Sunday Reflections

WE NOW KNOW that humans are characterized by two great fears that other animals are protected from: the fear of life..... and the fear of death....
— Ernest Becker

THE FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
— Proverbs 1:7

Photo credit

Kudlow on Team Obama's New GM aka 'Government Motors'

VERDANTLY impractical, dangerous and unprofitable: We the taxpayers will never get our money out of this. Kudlow continues:

In other words, taxpayers are not going to get their money back. Yes, we the people will be left holding the bag for the mistakes of GM’s management and labor leaders over the last four decades.

And with CAFE mileage-standards ratcheting up -- all while GM is going down -- Team Obama’s green vision for the economy will soon be crystal clear. With President Obama in the driver’s seat, we’re going to get little green two-door cars that most folks won’t want to buy.

Even worse, UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger has made it plain that his powerful union won’t let these cars be manufactured in low-cost non-union plants overseas. The result? Obama’s little green cars are going to be unprofitable as well.

But it’s the bigger picture that has me most concerned. What does Government Motors say about the direction of the United States? Historically, we don’t own car companies --or banks or insurance firms. But we do now. Tick them off on your fingers: GM, Citi, AIG. Oh, and let’s not forget Fannie and Freddie, those, big quasi-government, taxpayer-owned housing agencies.

California is broke and likely headed to bankruptcy. Will we the taxpayers own that, too?Altogether, we’re talking about hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that will never be repaid. This is the stuff the Italians used to do, and the Brits before Thatcher, and the Soviets a long time ago. But it’s something very new and very different for America.

Is this onslaught of government ownership an attack on free-market capitalism? Yes it is. Call it Bailout Nation or Ownership Nation, it’s an unprecedented degree of government command, control, and planning, all in the name of a tough economic downturn.

I don’t pretend to know all the answers to GM’s problems. Neither do I know all the miscues of the banks and insurance companies. But I do know this: The present level of government control over the economy does not bode well for this great country.

******

To which I ask: Larry, have you ever heard the words secession, tax payer revolt, consumer revolt, storming the Congressional Bastille? Somehow, we can not let this madness continue indefinitely. We must not; we can not.

Full post

When Bad Wide-Leg Trousers Happen to Nice Fashion Conscious-Girls

NOT SURE whether Katie has a pair of stilts on underneath these wide-leg pants or not (Who on earth dreams these fashion trends up, and in a recession, no less?), but what I do know is they make her look way out-of-whack to the downside. She's much taller than Tom anyway, but these trousers make her look almost like she's parading around as the tall lady in a high-waisted circus act. Too wide, too long, too much fabric. Can't imagine they wouldn't be a hazard to her health and mobility. I would surely trip on those long hems and that would be the end of me. Doesn't anyone ever think of safety in design? Call Health and Human Services! Call Mike Bloomberg!

Anyway, she's far too pretty and tall to wear these trousers. They're wearing her. Other than that, she's a great looking female. And her hair is one of her best features.

Seared Chilled Asparagus with Mock Hollandaise

HAVING SOME friends over in a little while for a light supper, and I do mean light. The temperatures here have been heating up and with all the rain lately the humidity has been steamy. All this to say that a cold plate is in order. The menu: chilled asparagus with mock hollandaise, cold sliced chicken and cold roasted tomatoes served with a light, cool, very dry Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. Will be back later with a recipe for the mock hollandaise....

...... I forgot to take any food pics tonight, but want to give you a recipe---for mock hollandaise sauce---that I've been asked for more than anything else over the years.

Quick, Easy Mock Hollandaise

2-3-4 T Hellmann's Mayonnaise
Olive oil (or if you must, several T real butter---melted)
Sea salt
Pepper
1-2 T Lemon juice
Dill weed
Paprika (optional)

Put mayonnaise in small bowl first; begin to add olive oil (or melted butter) to mayo slowly and stir as sauce thins. Please note: never do the reverse and add mayo to olive oil as it will curdle.

Stir oil or butter into mayo until it is thinned to the consistency you desire.

Then add condiments: I prefer a good pinch or two of salt (make it as salty as you like), a squeeze of lemon (make it as tart as you like) and lots of dill and paprika stirred in. You can get creative and add other things you like ( like garlic, curry, turmeric, dry mustard, Parmesan, just to name a few). But that's the basic recipe.

You can serve this over aspargus, fish, salmon, roasted vegetables and tomato aspic just to name a few. Bon appetit.

From the Trenches of the Economic Crisis

WEDNESDAY, PART 1 of 2: CONNECTING SOME DOTS

EVERY NOW AND THEN I decide to write a post that ultimately so challenges my abilities to explain and assimilate, or so upsets me that I go into a mode of groaning and gnashing my teeth before I can get it down on paper or the computer. And so it is with the post I said I was going to write today on the rumors I've heard about in the markets.

It turns out, no surprise, it's only the tip of the iceberg and pulling it all together for me, only a student and not an expert of the markets, is causing me to want to go running out of the building, screaming and tearing my hair out. The subject is too big and complex. It's definitely above my pay grade.

But I am going to put something down now anyway. I hope it makes sense. And I'll come back and refine it in the days ahead as best I can. I'm not going to be cute or erudite here, just straight-forward and organized as I can be. I will not be quoting my sources so don't believe a word I say. Just watch and listen if you have the time. Meanwhile, my sources are fairly good. I've decided to write this in a Q & A format to radically simplify the message I hope to get across. Proceed at your own risk. Take it for what it's worth.

*********

Q: What's this so called rumor that you're talking about, about why markets have gone up when they were actually supposed to go down recently? Isn't it a bit arrogant that you, or anyone, says that this can be predicted?

A: Let's take the arrogance of predicting markets first: To the casual observer it does seem like markets are mysterious and there's very little rhyme or reason as to when they rise and fall. In fact, today with computer technology and the science of technical analysis and charting, the smart money can predict the short to medium term ups and downs with shattering precision almost to the day and hour.

Interestingly, the smart money predicted Black Monday back in October of 1987--to the day--- weeks ahead of the actual event, though most average investors, including stockbrokers were unaware and unprepared, unless they were smart enough to have put sell stops on all the stocks they owned. Of course back then, once the fall came, it behooved you to stay in and ride most stocks back up. That isn't the case today since many stocks will not be coming back.

An analogy would be in the forecasting of hurricanes. Remember the old days when hurricanes hit land with only hours of advanced warning? The Long Island Hurricane of 1938 comes to mind. None of the weather forecasters predicted it, except one lonely man down in North Carolina, and none of his colleagues up the East coast would listen to him as he sounded the alarm over and over. No one, that is, until the hurricane hit Long Island like a freight train. And the rest is history. It was a grand weather event that seemed to come out-of-the-blue. Today, however, with the technology and communications we have at our disposal , this would never happen.

Q: Okay, okay. So what does this have to do with rumors about stock markets this week?

A: For about the past 10 days, the smart money has known that markets were due for a pull back, were about to fail at certain resistance levels. Smart money had battened their hatches. By Tuesday after Memorial Day this week, the stock market tropical storm was long over-due to hit landfall. But it didn't. At least not last week or this Tuesday. Today the storm may have blown in, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The natural course of events has been calling for this pullback. So the fact that it didn't could only mean one thing: Something or some one has been gaming the system. Something that was big enough to game the system even for a little while. The rumors started spreading and finally came up with the gamer, so to speak. While, I can't prove it here, most people are pretty sure what happened these past 10 trading days that has kept markets from falling.

Q: Who or what is it that's gaming the system? As if you really know.

A. Most of the rumors center around the Federal Reserve and the Obama Administration as the culprits of gaming the system and tampering with the natural processes. Let's face it, they're involved with gaming the banking industry, the automobile industry and the big financial institutions, it's really not a big leap that they would be involved in gaming the stock market right now.

Q: What are you talking about? How is the Federal Reserve doing this and why?

A: By buying certain stocks, in this case a basket of stocks---the ETF called the SPY, the basket comprising the S&P 500--- the Fed can drive up the stock market, or keep it from falling, at least temporarily and keep public optimism from plummeting again.

You see, both the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve know how bad things really are and how much worse it could get. They are buying some time right now by trying to keep the markets afloat. Today, Wednesday, markets couldn't wait any longer to start dropping. No one knows whether the Fed will artifically and secretly try to buy more of the SPY Thursday or the next day or two to prevent a continued fall, but it's certainly a possibility.

Q: Is it legal for the Feds to be buying stocks, or ETFs, like this and how are they doing it?

A: It is legal for the Fed to buy certain things, especially the SPY. But it's not generally known by the public. What's even more interesting is that there's a secret trading room filled with dozens of Bloomberg monitors and traders in the bowels of the Fed headquarters that track each and every market on a minute-to-minute basis.

Many traders believe that Federal Reserve has been buying the SPY over the past week or two through anonymous electronic orders placed through a trader at Goldman Sachs. I have been asked not to publish his name. But again many traders sense this.

Q: Okay now anyone who has had the fortitude to read this knows the Federal Reserve may be gaming the system to keep the stock market from going back down. So what? What does this mean to the average investor? Is this good or bad news in the smart money's opinioin?

A: The most important thing the small investor (who usually is in the market by going long) can do right now is put tight sell stops on their long (stock) positions and revise and tighten those stops upward if the market goes up, as it may temporarily. That way, they can capture whatever gains they may have before the market falls again.

Conversely, by putting stops on now, as in TODAY, it will prevent an investor from unlimited losses on the downside. The days of buying, holding and hoping are forever over in this day of electronic trading and the current volatile/hostile investing environment we're in. Anyone who takes the buy and hope approach would be considered very foolish indeed.

These are not times for the hopeful or the faint-hearted---either for stocks or bonds (which I'll get to in another post).

At the least, putting sell stops, tight downside stops on the stocks you haven't yet sold is like buckling your seat belt in case you get into an accident. Only the foolish don't buckle their seat belts in this day and age on the fast highway of finance and investing.

Q: Are markets going up or down now that the Federal Reserve may be gaming the system?

A. Can't say yet and if you have your seat belt fastened it doesn't matter. But it's for sure that while the Feds are a good-sized player, it/they can only control or prop up the enormous stock markets for the short-term. Nature will take its course. So taking profits or small losses now or putting tight stops on stocks are in order. That way you prepare for the worst and then, and only then and in that order, you can hope for the best.

Q: Anything else you want to convey?

A: Actually yes there is. I want to write a little about what's happening to the U.S. bond market and what the effects of falling bond prices and sky-rocketing yields will have on us all, and especially mortgage rates. Do you know why and how they're connected? Why we should be concerned? Why the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the Obama administration is concerned? So I'll finish in another post soon and then give it a rest.

Q: You're certainly a glutton for punishment.

A: Yes, I suppose I am. But if another hurricane or at least a financial tropical storm is coming wouldn't you rather be as prepared and knowledgeable as possible? I know I would.

RELATED - Do you know how this is all related? Let's connect more of the dots soon.

RELATED - IBD on America's Hidden Trillion Dollar Tax on Her Taxpayers and Citizens: Increased Government Regulation.

Getting Personal, Sharing the Love Letter I Received Tuesday From A Suitor

HERE AT WEBUTANTE, I try not to expose you to too many of the gory details of my personal life on a day-to-day basis. I know, really know, you don't want to be the unwitting victim-readers of TMI (too much information) when it comes to the deep inner goings-on of my life, family, friends.

Sure, every now and then some personal indulgance slips out---like when I first learned to make Slopmadoodle, or got a speeding ticket in D.C. from a hidden traffic camera. So okay, every now and then you'll put up and even like my revealing stuff like that and I really appreciate it. Still I don't want to overdo it.

But today I am going to share with you the essence of a love letter I received that went straight to my heart from a recent suitor. The kind every one of us wants to get when the chips are down or when they're up too. The kind of written word that helps you sleep better at night.

But first, I gotta fix dinner and change into something more comfortable, you know, to get in the mood. But I'll be back to paraphrase the letter d'amour after I do........xxoo......

THE LETTER (IN ESSENCE)

May 18, 2009

Dear Ms. Webutante,

Thank you for helping to clear up all that misunderstanding between us. As a matter of fact, after your letter with all the "proof" you provided, it is apparent that there was never really any disagreement between us after all. It was our mistake and yet we thought it was yours.

Please accept our apologies for writing and accusing you of cheating on us. Now it's clear you didn't do such a thing. Everything is fine between us. You don't owe us a thing. So please disregard any nasty letters you may have gotten from us in the last several weeks. And you can put your checkbook away. And tear up that check for $12,000 we thought you owed us. The stuff you provided came out to the penny.

As far as we're concerned this matter is closed. Thank you for standing up responding in such a timely fashion. Consider this our kiss-and-make-up letter. Until next time....

Forever yours,

The Internal Revenue Service

******

Dear IRS,

Aw shucks, golly gee. It was nothing. Apology accepted. I loved spending days and days last February and March re-calculating every stock trade I made in 2007. It was a blast and helped me get back in touch with how much I enjoy doing simple math on my living room floor, my dining room table and everywhere in between. Wishing you the best under the new administration. And hoping you'll be having bigger fish to fry from here on.

In case you don't get my message, I'm breaking up with you now and hope I never hear from you again.

Your acquaintance in social security number only until my dying day and beyond (unless we secede or get the fair tax),

Webutante

Sonia Sotomayor for the Supremes

WEDNESDAY: Jennifer Rubin on Obama's SCOTUS choice
NOTEWORTHY: 60% reversal rate of Sotomayor's opinions by Supreme Court
SEXISM, ELITISM AND RACISM SURFACE SOONER........RATHER THAN LATER FOR SOTOMAYOR: "I would hope that a wise Latina (the race and wisdom cards) woman (the gender/feminist card) with the richness of her experiences (the arrogant elitism card) would more often than not reach a better conclusion (the elitism/we know what's best card) than a white male (the sex and race card reiterated) who hasn’t lived that life.” (Can you imagine in your wildest dreams Sarah Palin saying and getting by with a statement like that?---I recall her small-town America statement for which she was castigated by the left.)
*********

THIS MORNING President Obama nominates federal judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to replace Justice David Souter, a move that could best be described as hitting a home run with all the bases loaded from the standpoint of fulfilling his liberal agenda for remaking society on the highest court in the land:

Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Conformation Network, criticized her support for "quotas" and "racial preferences." She called Sotomayor "a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written."

I'll bet that this Hispanic/Puerto Rican woman will be confirmed quickly and take her place on the highest court in the land. Don't yet know her exact "empathy quotient" but I suspect she measures up in every way to Obama's desire for feeling the pain of victims rather than knowing the legal principles and constitutional issues involved.

In other words, justice will no longer be blind as it should be, but wear rose colored glasses instead.

The right will want to know how she treats legal precedent and the left will be clamoring to make sure the fuzzy Catholic is pro-abortion and pro-same sex marriage.

The partisan political legal olympics have begun.

This post will be updated.

UPDATE: Some of her greatest admirers still call her a bully on the bench and not as smart as they would like her to be: The Case Against Sotomayor.

Roger Kimball writes at Pajamas. Roger Simon weighs in.

Prayer

Prayer and Calling on the Name of the Lord, with Pastor Jim Cymbala of Brooklyn Tabernacle Church. Over my weekend with fishermen, I read a good deal of one of Jim's books on prayer in my few quiet moments and have been absolutely, totally blown away by it and what he teaches. It will profoudly affect the course of my life, direction and priorities in ways I can't now fathom.

Tamny on Regulating Derivatives Market

FAILURE, THE ULTIMATE TEACHER AND REGULATOR (BUT DON'T TELL THE LIBERALS WHO WANT TO REGULATE FAILURE AND LEARNING THE HARD WAY OUT OF EXISTENCE)

John Tamny writes at Forbes today on the folly of government regulators fixing the derivatives markets. If you want to better understand what's coming, then read this and all John's pieces on the economy:

It's folly to assume that over-degreed regulators with little to no market experience could somehow understand "exotic" derivatives--as financial journalists have dubbed them--well enough to save experienced investors from themselves. Regulators are rarely equal in knowledge to those they want to regulate.

More broadly, it has to be remembered that laws have already been put in place to insure greater oversight of public companies and their underlying assets. Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in 2002, and it imposed incredibly stringent rules on all public firms with regard to balance-sheet transparency.

The costs of compliance were enormous, but despite the figurative "root canals" that all public firms have been forced to suffer, regulators were still caught unaware when the economy turned in the wrong direction last year.

What this tells us is that contrary to their protests, regulators are always fighting the last war--and not very effectively. If they could somehow peek Cassandra-like into the future their work might prove useful, but once again, were they in possession of these kinds of remarkable skills, they would be making obscene amounts of money in the private sector......

Simplified, failure is the ultimate teacher, and the ultimate regulator as a result. So if eradication of market crises is the goal, our federal minders can and should only do one thing: let failures be.

A Driving Story from My Past For Memorial Day

A TRUE INTERSTATE ADVENTURE I'LL NEVER FORGET

CHAPTER 1: WOMAN AND ALTERNATOR

I should be a professional trucker the way I drive hither, thither and yon and, Neo, your post yesterday--Women, the car breakdown and the cell phone---reminded me of one of many wild stories from my driving resume of years gone by….it was long before cell phones and a while after I had a husband to call and beg to come rescue me. It was a new day of learning how to stand on my own two feet for me, and, I'd best get on with the lessons and learn to like 'em, or be forever miserable.

Anyway, thanks for jogging my memory, Neo. Fun to remember and seems like only yesterday when this whole thing unfolded.... Before I tell my story, let me say I think every woman needs to have her car serviced regularly whatever its age, whatever her age. My car guys are an integral part of my life as they keep my car in tip-top shape. With their fine maintenance, I've driven cars across the country with 230,000 miles on them. I also think a woman needs to have AAA Plus , a great emergency road service, though there are limits to what and where it functions best. Today's cell phones certainly help with having at least the illusion of help everywhere, all the time, though it certainly doesn't always work out that way.

Meanwhile, a while back, before cell phones, I was driving cross country around December 27 (the time of the shortest days of the year) from Nashville to meet friends in Colorado for a New Year's vacation of skiing.

As I drove from Missouri into the heartland of Kansas, I noticed my alternator light come on and the power starting to slowly fade. Somehow I got to a exit in the late afternoon and managed to find an old repair shop that had a new/used alternator which they installed in about four hours. As night fell, I was back on my way onto I-70. I drove for several more hours trying to make up for some of the time I'd lost but finally was so sleepy I stopped at a little motel to spend the night. I set my clock for 4 am at when I got up to make up the rest of the lost time and started to drive in the pitch black dark.

It was now snowing outside, the wind blowing fiercely and the temperature had dropped to -10.

Great driving weather, I thought as I gave thanks that I had gotten a new alternator installed the day before when the sun had been shining.

As I drove along for about thirty minutes in western Kansas in the dark, I looked down and noticed the alternator light had come on again. Then I saw all the gauges beginning to drop. Clearly I was losing power and on the high plains in a snow storm with almost no exits was not the best place.

Surely this couldn't be happening again. It had been fixed the day before and I had been assured by the auto mechanics it was safe to continue my drive to Denver.

But the falling gauges weren't lying. The electrical systems was slowing going down again.

I began to pray out loud as I considered my diminishing options. The next exit was miles away. I saw a rest stop sign up ahead. But I decided not to stop for fear of getting stalled there. Instead I decided to try to make it to exit miles away.

I drove by the rest stop, past the entrance ramp and continued on the Interstate…….I had to move on, I told myself, as long as I could. This was before cell phones and I was alone.

Then as I drove past the rest stop in the snow and wind, out of the corner of my eye…something caught my attention. As I drove on suddenly it hit me…..and I screeched on my brakes.

I saw something amazing in the rest stop.

My prayers had been answered, only not in the way I expected. I slammed on my brakes, pulled over, breathed a sigh of relief…..then backed up in the Interstate margin to the entrance of the rest stop. I drove in and surveyed my salvation as the last little bit of energy drained out of my drying car……

Now, I ask you, do you know what I spied from the corner of my eye that saved me that day in desolation of western Kansas in a snowstorm in sub-freezing weather and a snow storm?

Read on, dear reader, and see.

*************

CHAPTER 2: ANSWERED PRAYER

After passing the rest stop and catching a glimpse of a miracle out of the corner of my eye, I hit my brakes in the darkest hour before dawn on I-70 that late bitter cold December morning, backed up, then drove into the rest stop in the wind and freezing snow.

What I had seen from the corner of my eye and now loomed dead ahead of me was nothing short of amazing. It was certainly the unexpected answer to my prayers. But I was running out of time. Could I utilize the help that waited in front of me I so desperately needed before my car lost all power again?

All I could do was go for it.....a girl has to learn to ask boldly for what she needs. It was time for action:

I pushed my automatic shift into park, jumped out of my barely idling car and ran around in front of it. Then I started screaming at the top of my lungs over the blizzard and wind. I stood on my tip toes and reached up to pound the bottom of a door attached to large tractor trailer cab, screaming as loud as I could, “Hello! I need help! Anybody up there?…Hello! Help!”

It seemed like forever I kept yelling and pounding the bottom of that cab door. Then suddenly a man’s head popped up in the drivers window and looked down at me. He had been dead asleep.

“I need help. Could you please help me? I’m going to Denver and it’s my alternator…it’s almost gone and I have no power….it may already be too late, but I know you could help me if you would….I hope it’s not to late….”

No further explanation was necessary. He instantly comprehended the situation, what I was talking about and what needed to be done—fast.

Without batting an eye the man yelled back to me “Go into the ladies room and wait, I’m going to get you to Denver. Hurry and get out of the cold. Don't forget to get your pocketbook out of your car.....I’ll come and get you when I'm ready for you to come back.”

I did exactly as I was told and took shelter in the ladies room of that desolate rest stop on I-70.

Ten minutes later this big trucker man pounded on the ladies room door and yelled for me to come out. He told me everything was okay and it was time for us to head to Denver.

So I came out and ran to his big truck. He opened the passenger door of his cab, got the ladder down and helped hoist me up into the front seat. It was warm inside there and I had never sat so high off the ground above the highway, except in an airplane.

As he climbed into the drivers seat, he introduced himself. And then he revved up his big truck engine. Not only did he get me to Denver four hours later. He radioed ahead and found the best Volvo dealer to deliver me to. He radioed for someone to call my friends so they could meet me while my car was being repaired. He was truly a Godsend. And a very nice and honorable man to boot.

By now I’m sure you must know what caught my eye from the Interstate that morning, but just in case you haven’t figured it out:

It was a huge tractor trailer car carrier— fully loaded with brand spanking new cars….er, except for one little empty space on the lower back of his behemoth truck....one empty space on the back.....

As it turned out Divine Providence, had been saving that space, that bitter cold, dark and snowy December morning in western Kansas for my little Volvo...... And now you know the rest of the story.

UPDATE: Neo ups the ante.

Great Look, Rachel, Less Great, Angie

DON'T KNOW where Rachel came from or where she's going. But now, here at Cannes, I do know I like the way she looks from head-to-toe. Thank heavens she doesn't have some ghastly, cloggy, strappy shoes that distract from the rest of her. Beautiful hair! Earrings perf! There's nothing too cute, sweet or frilly or laborious or overly revealing ( I always think a woman who reveals too much has desperation issues which translate into the need to be seen by everyone and drooled over).... just soft, fab and oh-so-the-way every woman wants to look when she's out, in the limelight and loving it! We should all be so lovely.

Eat your heart out, Madonna. Womanhood, thy name, tonight, is Rachel Weisz. And she walks and looks like a lady too.

Meanwhile, here's a dress below that does nothing for me on a granted beautiful woman who does even less for me. She's supposed to've looked fab in this, but I find it less than compelling. Washed out, thy name is Angelina. And for some reason, her legs don't look very sturdy to me either.
Finally, here below is a pic of Tilda. I gotta to be honest, she's a woman that try, try, try, try as I may I just, just, just, just don't get. To summarize, I just don't get Tilda. I know she's quite the rage in trendy, progressive anything goes menage-a-trois circles, but in every way, including her looks and lifestyle, especially her looks and lifestyle, I find her about as unattractive as any woman ever gets.

Catching Up With Myself After Weeks Away From Homebase

I'm up to my eyeballs....
NOT MUCH to say at the moment except I barely have time to get to the computer for the next few days. My plate is full in the real world with a zillion things and people after being away and I look forward to getting back as I can....

MEANWHILE, Wesley Pruden says in the Washington Times that the frilly Valentine President Obama is preparing is not for friends like Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu:

Benjamin Netanyahu is back in town, and he could make Barack Obama's life easier if he would just go away. The president is trying to concentrate on the frilly Valentine he's taking to the Muslims next month in Cairo, the latest stop on his global blush, bow low and apologize tour.

Mr. Netanyahu is an unwelcome reminder of the reality lying in ambush out there, where things go bump not in the night but in midafternoon, and all manner of evil lurks in the hearts of barbarians. Mr. Obama thinks a good shoeshine, a working teleprompter and a pretty speech can transform that ugly reality into something nice that maybe even smells good. Mr. Netanyahu and his countrymen have to deal with an ugly reality that stinks......Read it all --- disgraceful.
Pic

*******

IN MY BOOK there are few things as attractive in a woman or a man, especially a man since I'm a woman, than an ability to say what Andrew Breitbart said today in the Washington Times:

I JERK!

I always knew I liked Breitbart, but now I like him more. Unlike one of the great false liberal/romantic myths of the 60s----being a grown-up does indeed mean saying we're sorry when it's called for (and it's called for more often than we realize).

Sure people with power, clout and money don't have to say they're sorry, or I Jerk! when they/we should. And most don't. But doing so keeps us humble with our feet firmly on the ground, so there's less distance to fall. It also keeps our egos off steroids, eyes clear and sense of humor and the ability to laugh at ourselves sharp.

Sunday Reflections

PRAYER CONSISTS OF ATTENTION…. Humility is attentive patience…. Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul….

— Simone Weil, Waiting on God

THE SON OF GOD suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like His.

— George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons

I might add that the Son of God suffered not that men and women might not suffer but to give their suffering meaning and purpose that leads to an eternal and hopeful perspective.

A Little Toilet Humor From PJTV

Right winging women---like Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean---are to liberals like daylight to a vampire.......

Saving Face Verses Saving Lives

OR A SHORT DIATRIBE IN FAVOR OF ENHANCED INTERROGATION From The Daily Gut

It's always amazing listening to people who believe you must adhere to a set of standards when fighting an enemy who refuses to believe standards exist. Our enemy - who beheads the innocent, flings acid into the faces of children, and flies planes into buildings - must relish this endless opera of handwringing - for they know a worried adversary is a weakened one.

Lets get this straight: implementing enhanced interrogation techniques is not immoral. What's immoral is not doing everything possible to prevent an enemy from killing the people you love. That one rule overrules everything - making the actions you take toward that enemy supremely moral - whether the acts involve waterboarding, sleep deprivation, playing loud music, or watching David Shuster.

The idea that waterboarding is evil really stems from certain folks feeling awkward when asked about it at Brentwood cocktail parties. And that's the truly immoral element in this ridiculous debate: if saving face means more than saving lives, then we're totally screwed. I'd rather live in a country that's despised for waterboarding two asshats, than a well-liked one with craters for cities. The desire for popularity is really at the heart of this: and it's a far worse moral crime than anything done with a rag and bucket of water.

To which I say: Amen, brother. Nancy Pelosi is a woman who would perjure herself and weaken our country by playing politics and for the sake making herself look good and for political correctness. It's utterly despicable.

H/T

If Pelosi Were A Stock, Traders Would Be Shorting It Like Crazy

PANETTA FIRES BACK : "Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values," Mr. Panetta said

LET'S WATERBOARD PELOSI AND GET THE TRUTH..... BUT DON'T WE ALREADY KNOW IT?
Oh Really? Even the WaPo now knows Nancy is lying to cover her derrier and seriously calling her credibility into question.
SELL LAME DAME: TICKER, LMDM

HOW LOW CAN HER STOCK GO? It's unlikely she's anywhere nearly reached bottom yet.

As Jim Cramer would be screeching, Sell, Sell, Sell, Sell! NO place for this stock to go but down.

Don't think we know how utterly shameless House Speaker Pelosi was when she finally admitted the CIA did indeed brief her on waterboarding in 2002 and again in 2003 but deceived her in the process. Do you get that? She was lied to by the CIA, so there! She's excused and exonerated for approving using these tough techniques on those poor terrorists. But that was then, and this is now.

"They mislead us all the time. I was fighting the war in Iraq at that point, too, you know," the House's top Democrat boo hooed to reporters at the briefing at the Capitol.

Woe is Nancy. What an utterly lame dame.

Well, Nancy, Cramer would undoubtedly be Short, Short, Shorting you now too.

That's because most analysts think your stock has peaked and started a long downward descent. And if any of us have a thing to say about it, you will begin to lose your ruthless power as you lose your way and never make a comeback.

I will contribute to any campaign or PAC that will work to defeat her in her next re-election bid. Nancy needs to go sooner rather than later and we should be willing to do whatever possible to get her as out of power as she can get.

Again, short LMDM.

******

The Real Meaning of Joe the Plumber, by Andrew Klavan at Pajamas Media

ALSO JUST AS THE Obama administration purports to use our dwindling tax monies to to export abortion all over the world, a new Gallup poll shows that the majority of Americans are more pro-Life than pro-choice for the first time since the question started being asked. Most of us now understand that a woman does indeed have the right to choose on the front end and those who don't bother to choose are demanding to rechoose on the back end.

In other words (except in very, very rare cases), they want their cake and eat it too. They, like Nancy Pelosi want to be enabled to say, They lied to me....oh boo hoo, I didn't know having sex would cause me to get this pregnant! They lied to me! I demand to take it all back!

Ann Coulter on The Liberal Fatwa Against Carrie Prejean

UPDATE: Former mob boss Michael Franzese makes Perez Hilton an offer he shouldn't refuse.

NOW, ANOTHER beautiful Christian has thrown off the liberal burqa, thereby inciting mass hysteria throughout the liberal establishment. Prejean doesn't care. She is blazing across the sky, as impotent nose-pickers jockey for a piece of her reflected light by hurling insults at her.

Link to Ann's entire piece in Human Events. BTW, does anyone remember who the real Miss USA winner is this year?

I'll be traveling over the next few days so writing here will be spotty, if at all.

Driving In the District

THERE ARE ONLY TWO really big drawbacks to driving in the District of Columbia for a country girl like me. First, there's the hidden traffic camera now proliferating all over the city, one of the cruelest inventions every devised by mankind and law enforcement officers. So successful are these cameras in nailing drivers, the District is getting fat on millions and millions in new and increasing revenues this gadget brings into its coffers the past few years.
I'm happy to say, I was not one of its victims in 2008. But oh the year before: I got nailed on MacArthur Boulevard in NW Washington and didn't even know it until six weeks later when the "ticket" arrived in my mail box in Nashville. Needless to say, I was not enchanted to know I had been nabbed at a place I wasn't even sure I had been that day. OK, I probably had been there. Maybe.

But it's not the same as being stopped by a traffic cop and told I was breaking the speed limit. That way it's falways resh in your mind.

But this new way, all that happens is a citation arrives weeks or months later with a huge bill and return envelop. There is a procedure for contesting it, but it's very hard to make your case when you can't remember when or where it happened. In all fairness, I did contest somehow, maybe by phone, and got the penalty knocked down a few notches. But it still wasn't cheap. There

These cameras are only going to increase for these big cities looking for love and revenues in all the wrong places, so we'd best get used to it, lock up our wallets and drive the friendly way and avoid this first travesty.

The second drawback to DC driving is something we have Lady Bird Johnson to thank---the granite curb now installed all over the District.

I won't belabor the tire blowout I had several years ago when I swiped the curb in front of the French Embassy on Reservoir Road, but suffice it to say that I learned that granite is not nearly as soft and forgiving as limestone when it comes to bouncing off curbs in an effort to get around a line of traffic!

So be forwarned, if you're tooling around the District, you need to remember two things well: hidden traffic cameras that want all your money and granite curbs that want your rubber tires.

Miss California Trumps

UPDATE
ANOTHER UPDATE

IN WHAT CAN BEST BE described as a major tempst in a teapot, Carrie Prejean is now said to be able to keep her crown and title as the Miss California within the Miss USA/Universe franchises, owned and operated by Donald Trump. I frankly never understood how and why her title was up for grabs in the first place. Yes, she was photographed scantily clad several times several years ago and I certainly don't think that would be appropriate now, nor does she, but it seems a bit of a stretch to have taken her recent win away because of that.

Yet, we all know the real reason the pot was stirred and the liberals and feminists have suddenly become such prudes---why she almost lost her title, don't we? It's really all about gay/same sex marriage and gay rights nazis demonizing, shaming and attempting to ostracize anyone---everyone---who would dare be in favor of defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman no matter how respectful they are in stating it. (Let's remember too that Miss Rhode Island posed similarly with not one ill effect or threat to her title.)

When it comes to the demands of gay nazis, free speech, free thought be damned! It's all about them, their needs, their demands all the time and the Constitution and our laws had better bend and change around them...or else!

I love Donald's statement today saying this firestrom proves these contests have become monsters. Indeed they have. And I think Trump needs to put one of his next apprentices on the case of keeping them open and honest and politically and culturally bipartisan.

I love CNN's typical rewrite of the story written by Alan Duke who said:

The decision, announced at Trump's New York headquarters Tuesday, follows several weeks of controversy ignited when Prejean, 21, declared her opposition to same-sex marriage in response to a question during the national pageant. She finished as runner-up to Miss USA.

Now let's be clear: the only firestorm, the only opposition, came from same-sex marriage protesters having a tantrum. Most of the rest of us were absolutely fine with her non-controversial answer. And one other thing: I never heard her say she was opposed to anything, so much as she was for marriage being defined between one man and one woman.

And she said it as respectfully as any lady could. I never heard anything about her abandoning her duties as Miss California to take on gay marriage. How absurd. And the press gets by with this day in and day out.

I've said this here many times before: when I was a newspaper reporter years ago, I was often ordered to stir up a controversy where none existed. I would be ordered to make a few phone calls and get people to innocently say something that just happened to conflict with what someone else said on the phone in a casual conversation. Then we'd put it on page 1. It was ludicrous, dishonest and one of the reasons I ultimately left.

Here's a perfect example of brewing up a pot of nothing and attempting to make something awful and huge out of a normal, everyday, humdrum, routine response of a typical young woman in America today. I don't even consider her response courageous. It was what it was---her honest opinion.

And without a doubt, I thought Donald Trump did the right thing. But I don't think he was particularly courageous either. It would have been a travesty to have fired this beautiful young woman for exercising her freedom of thought and speech in order to coddle the gay rights wailers. More on The Donald's response below. I like it:

Oh Barbwa!

AS MY GRANDMOTHER USED TO SAY, LORD HELP THE CHURCH!

WHAT CAN I SAY, Barbwa, except in this case, your case, less is definitely more. Just because something like a necklace is in so-called fashion doesn't mean it works for you, especially at your age. All this necklace lacks is a ball and chain attached and drug around on the ground behind you. And that purse really needs to go. While I don't totally hate this outfit like the one Whoppi wore hosting the Oscars, I in no way like or love it either. Too many black beads and other confetti/gay divorcee stuff goin' on for my taste.

To be fair though, you're no spring chick and yet you still carry yourself well, have kept your figure in some semblance of order and look like you're on your way to having a wonderful time at this year's libtard bash-fest which served up conservatives as the main course and pate de Rush before, during and afterwards. Buy hey, I'm not complaining....the more you skewer Rush, the better his ratings are gonna be.

Our Living Constitution is Killing Our Country

DEFICITS SOARING

Today's IBD features a noteworthy editorial by Thomas Sowell entitled "How We're Killing Our 'Living Constitution.'"

Think it bears repeating that there's a real struggle going on in this country over the heart and soul of the Constitution: Is is fixed, with unmovable bedrock principles, or meant to evolve with the times, like a windblown stalk of corn? Most conservatives believe, as I do, that the Constitution is fixed by it's stated purposes of checks and balances on the three branches of government---both federal and state--as well as by enumerated powers which lay out explicitly and exactly what the federal government exists to accomplish for our citizens.

Needless to say the reach of the government has grown far outside the scope of this document for decades---with no end in sight, mainly through tapping the liberal, activist judges which reinterpret the Constitution by taking great liberties in interpretation.

Needless to say, the Obama administration intends to find judges who will further expand federal powers beyond anything the framers could have imagined in their wildest dreams.

While Obama says he's looking for federal judges for the Supreme Court with empathy, Sowell contends, and I agree, O is concealing his real goal---that of continuing to expand the scope of federal power and neutering the restraining powers of the Constitution on all branches of federal government for our citizens.

Thomas Jefferson, along with James Madison, must be twirling in their graves at the thought of what President Obama wants to do.

Sowell writes,

This process of interpreting the Constitution (or legislation) to mean pretty much whatever you want it to mean, no matter how plainly the words say something else, has been called judicial activism.....What is at stake in Supreme Court nominations is the power of the federal government...."Empathy" is just camouflage, a soothing word for those who do not look beyond nice sounding rhetoric.

I shudder to think the havoc---not to mention mammouth taxpayer expense--- more government expansion will bring. The president is nothing if not a BIG government man who understands little of the real workings of government that leaves people alone and lets them make their own choices and live out the consequences.

With today's headlines blaring out This year's deficit to be 4 times that of 2008 as well as news that the government is borrowing 50 cents on every dollar it's spending, I can only see big fiscal/economic/political train wrecks up ahead, as the Constitution hedonists run this country and the enumerated powers of government into the ground. Big train wrecks.

Twitter and Me

Don't know whether Twitter is above, below, behind, around or through my pay grade or interest level, but I can honestly say there are few things I find a more boring or monumental waste of time. Try as I might, I can fathom only one or two tiny applications that might be of even passing---passing---interest to me: First, if someone I love or care about is on a trip and is Twittering their journey from a cell phone (but can't that be done several other ways?), and second, if someone is being held hostage at gun point and able to Twitter their incarceration or rescue, as in Captain Mark Phillip's recent drama with pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

While I'm sure there are always exceptions, overall I think people with good-to-great online sites are diluting themselves by using the separate entity of Twitter. But we live in a time of diluting ourselves, our money, our time and talents, don't we?

If this is the new over-caffeinated face of the internet, count me out. Evidently I'm not alone in this either, as about 60% of new users abandon use (not sure if that's posting or reading, or both) within a month of starting, according to Nielsen Online. Actually, that is encouraging news as I hope people have better things to do than spend a lot of time on Twitter.

I guess the big draw is for teenies to Twitter their great narcissistic heroes like Ashton Kutcher and be aware of his latest moves. It gives them a false sense of actually being in contact with him. But it's an illusion. How sad for his one million followers.

I'll keep trying a little longer to go to a few sites on Twitter, but for now, there's no chance of extending my addiction to the web at this service. In fact if anything, it lessens my overall in interest in the really good sites. Too much of a anything tends to make me want much less of it. Much less.

We are overcome and drowning in ignominious facts and way too much silly stuff, while starving for real substance and depth. I count on the really good online sites to glean the best of the best to write about, analyze and link to sparingly, and try to do the same here on a small scale. Other than that, Twitter and its ilk simply create a background noise that, like mosquitoes, needs to be exterminated and fled from.

Twitter is the greasy, cheap, fast food of the web and I gave up fast foods, except in dire emergencies, decades ago. And I'm not going back now.

Real Recovery

Thanks, C, for sending this.

Monica, Praying Mother of Augustine

Lon Solomon at McLean Bible Church talks about the importance of mothers and grand mothers to a family's spiritual life.

AUGUSTINE SAID, LORD MAKE ME HOLY, JUST NOT YET....

WITHOUT DOUBT, I've come to believe the greatest gift a mother can ever give her children and grandchildren--and all her loved ones---is prayer. Daily, sustained, regular prayer, first for their salvation and eternal life in Christ, then for protection and the fulfillment of their God-given talents and purpose in life. I believe a faithful mother will do this even unto her dying breath.

There's no greater example than that of Monica, mother of Augustine during the 4th century.

Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered and unfaithful to her. In addition her mother-in-law lived with them and was equally difficult. They had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua.

Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert both her husband a year before his death in 370, and his mother. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious Life. But Augustine proved much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for 17 years, begging the prayers of priests who, for a while, tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor.

One priest did console her by saying, "it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish."

Monica died in 387 at the age of 56, the same year Augustine became a believer.

In his Confessions Augustine spoke of his grief and weeping for the mother "now gone from my sight, who for years had wept over me, that I might live in your [God's] sight."

She died a happy woman for she had seen her prayers answered. Augustine was only 33 at the time of his mother's death, and many years of service to Christ and His church lay before him.

In later years Augustine looked back on his life and recognized the importance of his mother's perseverance in prayer to his own salvation and ministry. However, neither Augustine nor Monica could have foreseen that Augustine's own ministry would continue over the centuries and even influence such as Luther and Calvin in reforming the church.

Another famous mother was Hannah, praying mother of the great prophet Samuel.

Sunday Reflection

I ASK'D THE LORD THAT I might grow in faith, and love, and ev’ry grace, Might more of his salvation know and seek more earnestly his face. I hop’d that in some favour’d hour at once he’d answer my request: And by his love’s constraining pow’r subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this he made me feel the hidden evils of my heart; And let the angry pow’rs of hell assault my soul in ev’ry part. Yea more, with his own hand he seem’d intent to aggravate my woe; Cross’d all the fair designs I schem’d blasted my gourds, and laid me low.”

Lord, why is this,” I trembling cry’d, “Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?” ‘Tis in this way,” the Lord reply’d, “I answer pray’r for grace and faith.” “These inward trials I employ, from self and pride to set thee free; And break thy schemes of earthly joy that thou mayst seek thy all in me.”

— John Newton, Prayer Answered by Crosses

Saving Endangered Tigers By Killing Them?

Another Capitalism/Free Markets Success Story, From Carpe Diem,

Bottom Line: Private property rights, commercial farming, and the commercial sale of alligator meat and hides played a large role in the mammoth recovery of the American alligator. The same approach could help save tigers, elephants and rhinos, or any other endangered species.

Yes, it can.

The Scandalous Economic Meddling of Obama and Company

ABOVE: Terrific book idea for those who want to understand more about real capitalism. Our new capitalism-illiterate president needs to read and absorb it, but sadly he probably won't.

From David Limbaugh's recent piece, MEMO TO CAPITALISTS, Be Very Afraid

PEOPLE WILL produce more when they are allowed to retain more of the fruits of their labor. You simply cannot expand the economic pie by separating rewards from efforts. To do so is a failsafe prescription for economic stagnation -- if not immediately, then in the long run.

Yet the current administration and its wholly owned congressional partners have embarked on a course to destroy capitalism from every imaginable front.

Sadly, far too many Americans are apparently oblivious to the magnitude and peril of this systemic assault. They are also obviously unaware that the constriction of economic freedom will necessarily result in a constriction of political freedom.

When the government, instead of the free market, picks winners and losers, it exercises coercive power in employing its value judgments. If it has a prejudice against capital and favors labor, its decisions will reflect those biases, at the expense of the rule of law.

We've already seen this with the White House's strong-arming of GM creditors, using threats and intimidation to force a major shift in ownership and control from disfavored (business) groups to favored (labor) ones. Thomas Lauria, attorney for creditor Perella Weinberg Partners, blew the whistle on the White House's totalitarian threat to destroy his client's reputation unless it accepted the administration's Chrysler-restructuring plan to give the United Auto Workers 55 percent of the company.

Other creditor representatives have told similar stories. One described the administration as the most shocking "end-justifies-the-means" group he has ever encountered.

Another said, Obama is "the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet -- and I knew Kissinger."

The White House, of course, denies the charges -- as if it's remotely conceivable it would admit them if they are true -- but we all saw Obama directly single out and publicly demonize the firms, such as Perella Weinberg, that wouldn't roll over to his demands.

Folks, this is just a small taste, a foreshadowing of what we can come to expect from an administration that has already decided who should be the winners and losers and has undertaken a comprehensive agenda to "right the wrongs" -- and even the score -- by using the capricious power of government to radically redistribute income and wealth in this nation.

Obama promised to lower taxes on all but the top 5 percent of income earners, but his policies make that impossible.

READ MORE

A Few Pics From The Del

The fun and connection here are too mysterious to understand this side of heaven. But this was a wonderful trip for all of us, who've reunined off-and-on for over 20 years. Several of these good men brought me back--albeit slowly---from the jaws of silly and superficial liberalism to conservative principles over many campfires, 22-mile horse rides and decades fly fishing in the Bridger-Teton wilderness. The Lord works in mysterious ways, is all I can say. BTW, this is not the entire group, one or two are missing.

A Link Worth Noting

HERE'S AN INTERVIEW yesterday with eternal optimist capitalist Larry Kudlow, Resisting Obama's War on Capitalism. I'm not sure I agree with all of Larry's optimistic prophecizes, like the DOW back to 10,000 this year (Holy Moses!) but I do appreciate his pointing out for us signs to be grateful for. I am less sanguine at the moment but can certainly be very wrong.

Kudlow rightly sees the drop in energy/gas prices---as well as easy credit as the feds pump liquidity into the system---as effective tax cuts for the American people. I agree. However, Obama's continuing interference in free markets and the US economy threatens to unrail lower prices. The proposed cap and trade before Congress will add so much cost to the price of energy, food and many goods and services over time, that it will have a depressing effect on the economy. And that's just the beginning of how Obama intends to tax us so he can change our society into his vision of big government knows best how to spend our money, how to live our lives. And as the months roll on, it is not going to sit well with most of the people I know.

I'll add more to this list later as I am on my way to be with my little G-boy who is growing like a weed and starting to try to talk to us.

Getting Fleeced the Easy Way in New York City

PARKING GARAGES 101

I'M NOT GOING to belabor my most recent life lesson in this vast city, except to say I got royally fleeced yesterday in Manhattan at a parking garage. Like taking candy from a baby. In the end, the bottom line remains: I need to read all, ALL, the small signs posted in the entrance. For this garage, the posted daily rate was just the beginning. Add ons included taxes, fees for size (evidently my Escape was several inches above the posted daily rate and was pentalized every 12 hours with a $5 surcharge! That's every 12 hours rather than 24.) and penalties for various other things. Note to self: Read all signs and the fine print in these clip joints. And get an estimate when you drive in, the bottom line cost with sales tax and additional fees.

I left this lot after a $23.99/per day sign became over $40 per day and found another one that, so far, charges what it says it does But I have to pay them in cold, hard cash---small unmarked bills.

Rice: Take On Challenges That Are Not Easy to Master

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROD LAMKEY JR./THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A GROUP OF students from the Jewish Primary Day School in DC pose for a photo with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday after she held a question-and-answer session with the fourth- through sixth-graders.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told students at a Washington school Sunday that it is easy to do some things well, "but you'll feel greater achievement working hard at something you don't do so well and then mastering it."

It was Rice's first visit back to the Capital since leaving office as head of the State Department in January.

When a boy asked how she felt about "things the Obama administration has said about how we got information from prisoners," Miss Rice replied that she didn't think it would be responsible for her to give an opinion.

"[Barack Obama] is now my president, too," she said. "I will not agree with everything that they do, I will not agree with everything that they say, ... but for the time being, if I disagree, I'll keep it to myself."

She went on to discuss the importance of education and reflected on her childhood to about 40 students in grades four through six. She told them that some of the most important things children can do are to study foreign languages, study music, visit foreign countries and find something that they are passionate about. ---from the Washington Times.

*******

I like Rice's message. I especially like it that she said it to this group of kids who will take her message to heart. There indeed are some things in all our lives that we do well naturally. And other things we're attracted to, but have little practice in. We know, however, if we're willing to work hard and persist, we can become better at. These are the things in my life that have given me the greatest satisfaction over the long haul. Fly fishing is one of the things that comes to mind....Bible study is another. Writing daily, another. Whatever puts discipline into my life is always satisfying over time.

Jesus on Being Re-Born of the Holy Spirit

JOHN 3:1-21

1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."

3In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.[a]"

4"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You[c] must be born again.' 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

9"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

10"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[d] 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.[e]

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.[g] 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

Real Torture Is....

UPDATE: Getting Real About Torture, by Mark Tapson for Big Hollywood. Read the whole piece. Tapson talks about what torture really means and it's a helluva lot different from what liberals disconnected-from-reality in America are fixated on, including here in my comments sections.
ANOTHER KIND OF TORTURE IS.....
Tying the CIA's hands from protecting our citizens by totally destroying its morale and effectively neutering its procedures to extract info that could prevent future attacks against the US used against our deadliest enemies---you know those who'd kill us all and will, if they can.... Replacing Justice Souter with someone who doesn't understand bedrock legal principles and enumerated federal powers of the Constitution, but rather nominate a replacement, probably a female, who has lots of empathy..... Having Rahm micro-manage Treasury...... Letting self-important federal officials who want to build power bases and have nothing better to do create pandemic panic based on little real evidence....And finally, letting the Obamatron's gun grabbers try to take away our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
Meanwhile, we need to thank Sen. Arlen Specter for leaving the GOP.

Photo credit above: WSJ PhotoJournal of the Apollo Wheel at an amusement park in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, Friday. (Riding this would be real torture to me.)

Panic Time For Nancy

WHEN NANCY PANICS I START TO CALM DOWN

IT'S SHOCKING how quickly Congressional liberals have destroyed morale at the CIA and weakened our ability to fight our terrorist enemies. But now Nancy Pelosi is starting to panic. Not a minute too soon for the well-being of our country. Jed Babbin writes at Human Events:

Pelosi first said that she wasn’t briefed about waterboarding. Then she sort of admitted she had, inserting that the CIA only said that they might do it, not that they were going to do it. Which could have been plagiarized from John Kerry’s 2004 circular explanation of his vote for the war in Iraq.

As badly as that hurt Pelosi, what apparently pushed her into a panic was the feedback she and other Democrats are getting from the CIA. Pelosi learned that her actions, and those of President Obama and other Democrats over the past ninety days have so damaged CIA morale that the agency’s ability to function could be in danger.

As a result, two emergency closed-door meetings were called this week on Capitol Hill.

Nancy is a light-weight who has no one's well-being at heart but her own power and the partisan politics that keep her in office. Read the whole thing.

What part of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center do these people not remember or understand? Shocking.