawater.

That doozey, dubbed the Long Island Express by some, caused hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage. The casualty total was limited only by the sparse number of residents in the path of the Express.

You can run but you can’t hide when the forces of nature decide to remind us of who’s really in charge on our planet. With diseases, you can’t run far enough or fast enough to escape your genetic history but you can take precautions. With the threat of natural catastrophes, you can escape to “higher ground,” as the “death map” here shows:

(See the map and read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)

NOW THEY WANT YOUR TODDLERS!

PUBLIC EDUCATORS NOW WANT YOUR TODDLERS

Having succeeded in virtually wrecking the American public education system, the American Federation of Teachers, AFT, partners with the National Education Association, NEA, now wants to work on America’s toddlers.

Although technically separate organizations, the AFT and the larger NEA hooked up, partnered, some years back since they are mirror images of one another in terms of common goals, philosophies, and “projects,” (http://www.nea.org/aboutnea/NEAFTPartnership.html), point being that anything said about the AFT applies equally to the NEA.

And much can be said and written about these two teacher unions. See, for example, articles published here, including “Educational Fudging,” (http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=189), and “America’s Schools: Freefall into the Third World,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=210.

Now, AFT President Randi Weingarten has announced that her group wants to reach out and do unto toddlers, three year olds, what they’ve been doing to older kids for decades, namely indoctrinating rather than teaching them.

Needless to say, she doesn’t spell out the AFT’s intent in quite those many words. Instead, Ms. Weingarten says, “The research is completely conclusive of the issue that our brains develop faster between birth and five years old than they do pretty much at any other time,” which is probably true.

As the Big Bad Wolf would put it, an apt metaphor for the AFT and the NEA, “Better to propagandize you, my little dears.”

Weingarten concedes that kids, (babies, actually, at age three), would be better off in their home environments but “some” don’t have “good” homes. Therefore, her illogical conclusion is that all three year olds should be in school where greater “opportunity” can be presented to them.

May God forbid that any kids be home-schooled since that abominable concept has long been considered anathema to the AFT/NEA and almost the equivalent of child abuse!

Weingarten is seconded by former Assistant Education Secretary Susan Neuman who also presents the case that “most of our children need child care, regardless” but it should be in a “quality environment.”

It’s unclear if Ms. Neuman was issuing notice to the AFT/NEA that lax child care would be unacceptable.

It’s an unfortunate fact of American life today that, in order to provide a good and comfortable home, even with families with with two parents, both often have to work outside the home.

Weingarten is using that fact of life to make her case for our public educational system to get its clutches on younger and younger kids. It began with full day kindergarten, progressed to pre-K “education” and is now focused on pre-pre-K children.

That progression has two aims in mind. There’s the obvious goal of creating more jobs, and a greater membership, for the AFT/NEA, and the less obvious purpose of molding the minds of three year old babies.

That “molding,” as noted in previous articles, incorporates such ideas as creating acceptance of diversity, especially acceptance of homosexuality as simply a variation from the norm, and inculcating socialist, Democratic Party principles.

(For doubters of the latter, please see http://fwcon.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/wea-fined-extorts-money-from-teachers-for-democratic-party/ and http://www.heartlessandbrainless.com/2008/09/breaking-teachers-union-stranglehold.html.

So, here we are, America. We have a proven failed educational system run by the AFT/NEA which now aims to expand that failure to toddlers.

As the song goes, “When will we ever learn, when will we everrr learn?”
(http://genelalor.com/)

CRINGE, FUNNY, AND IRRELEVANT TALES

CRINGE, FUNNY, AND IRRELEVANT TALES

There were 8 million stories in the old “Naked City” television series and it sometimes seems another 8 million hit the newswires daily. Some few are cringe-worthy, some evoke a chuckles, but most are overblown instances of the need for newspeople to publish or perish, aka, Who Cares Stories.

CRINGE STORIES:

A. Madonna to buy off Guy Ritchie with a divorce settlement of up to $90 million: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D953B1Q01&show_article=1. This is cringe-worthy only because Ritchie should have taken the multi-wed slut from Michigan for at least $100 million!

B. Honest to goodness cringe story: United States Excluded from Latin America Summit: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a0a8IQrfwSFU&refer=worldwide. China, Russia, and even Iran are making inroads with our Latin neighbors and making a joke of the nearly two century old Monroe Doctrine which defined that area as part of our “sphere of influence.” The handwriting is on history’s wall and it reads, “America’s Day is Over.” All empires eventually reach a conclusion but the American Empire is going into the dustbin of history with barely a fight. T.S. Eliot called it in “The Hollow Men:” which ends, “This is the way the [American] world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.”

On the lighter side,

CHUCKLE STORIES:

A. The Iraqi shoe-thrower: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/15/mideast/shoe.php. Although I realize throwing one’s shoe at someone is considered a deep insult in the Arab world, as is just exposing the soles of one’s shoes, which is the reason Arabs wash their feet before entering a mosque. I don’t know or care about the derivation of that tradition but both the shoe-throw-as-insult and the foot washing no doubt find their origins in all that camel dung that Arabs probably step in daily and I imagine camel dung caked on shoes or sandals or between toes isn’t a pretty sight. President Bush, to his credit, seemed entertained rather than upset as he deftly dodged the missiles and kept smiling. Personally, I’d hurl my shoes and my dirty jockeys at any leader of the military that humiliated and defeated my country. Living in a third-rate nation must be a daily downer.

B. New York’s Fat Tax: ...

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CHRISTMAS RADICALS: CONCLUSION

CHRISTMAS RADICALS: CONCLUSION

Those who haven’t read my two previous articles on the bride’s campaign for equal treatment of Christmas should really read them: http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/index.php?s=bride.

It’s not that they’re exceptionally well-written or riveting but the end result of her campaign has proven to be very surprising and could be termed, “One small step for the bride, one giant leap for Christmas.”

To review: My wife of 40 + years isn’t really radical, in most respects, but certain inequities tend to get her dander up. One inequity, a blatant offense, actually, is that most private and public institutions this time of year believe that Santa Claus, “holiday trees,” and wreaths are adequate displays in recognition of the Christmas season.

Fair enough, except when those same private institutions such as state and federally chartered banks then honor Hannukah, the Jewish festival of lights which falls the same time of year as Christmas, with representations of the symbol of Hannukah and of Judaism, the menorrah.

That’s fine, too, except for the fact that the menorrah is a religious symbol and Santa, trees, and wreaths are not. To be accurate and, yes, fair and equitable, a Nativity scene, a creche depicting the birth of the Christ Child, the only reason for the Christmas season, should be accorded at least equal time.

So the radical bride protested last year. She wrote letters and made calls to the headquarters of Capital One Bank, spoke to a few reps, and was told her complaint “would be considered.”

Well, lo and behold, they were considered and today she saw a Nativity scene at our local branch. It wasn’t huge and it wasn’t displayed prominently but it was there in relatively full view.

She extended her sincere appreciation to the branch manager who seemed a tad taken aback by the thanks.

True, the bride’s success wasn’t a huge accomplishment and this is hardly the time to have to engage in competition sports with menorrahs but it was a notable small step and should stand as an encouragement to those who feel as we do. A journey of a thousand miles still begins with that first step, right?

Make your voices heard to banks, et al. Let the managers and, especially, the powers that be at HQ, that we insist on at least one, small Nativity scene.

Then we can go after public institutions.

You never know!

GLOBAL WARMING NEWSPEAK

GLOBAL WARMING NEWSPEAK

Contrary to popular belief, George Orwell lives.

Okay, technically the author of 1984 passed to the great beyond in 1950 but Orwellian thought lives and thrives in the persons of Al Gore and his fellow global warmists who employ Orwell’s “Newspeak” whenever necessary, i.e., whenever reality gets in the way of their propaganda.

As the Northeast shivers, as Montana sets a new record low temperature, (-31 degrees), as snow hit semi-tropical New Orleans, never is heard a discouraged word from the Gorewarmists. They attribute the freeze not to the oncoming winter solstice when things tend to get cold in the Northern Hemisphere but to, what else, global warming: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081214/D952LKP00.html.

Classic Newspeak or Doublespeak, take your pick, or language and interpretation distorted to serve ideological goals rather than the accepted purpose of language, to communicate.

You can almost feel Gore’s sweat in the increasingly-panicked tone of the rhetoric being spewed from the warmists’ new acolyte, President-elect Barack Obama, “The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over . . .We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way.”

He is supported by one scientist who warns of a natural Armageddon, “We are out of time . . . Things are going extinct.” Meanwhile, from Reality Land, this report on thousands of new species of flora and fauna, from plants to mammals, to insects, to frogs, to fish, being discovered in Asia:...

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ISN'T IT TIME FOR AN ULTIMATUM?

ISN’T IT TIME FOR AN ULTIMATUM?

It struck me a long time ago that our leaders in America almost blithely go about our business with such little concern for our well-being, most specifically with regard to future attacks by terrorists on our soil.

They’ve put us in a defensive posture with such tactics as airport screenings and patdowns and with all sorts of other defensive measures which are supposed to make us feel secure and to continue travelling, shopping, attending various sporting events and the like but we’re about as secure as we were on September 10th, 2001.

It’s all a charade, a deadly charade, as evidenced by the recent report on the probability of some sort of WMD attack by the year 2013: http://themoderatevoice.com/24772/report-wmd-bioattack-or-nuclear-attack-likely-on-us-by-2013/.

Not by 2012 or 2011, mind you, and not in 2009, but by 2013 and not by 2014.

I can’t believe I’m the only person in America who perceives the absurdity of such a report, absurd not because it was written and given to President Bush by the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism but that the United States of America felt the need for such a commission.

We are not India, we are not Pakistan, we are not a banana republic which should be sitting back and saying, as this report does, “Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing:” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/01/national/main4641534.shtml?source=mostpop_story. And CBS.com and other media simply post the story as if it were the equivalent of another bloody murder or more news on Governor Blago’s scandals.

CBS asks the question: Are we ready? Are we ready for a nuclear or biological or any other mass attack on our nation.

I say that if we have to ask the question, we are not, and the fact that our “margin of safety is shrinking” attests to that. Of more relevance is the question, Why are we not doing something about it?

Why are we sitting back and in effect saying, Well, we’ve done what we can to insure our national security but we know it’s not enough so just bring it on and let’s see what happens? Is that not the same defeatist approach that France adopted with its farcical Maginot Line?

An ounce of prevention is said to be worth a pound of cure. That hackneyed maxim is fine advice for avoiding the flu but has no application when we are discussing our future and, conceivably, the national survival of the United States. In our current situation as we await another devastating attack or attacks, an ounce of pre-emption is worth a ton of phony, misleading security efforts which that commission admits are useless.

I’m not proposing that we attack all or any of our many enemies, enemy nations or groups within ostensibly friendly nations. That would enhance our security but would be far beyond the pale of civilized response even to this grave threat.

What I propose is outlined in my book, An Immodest Proposal for Ending and Winning the War on Terror. In a nutshell, my proposal is to put our enemies, is to put the planet, on notice that America will just not tolerate attacks on our soil. That’s it, pure and simple. I obviously flesh out that notice in great detail in the book as well as detailing the repercussions of such attacks.

Is this alarmist? Is issuing an ultimatum that no enemy had better try to mess with us, to tread on us, to attack us, alarmist? You’re damned right it is! Is the book alarmist, again damned right it is, but before condemning that alarm, consider the alternative of waiting patiently and stupidly to be hit and maybe pummeled into the dust of history.

This is not a pitch to sell said book, which is available on Amazon.com. and at other outlets. In fact, I will be more than happy to provide a complementary copy, at my expense including shipping and handling, to anyone who sincerely wants to read it and who will promise to try to do something about the peril our country faces.

If I’m wrong, if the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism is wrong, then you get a free book to use to light a fire.

I hope we’re wrong.

(http://genelalor.com/)

GAY WATCH

GAY WATCH: GWB, THE POPE, U.N., OBAMA

It never seems to end.

I’m not referring to the Governor Blago–Chicago–Obama–Rezko affair(s), which won’t end for months and which may be concluded with more resignations and indictments than just Illinois Governor Blagojevich’s.

I refer to Gays in the News.

First, we have the LGBT set, (that’s the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered set, for those not in the know), which is up in arms over President Bush’s and America’s silence on the U.N.’s statement calling for decriminalization of homosexuality.

It has not yet been set in stone, but the United States is the only Western nation that has not endorsed the proposal: http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid68209.asp.

The entire European Union is on board but some 80 or 86 other nations still regard homosexual activities to be illicit and 5 impose the death penalty for such intercourse. One gay activist stated, “Washington will lose ever more respect and credibility if it fails to endorse this statement of support for LGBT human rights.”

This “gay friendly” website, http://mwcnews.net/content/view/27122&Itemid=1, points out that the only nation in the Middle East that supports a U.N. declaration is Israel.

I say kudos to Bush and our United Nations team. I think executing gays for acting out sick, gay behavior is extreme and unjust but I also think we shouldn’t endorse such perversity.

Second is this story about the Vatican’s opposition to that same U.N. declaration which, in effect, declares that homosexuality is fine and dandy and which opposition gays consider “grotesque”: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,464245,00.html.

With that disapproval, Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican are simply adhering to time-honored and Biblical proscriptions against the “abomination” that is homosexuality.

Times may change and agitators may agitate but if the Church ever becomes influenced to change its fundamental precepts by changing times and protests it will no longer be the Catholic Church. It will become the equivalent of Imus’ “First Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Worship.”

In that eventuality, the Catholic Church will not deserve to survive so I therefore accord encouragement, and more kudos, to my Church.

Finally,...
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THE JACKSON DUO AND PRESIDENT BIDEN

THE JACKSON DUO AND PRESIDENT BIDEN

I guess I shouldn’t talk since I live in a liberal cesspool, Nueva York, but I’ve at least been blessed not to live in Illinois or, God forbid, in the murder capital of the nation, Chicago.

I admit that until recently I knew next to jacksquat about the son of the “Reverend” Jesse Jackson. Mostly I knew he was the son of Jesse Jackson Senior and shares his daddy’s name, which is reason enough to doubt his honesty and integrity.

Whether he truly shares his daddy’s character, Jesse Senior’s penchant for sexual shenanigans, his shakedown skills, his proven hypocrisy, and his facile prevarications, has yet to be determined but nuts usually don’t fall far from the tree.

The elder Jesse is known for many things. Witness to MLK’s assassination, he cashed on that quirk of history by launching a life as agitator and extortionist to help fund his RainbowPUSH (People United to Save/Serve Humanity) Coalition and he has been very successful at it.

He made abortive runs for the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988, garnering “impressive . . . surprising” totals of 450 and 1000 delegates, respectively. However, whether those numbers were truly impressive and surprising is debatable given the racial makeup of the Democrats delegate base.

After frequent denials, he finally fessed up in 1998 to conceiving a “love child” with staffer Karin Stanford in 1996 while serving as Bill Clinton’s “spiritual advisor” in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. RainbowPUSH paid her off: (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E1DF153CF933A15752C0A9679C8B63)

The irony of Jesse Jackson Senior serving as a spiritual advisor to anyone is beyond precious.

Undeterred, he went into temporary seclusion and returned to his “ministry” some time later. No word on whether his wife of 46 years, Jacqueline, shared his retreat.

He most recently was seen weeping at Barack Hussein Obama’s post-election festivities in Grant Park, Chicago, tears shed either for his earlier failures to win the presidency, for Obama’s “transformational” election, or for both.

Prior to that, his reference to nuts made in front of an open mic during the campaign justly earned him more notoriety. His wish to castrate the presidential nominee, articulated in gutter language, (cutting Barack’s nuts off), which was very irreverent for a “reverend,” resulted in no Secret Service investigation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g57ORgDUgYs.

Apparently, the Secret Service cut Jesse Senior some slack since Jesse was just ...

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SELL YOUR DAUGHTERS!

WANNA MAKE A FEW BUCKS? JUST SELL YOUR DAUGHTER!

Tracy Abdur-Rasheed’s name sounds suspiciously Muslim but that can’t be since Muslims never prostitute themselves and, good grief, would never force their daughters to become hookers. Anyway, Tracy had a party in Detroit the other night.

Probably due to Republicans refusing, so far, to bail out the auto industry, Tracy threw the party to make ends meet while she waited for Congress to bail her out.

It wasn’t a byob type of party but rather a byoc, (”c” for cash), type of party and some 20 gents/johns showed up and plunked down $15. for some entertainment and what better entertainment is there for perverts than dancing, naked, underaged teenagers?

According to this CNN/Breitbart report, two sixteen year old girls were forced by Tracy to dance nude or semi-nude on stage for the patrons. One just happened to be her daughter: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=238663.

Times are tough in Detroit right now and in the rest of the Rust Belt and Ms. Tracy must have figured that hosting a byoc party sure beat getting a job, especially if that job meant getting greasy slapping up burgers or getting dirty slopping dirty floors.

This was easy money. Fifteen bucks X twenty guys = $300 and...
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GLOBAL WARMING FRAUD

GLOBAL WARMING FRAUD

DrudgeReport.com often pairs conflicting stories with the same admirable goal as Fox News’ motto of, “We report, you decide,” and unlike the liberal press approach of, “This is the truth, now shut up and do what you’re told!” This particular pairing is positively scary.

On the one hand, we have the AP story about global warming, “Thousands Negotiate New Climate Treaty,” http://www.livescience.com/environment/081210-ap-climate-treaty.html, a report on efforts of global warmists to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new plan that will put bigger and sharper teeth in enforcement.

It begins with a typical, leftist fait accompli: ”POZNAN, Poland (AP) — Scientists studying the changing nature of the Earth’s climate say they have completed one crucial task — proving beyond a doubt that global warming is real. Now they have to figure out just what to do about it.”

And do they have solutions to save the planet! Those “futuristic” solutions include, “imitating the cooling effects of a massive volcanic eruption by spreading sulfur in the atmosphere, or scattering billions [of] tiny refractors high in the air to dim the sun and lower the temperature.” The warmists do admit that, “such radical solutions involve risks.”Ya think?

Let’s see now. The scientific gods would like to imitate the effects of Krakatoa, which claimed 36,000 lives, or Mount St. Helens, which caused untold devastation, by poisoning the atmosphere or to play Mother Nature by cooling the Earth with “tiny refractors” to deflect the rays from Father Sun....

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JEWS IN AMERICA II

JEWS IN AMERICA II: WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON

Part One of this series dealt with some notable Jews and with great Jewish contributions to America and posed the question, Since the Jewish people as a group have contributed so much to this country, why does such animosity toward them still exist?

That’s a difficult question to answer but Part Two offers one explanation, the nature of the Jew.

Attempting to categorize an entire people, a very ancient people, attempting to pigeonhole millions of individuals into a box, a category, is an effort fraught with land mines–and is even more a presumptuous undertaking when a non-Jew makes that attempt.

Is it even fair to try to do it? Does it reflect bias to suggest categorization? Is labelling tantamount to discriminating? Does anyone dare to suggest that the Irish, the Russians, the Poles, Hispanics, African Americans, Orientals are homogeneous groups open to being easily labelled?

I believe it is fair and it need not be a product of bias. And, actually and allowing for fine distinctions, those latter nationalities and races are often linked and categorized, based on tastes, behaviors, interests, activities, and even public records.

The Irish tend to celebrate life more than most, Russians tend to be dour, Poles are more often carefree, Hispanics are mostly industrious, Blacks are more likely to have issues with law enforcement, and Orientals tend to be studious and serious and to over-achieve.

All of those are generalized stereotypes, obviously, but generalizations founded on reasonable and fair observations and statistical proofs, although there are always exceptions.

Jews are unique in that almost to the person, male or female, younger or older, they are a driven people. The reasons for that I will leave to genetic experts. I can only speculate based on personal experiences while living in New York City, a town which includes as many Jews as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined.

Point is, I have met, known, and “experienced” many people of the Jewish persuasion and I know, at least to some extent, what Jews have in common.

I will admit that during my youth in the South Bronx,...

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MINOR STORIES ABOUT INTERESTING TIMES

May you live in interesting times is an ancient Chinese aphorism and, for better or worse, we seem to be living in very interesting times. Whether our times will be times to remember fondly is another matter entirely.

None of the following stories come close to matching the newsworthiness of the debacle in Illinois where Governor Rod Blagosomething had a rude awakening this morning and was carted off to the hoosegow for being what is traditional for Illinois governors, a crook: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=40546.

However, they all have to qualify as being interesting for various reasons.

BLACK GOV ON BLACKS

Governor-By-Scandal David Patterson of New York made a witty, racist remark at the Gridiron Dinner the other night in New York. During the gag-filled occasion, he said, “Once you go black you can’t go back”: http://www.politico.com/blogs/anneschroeder/1208/Gov_David_Paterson_at_the_Gridiron_He_said_what_.html?showall. His quip was a reference to the election of the nation’s first black president and his own ascendance to the governorship by virtue of previous Governor Spitzer’s inability to keep his zipper zipped. Okay, it was meant in jest, I suppose, but imagine the uproar had a white governor made an equivalent remark. Think Senator Trent Lott and Rush Limbaugh. Double standard, anyone?

A DAY WITHOUT A GAY

Back in the old days, Americans who like to protest would do it actively by sending a letter of complaint or by taking to the streets and marching and chanting and waving placards. Protesters still do that of course but gay protesters are adding a new wrinkle....

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homosexual death wish?

HOMOSEXUAL DEATH WISH?

I really think homosexuals have a death wish. It’s not that they’re literally or necessarily wishing for the great beyond but they do seem to tempt fate, in many ways.

Emboldened by their successes over the last few decades in achieving greater acceptance in society, they continue to push for more and more but they seem oblivious to the reality that pushing too much on that envelope could result in a backlash from the vast majority of straights.

Undeterred by the messages of Proposition 8 or by other rejections of their lifestyle on Election Day in America, Dutch homosexuals, instead of retreating to their closets and adopting a lower profile, ramped up their in-your-face tactics with plans for a gay holiday festival in Amsterdam replete with two Josephs and two Marys: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=40473.

Of course and obviously, the Netherlands is not the United States. However, don’t these people read the papers?

Also, Amsterdam is Amsterdam and operates on its own rules and lack of rules as Europe’s Sin City but the burghermeisters there have recently been trying to clean up its reputation. (Please see previous article, “Dutch Sex City To Clean Up, [Part of] Its Act.”)

Apparently, Dutch gays didn’t read that story either.

Gays don’t seem satisfied with their worldwide gains such as laws banning discrimination against homosexuals, and some nations, and American states, permitting gay unions and marriages. Considering their status of just a few decades ago and the all but universal disdain societies had for them, one would think they wouldn’t go out of their way to avoid needlessly antagonizing people.

Yet, antagonize they do both in America and abroad ...

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THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT BARRY

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT BARRY

There was something about Mary in the raunchy movie with a similar title and, although it may not be the same something, there’s also something about Barry, our President-elect, aka Barack Hussein Obama.

What that something is remains to be seen since the mass media never saw fit to inquire.

He reminds me of a character in a movie a while back who wages an unlikely campaign for a U.S. Senate seat, somehow wins, and then says something to the effect, “Okay, what the hell do we do now?”

Obama came out of nowhere, except for his role as keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention when he wowed the delegates, and went on to win the Illinois junior senator seat that same year and four years later he has been elected the 44th President of the United States.

A phenomenal story!

It mattered not at all to the electorate that his experience in governing was non-existent, that his experience as a legislator on the national level was close to nil, that he was an arch liberal who voted twice in Illinois to let infant abortion survivors die, or that he was burdened with more baggage than Rudy Giuliani.

Aside from his gross, personal underqualifications,...
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CHRISTMAS PART IV: A RE-PRINT OF A 3 YEAR OLD ARTICLE

Home » Archives » December 2005



This Christmas Season
By Gene Lalor
Posted On December 22, 2005

Well, the weather outside is frightful….That’s not really true in the New York City area right now, although commuters would probably prefer the transit strike to have happened in June, rather than December, but the weather mavens say it will be frightful soon enough. Other things this Christmas season are sort of frightful though, notably, the relentless campaign by some folk to virtually abolish this most holy season and to replace it with a secular “holiday” which extols Grinch-y greed and, as Wordsworth wrote many years ago, “getting and spending.”

Without trying to antagonize the left wing of this country — since it is the season of good will — I really don’t grasp their motives in trying to secularize Christmas. Ok, there are many un-Christian things I could say about America’s “liberals,” but I’ll forgo them, or most of them.

The point is, What’s the harm of Christmas? We’re told the nation is eighty-four percent Christian and that some ninety-four percent, whatever their religion, or lack thereof, celebrate Christmas. Many actually go to church! And, it’s not only the season of good will but it’s a season when people at least try to mend familial fences, when people, more than they do usually, sincerely hope and wish for peace on earth and good tidings to everyone, when people even tend to smile more.

Just what’s so bad about all that?

I hate to say it, but I believe those who oppose Christmas–and many do oppose it, despite their protestations to the contrary–seem to have a certain negative mind-set, unfortunately a characteristic of the “liberal” psyche. New York area cases in point include a recent flap over a Catholic priest actually daring to use the words “Jesus Christ” at a Christmas tree lighting and another involving a Nativity scene, or manger, and a menorah.

For those from Jupiter, ...

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I REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR

PEARL HARBOR: I REMEMBER THAT DAY

“History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.” (Konrad Adenauer)

December 7th ring a bell for anyone? It should, even if you’re less than 67. Sixty seven years ago today, America suffered the worst attack in its history until that dubious distinction was supplanted by the devastation of September 11th, 2001.

I was still in my mother’s womb on December 7th, 1941, yet I remember it well.

I remember that day because of the immense damage caused to our Pacific Fleet by a long-planned and well-executed sneak attack by the Japanese navy, executed coincidentally as Japanese representatives were gathered in Washington for peace talks, executed by a huge, undetected Japanese task force including six aircraft carriers.

I remember that day because of the immensity of the operation, five midget submarines and some 360 planes which began hitting Pearl just before 8 a m on a quiet Sunday morning, an assault in three waves that continued for two hours, resulting in 2,403 Navy, Army, and Marine, and civilian KIAs, wounding an additional 1282 personnel, and damaging or destroying eight battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers, a minelayer, almost 200 aircraft and numerous ground facilities.

I remember that day because of FDR’s speech before Congress asking for a declaration of war when he called December 7th, 1941, “the day that shall live in infamy” in our nation’s history, his speech serving to mobilize and motivate Americans to come together to defeat the Axis powers, which we succeeded in doing within less than four years.

I remember that day because of the controversy which still lingers: What did FDR know and when did he know it? Had he ordered the Pacific Fleet to gather at Pearl Harbor in a defensive maneuver or was that order intended to provide an inviting target for the Japanese, begging an attack to spark outrage in the citizenry and easing our entry into the Second World War?

I remember that day on the 7th of every December as well as on the 11th of every September when other sneak attacks effected an even greater loss of life and wrought far more damage not in a faraway place but on the mainland in New York City, Washington, D.C., and in a field in Pennsylvania.

I remember that day because it should always be remembered, as the events of 9/11/2001 should always be remembered. When we forget such momentous and terrible events or when we simply do not want to recall them, we expose ourselves and our nation to repeated attacks.

“Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum,” (If you want peace, prepare for war), wrote Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus some sixteen hundred years ago and they are still words to live by in 2008. We were not prepared in 1941 and we were not prepared in 2001 and the results were catastrophic.

The more relevant questions are whether we are prepared in 2008 and have we learned anything from history.

(http://genelalor.com/)

JEWS IN AMERICA: THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS

JEWS IN AMERICA I: THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS

Jews have taken a lot of flak over the centuries. Okay, that’s hardly news although it is worthy of re-statement.

They have been persecuted and prosecuted for millennia, reviled as “Christ Killers,” subjected to pogroms and to the Holocaust, blamed for everything from recessions to depressions, and, in America, accused of having and exerting excessive power and influence in relation to their percentage of the population.

Just as with discussing Blacks or gays in America, there is a certain assumption of bigotry associated with any non-Jew writing about those of the Jewish persuasion so I must hasten to correct that erroneous assumption with regard to this series.

Neither this article nor this series of articles will represent an exercise in “Jew bashing,” too much of which already emanates from brainless twits known as Neo Nazis and skinheads who wish for a return to a return to the days of Adolph Hitler. You may recall those days, the days and nights of kristallnacht, gas chambers, mass murder of twelve million people, and a war which brought death and destruction to the planet and the loss of seventy one million people in World War II.

That is not to suggest, either, that this article and those which follow will avoid controversy or fail to present both sides of questions, allegations, and opinions on this or any other subject.

The series is intended not to castigate or in any way diminish the Jewish people but rather to comment fairly and evenhandedly on a topic on which many non-Jews hold strong opinions but few dare to speak or write openly.

That in itself is troublesome. We still enjoy the rights extended by the First Amendment and any speech or writing not intended to harm or incite rebellion should be acceptable, even though it often is not.

In researching the subject of Jews in America, I’ve discovered that there are countless websites devoted to “Jews.” Google the word and almost 32,000,000 sites are found, an incredible number considering that less than five million websites pop up for “Protestants” and “Hindus,” eleven million for “Catholics,” and twenty seven million for “Muslims.”

According to the C.I.A. World Factbook, Protestants comprise 6% of the global population, Hindus 13%, Roman Catholics 17%, Muslims some 21%, while Jews make up a scant one-quarter of 1%: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/xx.html.

Jews as a subject therefore comprise a miniscule number of believers worldwide yet an inordinate number of websites in some fashion or other make reference to them, at least on the Google search engine.

Those websites and percentages clearly show that there is a great interest in Jews and the question has to be, Why?...

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)

USING "DIRECT FORCE" IN WWIII

USING “DIRECT FORCE” IN WORLD WAR III

A bipartisan commission has recommended, since all such commissions can ever really do is recommend, that “the incoming Obama administration . . . must not rule out the use of ‘direct force’ – military action – against Iran and North Korea, if diplomatic negotiations fail to stop their nuclear weapons programs”: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=40263.

Said commission, headed by former senator Bob Graham (D-FL), and named with the presumptuous, wide-ranging title, “The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) Proliferation and Terrorism,” is an outgrowth and stepchild of the 9/11 Commission, another teats-on-a-bull waste of time and taxpayer money.

Warning that “the greatest danger of another catastrophic attack in the United States will materialize if the world’s most dangerous terrorists acquire the world’s most dangerous weapons,” is tantamount to warning that venomous snakes will eventually emerge from their shells.

The CPWMDPT group’s report was called, “World At Risk,” a heady appellation if there ever was one and reminiscent of “The World At War” television series. The latter title, which referred to World War II, could just as easily be applied to our current “risk” since we are in fact at war today as much as we were in the 1940’s. When it’s over, future historians will refer to it as the Third World War.

The most significant difference is that Americans and our leaders today refuse to accept that reality. We prefer to appoint investigative commissions, which sure beats war mobilization.

Also, to focus on Iran and North Korea, to even suggest that those rogue nations are the primary threats to our interests and therefore we should preemptively those threats, represents subterfuge and disingenuousness of the worst kind.

With proven maniacs in charge, Kim Jong-Il of the Democratic People’s of North Korea (DPRK), , and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Iran’s helm, , not much that is positive can be gained by negotiations, as President Clinton discovered and still refuses to admit. . . .

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)

PLANNED PARENTHOOD: CORPORATE RACIST/ABORTIONIST

PLANNED PARENTHOOD, CORPORATE RACIST/ABORTIONIST

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the organization founded by racist/eugenicist Margaret Sangar, pretends to be aghast when one of its employees is caught breaking the law: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=40329. It’s hardly a rarity and if anyone should be aghast it’s the American people at the activities of this group.

(Also see “Planned Parenthood, or Rabid Racism,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=48.)

In that instance, a PPFOA nurse effectively agreed to conceal the age of a pregnant 13 year old, in violation of Indiana law, so that PPFOA could illegally murder the pre-born child and, as always with PPFOA, collect its blood money in the form of a fee for the abortion.

It turns out that the young girl was older than 13, and probably not even pregnant. Rather, she was a pro-life activist who recorded the exchange with the nurse which audio was then posted online, embarrassing PPFOA sufficiently to suspend the nurse without pay.

In what I originally thought was a lame joke, that same Indiana chapter, and the Illinois chapter, are offering a special this Christmas season–a Planned Parenthood Gift Card! Now, isn’t that just special!

In fact, even “The Daily Show” clown, Jon Stewart, seemed shocked at the insensitivity to Christian values and to the Christmas season, without mentioning either, and ridiculed the gift card idea, saying he now knew what to get for his Secret Santa: ...

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)

stalagmites and global warmists

A STALAGMITE THROUGH THE HEARTS OF THE WARMISTS

A stalagmite stabs right through the heart of “Global Warming.”

Life is full of valuations and re-evaluations but nothing seems to register with the global warming bunch, not even stalagmites.

This latest Earth news from Reuters, “Climate Change May Explain Empires’ Fall,” http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE4B35ZO20081204?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&rpc=22&sp=true, should but won’t shake the warmist’s deluded conviction that nasty, old Homo Sapiens are making Planet Earth much too toasty and may soon make it uninhabitable.

In their rush to a wrongful and a non-scientific political judgement, they’ve ignored every other report and all the other evidence that, yes, the globe has been growing a tad warmer of late but, no, people aren’t causing it.

Global warming is a natural phenomenon which, as with all natural phenomena, such as global cooling, will run its course no matter what we mere mortals say or do about it.

Seems now a couple of geologists have found geological evidence in a cave near Jerusalem that way back–up to two thousand years ago still constitutes way back, I believe–that that region experienced a significant drying out period, accompanied by prolonged drought conditions.

The closest thing to heavy industry at the time was clay pot making so that can’t account for the changing conditions as evidenced by rings on a stalagmite, one more factual tidbit that pierces the heart of the phony hot air balloon that is the global warming charade.

That scientists can keep a straight face...

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)

CHRISTMAS IS LOSING

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS: CHRISTMAS IS LOSING

With my two earlier articles on Christmas, in the interests of achieving a detente with the forces dedicated to destoying that national and religious holiday, I tried to downplay what is actually a literal war in progress against Christmas.

Now, back to the fray!

A few years back, Fox News’ John Gibson published a book on the subject, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought, the title of which just about says it all.

It is worse than we may have thought and, if anything, that war has gained momentum in the interim.

Just six weeks after the publication of Gibson’s book in 2006, a senseless controversy over Christmas trees erupted in Seattle, an eruption that is emblematic of that war and is just one example of the battles we are facing. See Bonnie Alba’s piece on the subject, “Battling Hate Crimes against Christmas,” http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/alba/071130.

That Seattle teapot tempest reached a peak, or a depth, of inanity after a rabbi protested and demanded that an eight foot menorah, a symbol of the Jewish festival of Hannukah, be displayed next to the largest Christmas tree at Sea-Tac Airport.

Sea-Tac authorities, in their less than infinite wisdom, arrived at the ultimate polititically correct solution: They removed all nine plastic ”holiday trees” from the airport premises. See http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/336038_trees19.html and http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003470331_trees10m.html.

When pushed against the wall, their pusillanimous response was to cave unapologetically to a single individual rather than allow the travelling public some meager measure of Christmas spirit in the form of decorated trees as they wended their way through the chaos that is most airports today.

Correction: It was simply “holiday” not “Christmas” spirit that the Sea-Tac Scrooges abolished. There was no Nativity scene replete with Christ Child at the airport so those Scrooges, under cover of darkness in the middle of the night, removed nine plastic symbols of one of our national holidays.


How stupid and gutless was that!

There’s a clear bottomline to all the dissension surrounding the recognition and celebration of Christmas at this time of year. Why that dissension even exists is beyond me. However, since it does exist, perhaps a reminder is in order.

Not only is Christmas a declared national holiday, and has been for 138 years, we are by far a predominantly-Christian nation, . . .

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)

NOSTALGIA VS. CHILD ABUSE

It's nice to be welcomed to ChicagoRay.com.
You have your hands full out in that Windy City but I still think Noo Yawk has greater challenges.
Here's my first post here:

NOSTALGIA THWARTED BY THE REALITY OF CHILD ABUSE

Just when Christmas nostalgia and good thoughts begin to envelop me, like Don Corleone, reality drags me back in: http://news.aol.com/article/couple-arrested-in-chained-teen-case/264755?icid=200100397×1214429195x1200873957.

Okay, I didn’t just fall off one of those cauliflower or turnip trucks which clog Long Island backroads this time of year but it’s still a shock to the nervous system to read such child abuse reports, even if that particular horror occurred out on the Left Coast.

Imagine yourself a kid, during that time of life when you had great if impractical dreams, when you envisioned yourself as a future center fielder in the new Yankee Stadium, or hawking overpriced popcorn in that Stadium, or even parking cars nearby.

Instead, this Tracy, California kid, who was 17 and looked 10 or 12, had apparently been shackled and held against his will for a year, was emaciated, nearly naked, filthy, and desparate after he finally escaped and begged people to hide him from his abusers.

Not much else has been reported on the story except that those captors, Michael Schumacher, 34, and Kelly Layne Lau, 30, a girl scout leader, had been arrested. His aunt was subsequently taken into custody by the police. Only the victim’s given name, Kyle, has been released.

This brief item, http://www.knx1070.com/Third-Person-Arrested-in-NorCal-Torture-Case/3425378, features a picture which I have to assume is of the aunt. She, Caren Ramirez,...

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)