So Long, Farewell...

In exactly one week I will kiss the civilian world "goodbye" for at least the next nine years. It's funny, in a strange sort of way, to think how my point of view will be different from the one I have held for the past eighteen years. When I look at myself and try to see what I have done in order to prepare for what is to come, the temptation to flounder and get those nasty butterflies in my un-worked lower abdomen is strong. But when I look back at my past and the events surrounding me, I can see little things that point to God's sovereignty and His method of preparing me for what He knows I am going to struggle through. I see family, friends, organizations, camps, schoolwork, etc. Even the seemingly inane events, such as assisting in a car accident scene before the emergency crews arrived, stand out in my mind. Those individuals present in my life, whether they be complete stooges or upright persons, have all played a part in this and I thank God for that (whether I thank those persons is another story...). Even while I write this my anticipation has grown. I am excited about the opportunity to work with fellow Navy folks through academics, physical activities (Competitive spirits will abound! Huzzah!), and moral development.

My time this summer will be spent in seven weeks of the equivalent of Navy basic training. This means three phone calls and practically no internet, which I think will be good for me. Please (please) write letters, for it is the third highest form of human communication. I promise that I will seek opportunities to write back, even if my handwriting cannot be read.


Let it rise about the four winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground
Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this...

It's all God's children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns!


Hooyah.

USNA Address

This will be my address for the summer:

MIDN BENJAMIN O'NEILL
Class of 2013
M Company 24 Platoon
Annapolis, MD 21412

Hooyah. If you want to send something for my eyes only, send it in a regular envelope and not a package. No porn, muscle magazines, drugs, weapons, junk food, or anything that recognizes the existence of the other branches of the military, for they do not exist at Annapolis. Not that any of my good friends are into that kind of stuff...


:P

True Love Waits...

Mom gave me a handout from the pregnancy center that contains a list of witty responses to "pressure lines". Their candor/wit makes some worth posting.


"It's only natural." - "So is death, but I don't want to practice that either."

"I can't stop now!" - "Could you if my dad walked in?" (With a baseball bat...)

"I lost the keys to my chastity belt and all my zippers are locked." (My favorite...)

"I'd hate to lose my virginity, I've heard it's hard to find."

"I look much better with clothes on."

In A Tree By The Brook, There's A Songbird Who Sings...

There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.

There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
There's a songbird who sings,
"Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven."
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There's a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it's whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won't go
In case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him.
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow,
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadow's taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.


And she's buying a Stairway to Heaven...

It Brings Home the Memories

I am on a 90's music binge. I am so glad I did not grow up with 80's music.


You'll say, "We've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And were falling apart."
You'll say, "The world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
So I know you just don't care."


And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film"
And as I recall laughing we both kinda liked it
And I said, "Well that's one thing we've got"

I see you, the only one who knew me
Now your eyes see through me
I guess I was wrong
So what now? It's plain to see we're over
And I hate when things are over
When so much is left undone

And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film"
And as I recall laughing we both kinda liked it
And I said, "Well that's one thing we've got"

Don't say that we've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we're falling apart
You'll say the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
Still I know you just don't care

And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film"
And as I recall laughing we both kinda liked it
And I said, "Well thats one thing we've got"

Life Comes at You Fast

I actually have Allstate, not Nationwide.


I just signed three pieces of paper that obligated the next nine years of my life to the Naval service.




Jeez.

My Thoughts Exactly

Shed a tear cause I'm missin' you
I'm still alright to smile
Girl, I think bout you every day now
Was a time when I wasn't sure
But you set my mind at ease
There is no doubt you're in my heart now

Said, "Woman, take it slow
It'll work itself out fine
All we need is just a little patience"

I sit here on the stairs Cause I'd rather be alone
If I can't have you right now I'll wait dear
Sometimes I get so tense but I can't speed up the time
But you know love there's one more thing to consider

Said, "Woman take it slow and things will be just fine
You and I'll just use a little patience"
Said, "Sugar take the time cause the lights are shining bright
You and I've got what it takes to make it
We won't fake it, I'll never break it
Cause I can't take it"

I've been walkin' the streets at night
Just tryin' to get it right
It's hard to see with so many around
You know I don't like being stuck in the crowd
And the streets don't change
But maybe the names
I ain't got time for the game 'cause I need you
Yeah, 'cause I need you
All this time...

It's Been a While Since I Could Hold My Head Up High...

I know, I know. I have refrained from posting anything and everything for the longest time simply because....well, I forgot.


The fourth and final quarter of the senior year is coming to a close, and I have come to realize that I need to cut back on the Cookout shakes and start preparing for the Academy. Though the thought of attending there for the next four years frightens me, it's not as severe as it could be because I still have yet to realize the fact that I am going there in the first place....Ha.

I have lost my train of thought, so I shall leave it at that for now. The LORD is my provision, and He will prepare me for whatever may come.

Subdivisions

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

Subdivisions ---
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions ---
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory
Of lighted streets on quiet nights...

-Subdivisions-Rush

King Heroin

Ladies and Gentlemen
Fella Americans
Lady Americans
This is James Brown
I wanna talk to you about one of our most deadly killers in the country today
I had a dream the other night
And I was sittin' in my living room
Just dozed off to sleep
So I started to dreamin'
I dreamed I walked in a place and
I saw a real strange, weird object
Standin' up talkin' to the people
And I found out it was Heroin
That deadly drug that go in your vein
He said...

I came to this country without a passport
Ever since then I've been hunted and sought
My little white grains are nothing but waste
Soft and deadly, and bitter to taste
But I'm a world of power and all know it's true
Use me once and you'll know it, too
I can make a mere schoolboy forget his books
I can make a world-famous beauty neglect her looks
I can make a good man forsake his wife
Send a greedy man to prison for the rest of his life
I can make a man forsake his country and flag
Make a girl sell her body for a five-dollar bag
Some think my adventure's a joy and a thriller
But I'll put a gun in your hand and make you a killer
In cellophane bags I've found my way
To heads of state, to children at play
I'm financed in China, Ran in Japan
I'm respected in Turkey and I'm legal in Siam
I take my addicts and make 'em steal, borrow, beg
Then they search for a vein in the arm or the leg
So be you Italian, Jewish, Black, or Mex
I can make the most virile of men forget their sex
So now... So now, my man, you must... You know, do your best
To keep up your habit until your arrest
Now the police have taken you from under my wing
Do you think they dare defy me? I, who am king?
Now, you must lie in that county jail
Where I can't get to you by visit or mail
So squirm with discomfort, wiggle and cough
Six days of madness and you might throw me off
Curse me in name, defy me in speech
But you'd pick me up right now if I were in your reach
All through your sentence you've become resolved to your fate
Fear not, young man or woman... I'll be waiting at the gate
And don't be afraid, don't run... I'll not chase
Sure, my name is Heroin and you'll be back for a taste
Behold! You're hooked
Your foot is in the stirrup
And make haste, mount the steed, and ride him well
For the white horse of heroin will ride you to Hell

To Hell
Will ride you to Hell until you are dead
Dead, brother... Dead!
This is a revolution of the mind
Get your mind together
And get away from drugs!
That's a demand.

- James Brown "King Heroin"

.....

I



Still



Hate



Valentine's



Day!

The Wonders of the English Language...

1. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
6. Comparisons are as bad a cliches.
7. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
8. Be more or less specific.
9. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary (in most cases).
10. Also too, never, ever use repeating repetitive redundancies.
11. Bad sentence fragments.
12. Foreign words are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant and use more words than necessary as it's highly superfluous and simply not helpful.
14. One should never generalize.
15. Don't use no double negatives.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be ignored.
19. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
20. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
21. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.


Take those for what you will...

The Beginning of the End....

An in-depth analysis of Obama's term by Dick Morris. Thought it would be interesting enough to post here.

The Obama presidency: Here comes socialism
By Dick Morris
Posted: 01/20/09 06:12 PM [ET]
2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.


Obama will accomplish his agenda of “reform” under the rubric of “recovery.” Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won’t do much to shorten the downturn — although they will make it less painful — but they will do a great deal to change our nation.


In implementing his agenda, Barack Obama will emulate the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Not the liberal mythology of the New Deal, but the actuality of what it accomplished.) When FDR took office, he was enormously successful in averting a total collapse of the banking system and the economy. But his New Deal measures only succeeded in lowering the unemployment rate from 23 percent in 1933, when he took office, to 13 percent in the summer of 1937. It never went lower. And his policies of over-regulation generated such business uncertainty that they triggered a second-term recession. Unemployment in 1938 rose to 17 percent and, in 1940, on the verge of the war-driven recovery, stood at 15 percent. (These data and the real story of Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s missteps, uncolored by ideology, are available in The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, copyright 2007.)


But in the name of a largely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression, Roosevelt passed crucial and permanent reforms that have dominated our lives ever since, including Social Security, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, unionization under the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage and a host of other fundamental changes.


Obama’s record will be similar, although less wise and more destructive. He will begin by passing every program for which liberals have lusted for decades, from alternative-energy sources to school renovations, infrastructure repairs and technology enhancements. These are all good programs, but they normally would be stretched out for years. But freed of any constraint on the deficit — indeed, empowered by a mandate to raise it as high as possible — Obama will do them all rather quickly.


But it is not his spending that will transform our political system, it is his tax and welfare policies. In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population.


Will he raise taxes? Why should he? With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans.


In the name of stabilizing the banking system, Obama will nationalize it. Using Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to write generous checks to needy financial institutions, his administration will demand preferred stock in exchange. Preferred stock gets dividends before common stockholders do. With the massive debt these companies will owe to the government, they will only be able to afford dividends for preferred stockholders — the government, not private investors. So who will buy common stock? And the government will demand that its bills be paid before any profits that might materialize are reinvested in the financial institution, so how will the value of the stocks ever grow? Devoid of private investors, these institutions will fall ever more under government control.


Obama will begin the process by limiting executive compensation. Then he will urge restructuring and lowering of home mortgages in danger of default (as the feds have already done with Citibank).

Then will come guidance on the loans to make and government instructions on the types of enterprises to favor. God grant that some Blagojevich type is not in charge of the program, using his power to line his pockets. The United States will find itself with an economic system comparable to that of Japan, where the all-powerful bureaucracy at MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) manages the economy, often making mistakes like giving mainframe computers priority over the development of laptops.


But it is the healthcare system that will experience the most dramatic and traumatic of changes. The current debate between erecting a Medicare-like governmental single payer or channeling coverage through private insurance misses the essential point. Without a lot more doctors, nurses, clinics, equipment and hospital beds, health resources will be strained to the breaking point. The people and equipment that now serve 250 million Americans and largely neglect all but the emergency needs of the other 50 million will now have to serve everyone. And, as government imposes ever more Draconian price controls and income limits on doctors, the supply of practitioners and equipment will decline as the demand escalates. Price increases will be out of the question, so the government will impose healthcare rationing, denying the older and sicker among us the care they need and even barring them from paying for it themselves. (Rationing based on income and price will be seen as immoral.)


And Obama will move to change permanently the partisan balance in America. He will move quickly to legalize all those who have been in America for five years, albeit illegally, and to smooth their paths to citizenship and voting. He will weaken border controls in an attempt to hike the Latino vote as high as he can in order to make red states like Texas into blue states like California. By the time he is finished, Latinos and African-Americans will cast a combined 30 percent of the vote. If they go by top-heavy margins for the Democrats, as they did in 2008, it will assure Democratic domination (until they move up the economic ladder and become good Republicans).


And he will enact the check-off card system for determining labor union representation, repealing the secret ballot in union elections. The result will be to raise the proportion of the labor force in unions up to the high teens from the current level of about 12 percent.


Finally, he will use the expansive powers of the Federal Communications Commission to impose “local” control and ownership of radio stations and to impose the “fairness doctrine” on talk radio. The effect will be to drive talk radio to the Internet, fundamentally change its economics, and retard its growth for years hence.


But none of these changes will cure the depression. It will end when the private sector works through the high debt levels that triggered the collapse in the first place. And, then, the large stimulus package deficits will likely lead to rapid inflation, probably necessitating a second recession to cure it.


So Obama’s name will be mud by 2012 and probably by 2010 as well. And the Republican Party will make big gains and regain much of its lost power.


But it will be too late to reverse the socialism of much of the economy, the demographic change in the electorate, the rationing of healthcare by the government, the surge of unionization and the crippling of talk radio.



Morris, a former adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Outrage. To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com. To order a signed copy of their new best-selling book, Fleeced, go to dickmorris.com.

It should be interesting to see how much of this turns out to be true.

We Got a Kinder, Gentler Machine-Gun Hand...

1) Dad and I traveled to the county courthouse today to research the history of our house. The amount of information within the Register of Deeds office is incredible. Our research led us from a volume numbered in the nine-hundreds all the way down to the third page in volume three, which was the original purchase of the property written in hand in 1909. We even found the original lot lines for the neighborhood, which have changed considerably.


2) Dad purchased a re-manufactured carb for the Camaro! The electric vehicle idea is out the window....for now.


3) Being on Christmas break for the past week and a half has made me somewhat irritable. The first two days of break were spent wandering through the house searching for something productive to accomplish. Blegh. Car projects are limited because of funds, drawing lasted for only an hour, piano grows old quickly, schoolwork...Well, schoolwork has an appeal to it again.

“I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often….And that is an objective assessment...”

Media Research Center’s Best Notable Quotables of 2008!


http://www.mediaresearch.org/press/2008/press20081222.asp

This Place is Crackalackin'...

Happenings....


1) The carburetor on the Camaro died Saturday morning. Dad and I are hypothesizing about what should be done with the thing. The motor is still original and has oh-so-many miles, so rebuilding it is an option. However, considering the cost of such a project why not convert the entire drivetrain to electric power? (His idea, not my own...)

2) Three colleges have sent acceptance letters: Embry-Riddle, The Citadel, and VMI. NC State will not send out any information until January 31, so I am still playing the waiting game. And no, I do not have a top choice out of the five ROTC colleges that have I applied to.

3) My friend and I were preparing to leave for church this past Sunday. His parents left beforehand to prepare for music, so he and I were taking Little Wing. Upon turning the key in the ignition, the car would not start. "Great. My battery is dead and we'll have to jump it in this pouring rain." I called my dad to make sure my memory was correct on the procedure.

"I turned the key in the ignition and the car will not start. I think the battery's dead. Wait...my interior lights are on..."

"Make sure the car is in park."

"Oh! Never mind..."

Not only did I park the car in drive, but I also drove ten miles to church before I realized that my hood was not closed properly. I had pulled the latch thinking that we were going to jump the battery, so it was unlatched most of the drive.

4) Quantum of Solace was...uneventful.

Top Songs for this Week

Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones
America - Neil Diamond
Rockin’ in the Free World - Neil Young
My Jesus - Todd Agnew
Angel - Aerosmith
Macrotus (Batman Begins) - Hans Zimmer
Hey Jude - The Beatles
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
Time - Pink Floyd
Some Kind of Wonderful - Grand Funk Railroad
Bullets - Creed
Last Breath - Creed
All I Want is You - U2
Soulshine - Allman Brothers
Save Me from Myself - Head
Love is Not a Fight - Warren Barfield
Burning the Past - Harry Gregson-Williams
Ecstasy of Gold - Ennio Morricone, Metallica (Both Versions)
O Come All Ye Faithful - Twisted Sister
O Holy Night - Josh Groban

My Pappy Said, "Son You're Gonna Drive Me To Drinkin' If You Don't Stop Drivin' That Hot Rod Lincoln..."

A brilliant piece by my man, Walter Williams.

A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008, AND THEREAFTER



Bailouts and Bankruptcy



Let's not allow Congress and members of the bailout parade panic us into allowing them to do things, as was done in the 1930s, that would convert a mild economic downturn into a true calamity. Right now the Big Three auto companies, and their unions, are asking Congress for a $25 billion bailout to avoid bankruptcy. Let's think about that a bit.

What happens when a company goes bankrupt? One thing that does not happen is their productive assets go poof and disappear into thin air. In other words, if GM goes bankrupt, the assembly lines, robots, buildings and other tools don't evaporate. What bankruptcy means is the title to those assets change. People who think they can manage those assets better purchase them.

Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, where the control of its business operations are subject to the oversight and jurisdiction of the court, gives companies a chance to reorganize. The court can permit complete or partial relief from the company's debts and its labor union contracts.

A large part of the problem is the Big Three's cozy relationship with the United Auto Workers union (UAW). GM has a $73 hourly wage cost including benefits and overtime. Toyota has five major assembly plants in the U.S. Its hourly wage cost plus benefits is $48. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out which company will be at a competitive disadvantage. Then there's the "jobs bank" feature of the UAW contract where workers who are laid off workers get 95 percent of their base pay and all their benefits. Right now there's a two-year limit but in the past workers could stay in the "jobs bank" forever unless they turned down two job offers within 50 miles of their factory. At one time job bank membership exceeded 7,000 "workers." GM, Ford and Chrysler face other problems that range from poor corporate management and marketing, not to mention costly government regulations.

Two vital marketplace signals are the profits that come with success and the losses that come with failure. When these two signals are not allowed to freely function, markets operate less efficiently. To be successful a business must take in enough revenue not only to cover wages, rents and interest but profits as well. In order to accomplish that feat executives must not only satisfy customers but they must do it in a manner that efficiently utilizes all of their resources. If they fail to cover costs, it means that resources are not being used efficiently and/or consumers don't value the good being produced relative to some other alternative. When a firm routinely fails to turn a profit, there are bankruptcy pressures. The firm's resources, workers, building and capital become available to someone else who might put them to better use. When government steps in with a bailout, it enables executives to continue mismanaging resources.

How much congressional involvement do we want with the Big Three auto companies? I'd say none. Congressmen and federal bureaucrats, including those at the Federal Reserve Board, don't know anymore about the automobile business than they know about the banking and financial businesses that they've turned into a mess. Just look at the idiotic focus of congressmen when the three auto company chief executives appeared before them. They questioned whether the executives should have driven to Congress rather than flown in on corporate jets. They focused on executive pay, which is a tiny fraction of costs compared to $73 hourly compensation to 250,000 autoworkers. The belief that Congress poses the major threat to our liberty and well-being is why the founders gave them limited enumerated powers. To our detriment, today's Americans have given them unlimited powers.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.



COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

And All Through The House...

Twas the month before Christmas,
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying,
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
"It might hurt people's feelings," the teachers would say,
December 25th is just a "Holiday".
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks, and credit,
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it.
CDs from Madonna, an XBOX, an I-pod,
Something was changing, something quite odd.
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa,
In hopes to sell books by Franken and Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down,
At Lowe's the word Christmas was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears,
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty,
Are the words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen,
On Boxer, On Rather, On Kerry, On Clinton!
At the top of the Senate there arose such a clatter,
To eliminate Jesus in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word as they took away our faith,
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace.
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded,
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate "Winter Break" under your "Dream Tree",
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say,
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS,
Not Happy Holiday!


(Ya Politically correct idiots...)

When You Lie With Dogs...

You Get Their Fleas....


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081206/D94T8T200.html


By TOBY STERLING

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.

The city is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including gambling parlors, and the so-called "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold openly. Also targeted are peep shows, massage parlors and souvenir shops used by drug dealers for money-laundering.

"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals" said Lodewijk Asscher, a city council member and one of the main proponents of the plan.

The news comes just one day after Amsterdam's mayor said he would search for loopholes in new rules laid down by the national government that would close marijuana cafes near schools citywide. The measures announced Saturday would affect about 36 coffee shops in the center itself - a little less than 20 percent of the city total.

Asscher underlined that the city center will remain true to its freewheeling reputation.

"It'll be a place with 200 windows (for prostitutes) and 30 coffee shops, which you can't find anywhere else in the world - very exciting, but also with cultural attractions," he said. "And you won't have to be embarrassed to say you came."

Under the plan announced Saturday, Amsterdam will spend euro30 million to euro40 million ($38 million to $51 million) to bring hotels, restaurants, art galleries and boutiques to the center. It will also build new underground parking areas.

Amsterdam already had plans to close many brothels and some coffee shops, but plans announced Saturday go further.

Asscher said the city would reshape the area, using zoning rules, buying out businesses and offering assistance to upgrade stores. The city has shut brothels and sex clubs in the past by relying on a law allowing the closure of businesses with bookkeeping irregularities.

Prostitution will be allowed only in two areas in the district - notably De Wallen ("The Walls"), a web of streets and alleys around the city's medieval retaining dam walls. The area has been a center of prostitution since before the city's golden shipping age in the 1600s.

Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000, formalizing a long-standing tolerance policy.

Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but prosecutors won't press charges for possession of small amounts. Coffee shops are able to sell it openly.