"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." ~Galileo Galilei
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CULTURE
“We could focus on the latest worrisome news in education: the results of an international test released last week that show American 15-year-olds don’t know much about science and are falling behind their peers in other industrialized nations. But why get depressed? There is an aluminum foil lining: The test also found that our teens don’t let their ignorance bother them. They may not know as much as students in Finland, Canada or New Zealand, but they think they do. When asked to rate their own scientific abilities, they put themselves at the top with their better-educated peers. This is the real trend in American education. No one can match us when it comes to self-esteem.” —Los Angeles Times
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From ThePatriotPost.com, 12/10/07:
“Reductions in enemy attacks, fewer U.S., coalition and civilian casualties and improvements in Iraqi military and security forces have driven news from Iraq out of the front pages of our papers and off broadcast news. Publicly, U.S. commanders describe the situation as ‘cautiously optimistic’ and say ‘the momentum is in the right direction.’ Privately, they say, ‘We are putting them (al-Qa’ida and the Shi’ite militias) on the ropes.’ Though disappointed by the lack of ‘good news’ being reported in the U.S. media, the troops’ sense of humor is undiminished. When Secretary Gates was in Baghdad this week, it was announced that lack of congressional funding could result in ‘pink slips for up to 200,000 Defense Department employees.’ Hearing the story, one young soldier heading out on patrol commented, ‘Somebody call me if I get laid off’.” —Oliver North ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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CLOSE THE ENRON LOOPHOLE
It is amazing that everyone agreed Enron's electronic trading, which was then and is still now wholly unregulated, led to the worst power debacle in our history.
People have forgotten how Enron manipulated the price of electricity in California. We have learned nothing.
Enron is gone, Ken Lay is dead, and the power brokers continue onward. Now we have the life blood of our economy being priced by the same type of personalities that ran Enron.
Of course, the Feds and all states that charge a sales tax on the sale of oil products are sharing in the windfall; just like Chavez, Iran, Saudi Arabia. What is their incentive to close the loop hole?
But there are parallels here. The crude oil market place is unregulated, the banking industry, in the form of sub prime lending, is substantially unregulated, and the public, all of us, are victimized.
To cut this short, all politicians need to be removed from office; they have been given the chance to represent us, and have failed. They have succeeded in representing the special interest groups almost to the exclusion of all other things. -- William J. Hamilton Attorney at Law 26 Pershing Avenue Ossining, New York 10562 ==========================
Between the time an oil tanker leaves a Middle Eastern port and arrives to a Western Hemisphere port, it is normally sold between 12 to 17 times. Each buyer puts on an added profit and this is what makes it so expensive.
This legalized oil "black market" is possible due to what is called the ENRON LOOPHOLE. I bring this up now as there is a national effort to close this loophole, amazingly, the effort is headed by your friendly heating oil companies, who are trapped between a rock and a hard place, since contracts with customers at a fixed price are costing them billions.
TIME TO DROP A LINE, NOT AN E-MAIL, to your friendly representatives and senators, also the Governor, TO CLOSE THE ENRON LOOPHOLE.
Raul
AGELESS WIT & OBSERVATIONS
I don't make jokes I just watch the government and report the facts. -Will Rogers
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free! -P.J. O'Rourke
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -Ronald Reagan (1986)
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. -Voltaire (1764)
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you! -Pericles (430 B.C.)
No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -Mark Twain (1866 )
Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it. -Unknown
The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. -Ronald Reagan The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -Winston Churchill The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -Mark Twain
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903) There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save Congress. -Mark Twain
What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. -Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -Thomas Jefferson
"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." Mark Twain Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.... But then I repeat myself. -Mark Twain I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -Winston Churchill
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. - George Bernard Shaw
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -G Gordon Liddy Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)
SELF DETERMINATION
“While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings... The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity.” —Ronald Reagan
FRACTAL WARRIOR
*********************************** "What we have here is, failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach; so you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it! I dont' like it any more than you men." -- Warden (Strother Martin) in Cool Hand Luke
INSTILLING VALUES
“There’s little question that the greatest generation provided their offspring, the baby boomer generation, with goods and services that their parents could not afford to give them. But tragically, the greatest generation did not instill in their children what their parents instilled in them, the values and customs that make for a civilized society. In previous generations, people were held responsible for their behavior. Today, society at large pays for irresponsible behavior... This failure to fully transmit value norms to subsequent generations represents another failing of the greatest generation. If there’s an American generation that can justifiably be called the greatest generation, it’s that generation responsible for the founding of our nation—men such as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington and millions of their fellow countrymen. This is the generation that threw off one form of oppression and laid the foundations for unprecedented human liberty. That is not a trivial achievement, for most often in mankind’s history, one form of oppression has been replaced with another far worse, as we’ve seen in Russia, China and Africa.” —Walter Williams
******************************************************* COURAGE “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” —Gilbert Keith Chesterton *******************************************************
“History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.”~Dwight D. Eisenhower Copyright 2007-2008TALK CITIZEN ™ is a trademark of LobaTek Incorporated
