Always remember the Leap to Freedom

On 15 August 1961, 19 year old trooper Conrad Schumann was photographed taking flight to freedom. This image is an icon, and demonstrated to the East, as well as those enamored with Marxism, that the “People’s Revolution” hardly represented many of the people at all.

That young, newly trained NCO was there to guard the construction of the barbed wire barrier that was to become the Berlin wall, then in it’s 3rd day, he, like scores of East Germans knew what was coming.

We might be able to see it all again in Venezuela quite soon. In Bolivia, it’s already starting. The “Revolution” must be guarded from losing all of its’ Revolutionaries.

A venomous Left-wing witch hunt is out to destroy Trevor Phillips

Quentin Letts of The Daily Mail has written an article that includes two of my favorite subjects...

1. Left-wing Witch Hunts
2. Red Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone's loathing of Mr Phillips - Livingstone once accused him of 'pandering to the Right' - was such that he once referred to him at a political meeting as 'that bastard Phillips', and there are some who wonder if the current ructions are being fuelled by Mr Livingstone.

There is no good evidence for this. It seems more likely that the anti-Phillips stuff is being pumped out because, with his denunciation of multiculturalism, Mr Phillips undermined the belief system which has created thousands of public sector jobs.

When ferrets are fighting, it is seldom wise to plunge your hand into the sack to separate them. That way, yowling pain and finger loss lie.

In the case of the squealing, claw-baring squabble currently happening at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, we should make an exception.

The person caught in the middle of the fray, the Commission's chief executive Trevor Phillips, is worth saving. And I say that even though he is a friend of Peter Mandelson.

In the columns of the Left-wing Guardian and Independent, not to mention on the metro-trendy airwaves of the BBC and Channel 4, Mr Phillips is being assailed almost daily.

It might have been a slow news week, but the attention paid to this story is amazing. What on earth has Trevor Phillips done to deserve such a mauling from Islington's stormtoopers?

Mr Phillips is being accused of 'poor leadership skills'. There is dark talk of loose stewardship of millions of pounds of public money. There are grumbles about his personal stake in an equality consultancy. In short, it is 'get Trevor' week.

Six of the Commission's 16 Commissioners (16 of them, all on fat deals!) have baled out, squawking about how 'unacceptable' it is that Mr Phillips has just been reappointed by Equalities Minister Harriet Harman.

Her husband Jack Dromey is an old friend of Mr Phillips.

The Left, infuriated, is out to topple him. When you see Lefties fighting, you do slightly wonder how on earth anyone could have called the Tories the 'nasty party'. This lot make the Borgias look wimpy.

Why should those of us on the Right be concerned? The Commission, after all, is an umbrella group for subsidised special interests. Why should we side with a suave Labour schmoozer who has plainly not kept as keen an eye as he might on an annual budget of more than £70 million?

Well, Trevor Phillips is something of a hero. This sometime Left-wing firebrand has realised that his party got certain things badly wrong in the past three decades.

You will seldom hear the BBC admit this, but his chief crime, as far as the Left is concerned, was to declare that multiculturalism was undesirable.

He also said that the Metropolitan Police of London could no longer accurately be called institutionally racist. Those pronouncements took courage. He is now paying the price.

For the head of the equalities world to disown multiculturalism was like the Archbishop of Canterbury disowning God. Mr Phillips denounced the very belief on which much of the equalities industry depended. So who is Trevor Phillips?

He was born in London and educated partly in Guyana, partly in Britain. He is proud of his Afro-Caribbean heritage - indeed, he and his brother Mike made a film documentary about the slave trade - but he is not obsessed with it. That sets him apart from many in the equalities game.

For such professional egalitarians, loyalty to minority is as important as loyalty to old school tie once was for pukka Englishmen. From one's minority springs one's political power. Ergo, salute the minority interest at every turn.

Mr Phillips takes a more modern view. He thinks that we all, whatever our minority (if we have one), belong to a wider community, the British nation. Sometimes loyalty to national interest trumps loyalty to one's home-team minority.

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SHARIA in the United States

Watch this. Remember this. Send it to your friends.

I'll be back on Sunday

Pausing to smile, and then continuing to do so as we fight on

I am heading out this weekend to take Cutter Jr. off to college. I am thinking that, in spite of the enormous expense to get him out of the house, the grocery bill might offset it? Not a chance. I am coming to understand that kids today leave home with more than we did. I mean, I left with a pair of underwear and a Big Chief tablet. Of course, most Texas high school students read Dr. Seuss by torchlight during those days, as well. But I digress ...

Is it just me, or are the Obama Administration tricks du jour to snow the country on health care looking more and more like Garo Yepremian fake field goal? (I am very sad to report -- no vids of Yepremian running or passing.) If you're too young to remember Garo Yepremian and his utter lack of athleticism, well, imagine a slow Danny DeVito fending off a blitz by the Steelers.

Yes, it's true. Pretty much every thing is coming up roses for our side in the current debates in townhalls and Washington. And for the other side ... well, it's coming up defication.

But watch for that fake punt ... Oh, wait, we got that covered ... Check out the following and hang around for the Japanese description of the hit:

In all seriousness, we need to remain vigilant. Obama waits to celebrate his certain victory. In fact, he was until recently celebrating before reaching the finish, somewhat like this:



Don't worry, friends. Smiling doesn't mean we are letting up. No, we pause today to recognize that the fight is on, we are engaged ... and we are taking ground. That's a good thing. Still, our nation remains in peril and the world remains a dangerous place. Twenty-six people were killed voting in Afghanistan yesterday. By comparison, remember how the Iraqi elections went? My view is that the world and our enemies sense the change in leadership at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave..

Recall the recent debate in the comments below about what most Muslims really believe about the West? Look at the welcome the Lockerbie bomber got, in spite of assurances that this would not happen. I guess there was no "moderate" counter-protest or townhall?

Stay strong. The numbers of the evildoers are not important. It's the content of the character of those who oppose them that really matters.

I recently heard Eric Erickson of Redstate talking about how his faith influences how he approaches the serious battles of the day with good cheer. He remarked that we don't know when the victory will come, but we know that it will come. So, we rush again to the fight with a sense of urgency and yet, still smiling.

That, my friends, is exactly how I see it.

Soloman's Slam Dunk

Run over to THE WISDOM OF SOLOMAN where Soloman has posted a couple of videos that'll get you gritting your teeth. Soloman is no looker, but a few shots of Sophia Elena will sweeten the experience. Great Viewing!!

Trees, Bees, Whales, Snails

Adult Language Warning

BREAKING NEWS

OBAMA PROMISES TORT REFORM

(Goomba News Network) Washington DC - In a surprising Thursday afternoon announcement, President Obama surprised political friends and foes alike by proposing sweeping Tort Reform in order to improve the chances of passing his highly unpopular healthcare plan.

Mr. Obama made his case by stating:

"Close to 80% of Americans are overweight or obese, according to recent state Health Department data. Previous administrations have allowed this situation to worsen, threatening the health of millions of women and children. There are countless greasy burger joints, downtown back-alley eateries, and glossy fast-food outlets. But, nothing has proved more damaging to the health of honest hard-working Americans than the frighteningly high-fat fruit and custard torts available on almost every street corner. The devious pushers of poison so often disguise themselves as trendy eco-friendly bakeries."

"These Torts are often referred to as healthy food deserts," said Dr. Ezekial Emaunuel, director of the President's Office of Health Improvement. "There are very few quality healthy food items in these bakeries and there's an abundance of fat, white flour, and sugar-laden products. It's a health epidemic."

President Obama promised to "punch back twice as hard" to withstand the expected attacks on his proposed heath reform legislation by "fat waddling panderers of corpulence and hate. He pledged to end the sale of Torts by promising "I'll stop them on the beaches. I'll stop them in the streets. I will protect the children."

Developing

Is this the HOPE and CHANGE you've been waiting for?

Click on a few of the links below for an update on the State of the Nation...

Firms with Obama ties profit from health push


Hellish scenes as 6 bomb blasts rip Baghdad leaving at least 95 dead and 536 wounded


US looks to bolster combat troops in Afghanistan


Unemployment will run out by end of the year as unemployment continue to rise


Government Jobs Have Grown Since Recession


July Housing Starts, Producer Prices Down


Unemployment Spike Compounds Foreclosure Crisis


Obama to talk education along with LeBron James, Kelly Clarkson


Obama reaches out to Islamist parties in Pakistan


Why Israel Is Nervous

Government Medicine Update

"Un-American" Protests Continue

Jonah Goldberg over at Townhall.com points out some cracks in Obama's Wall of Unity.

"Obama wants the debate to be about angry white men. And, as lame as that is, that's what's happening. It won't make ObamaCare a reality, but it will shift the blame from where it rightly belongs."

Why 'ObamaCare' is Failing

To listen to the White House and its supporters in and out of the media, you would think that opposition to "ObamaCare" is the hobgoblin of a few small minds on the right. Racists, fascists, Neanderthals, the whole "Star Wars" cantina of boogeymen and cranks stand opposed to much-needed reform.

Left out of this fairly naked effort to demonize many with the actions of a few is the simple fact that ObamaCare -- however defined -- has been tanking in the polls for weeks. President Obama's handling of health care is unpopular with a majority of Americans and a majority of self-proclaimed independents.

Focusing on the town halls has its merits, but if you actually wanted ObamaCare to pass, casting a majority of Americans as the stooges of racist goons may not be the best way to go.

Imagine if George W. Bush, in his effort to partially privatize Social Security, had insisted that the "time for talking is over." Picture, if you will, the Bush White House asking Americans to turn in their e-mails in the pursuit of "fishy" dissent. Conjure a scenario under which then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott derided critics as "evil-mongers" the way Harry Reid recently described town hall protesters. Or if then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert and then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay had called critics "un-American" the way Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer did last week, or if White House strategist Karl Rove had been Sir Spam-a-lot instead of David Axelrod.

Now, I'm not asking you, dear reader, to do this so that you might be able to see through the glare of Obama's halo or the outlines of the media's staggering double standard when it comes to covering this White House. Rather, it is to grasp that the Obama administration has been astoundingly incompetent.

Lashing out at the town hall protesters, playing the race card, whining about angry white men and whispering ominously about right-wing militias is almost always a sign of liberalism's weakness -- a failure of the imagination.

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Here comes Sharia! Women, Gays and Jews remain silent.

Islam's European Conquest: Is America Next?
By John Griffing (American Thinker)

"Islamic lands that were occupied by the enemies will once again become Islamic...We proclaim that we will conquer Rome, like Constantinople was conquered once, and as it will be conquered again."

- Ali Al-Faqir, the Jordanian Minister for Religious Endowment

Britain, birthplace of parliamentary democracy, has fallen to Islam. Oxford, once home to the likes of C.S. Lewis, now houses a giant Eastern Islamic Studies Center. If this were the only Islamic addition to Oxford, the mood would be less somber, but when Oxford citizens are forced to awake every morning to the Muslim call to prayer with the full consent of the Church of England, nothing short of conquest has taken place.

Britain's Muslim demographic is now so dominant that the British government recently began to allow Islamic civil and religious law, known as Sharia, to be enforced along side British law.

But if religious tolerance is good, why is this a problem? Simple-this is not an issue of religious liberty. Islam is not designed to co-exist with western civilization. It is designed to conquer it.

Most would agree that Judeo-Christian values are consistent with Anglo-American tradition. Can the same be said of Islam? Even Muslims don't think so. The chief Justice of London's Sharia Court made this chilling statement:

If Sharia is implemented then you can turn this country into a haven of peace...Once a thief's hand is cut off, nobody is going to steal. Once an adulterer is stoned, nobody is going to commit this crime at all. This is why we say we want to offer it to British society.

Statements like this have not stopped prominent British figures from endorsing Sharia. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Protestant equivalent of the Pope, called Sharia "unavoidable."

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Goomba Poet Lariot Speaks

Some day I will write something lighthearted, but with all this talk about a so-called "reform" of the nation's health care system, we must not neglect the nation's literary health.

Indeed, on those days when we encounter the harshness of life which itself intersects with the natural rhythmic beauty of the seasons, there is but one literary device to communicate the deepest groanings of the human soul – haiku.

And I am not talking about the slurred, nonsensical ramblings of Hop Sing after downing a case of Asahi with Joe, Candy, and Hoss at the Ponderosa, either.

Higher haiku is deeply ingrained in Texas prairie folk, and the love of it has been passed down to me. It's a good thing, because today it was 100 degrees in Dallas and I was pondering why this city exists. As I deliberated the metaphysics of it all, I then realized that the cabbie who reeked of booze was driving off with my wallet in his car.

Then, the following haiku rushed over my soul like a mountain spring and I was whole again:

Thieves

Wallet gone in cab

Sweating, broke but no worries …

Thief gets health care, too.

Obama Health Questions???

Fannie Med

Don't be fooled. Obama is faking center-right.

The "public option" is nothing more and nothing less than government-run health care. Americans have figured that out, and they don't want it. So what do you do when you're desperate to sell a product nobody wants? You rename it.

Co-ops = Public Option = Government-run health care

The sooner America learns that equation, the better.

• Co-Ops Would Be Funded By Federal Government.

• Co-Ops Would Be Regulated By Federal Government.

• Co-Ops Would Force Individuals Who Want To Join To Go Through State Governments.

• The Federal Government Would Use Co-Ops To Monopolize Health Insurance.

Fannie Med, the mini-me public option:

“[T]hese co-ops sound a lot like a health-care Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... The duo proceeded to use their government subsidy to dominate the market and drive out private competitors.”

Sen. Leader Harry Reid: "We’re going to have some type of public option, call it 'co-op,' call it what you want..."

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

This post is a direct steal from RightKlik

Tattoo Tax possible in California

Democrats in Legislature target Sure Moneymaker

(GNN) Sacramento - As California's fiscal crisis deepens, despite desperate efforts by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, the state's politicians are casting about for ways to relieve the financial - and political - pressure.

That's why, out of the clear blue, taxing tattoos at an annual rate of $1.50 per marking, has moved to the Capitol's front burner.

The California Teachers Association and other labor unions are pushing this tax on body art, citing an increased number of tattoos in the general population. Tattoos that, in California, have escaped taxation for decades.

The Legislature's majority Democrats already have endorsed an extra $1.00-per-tattoo surcharge for markings above the neck or on the hands. The new taxes, if adopted, are expected to raise at least $2 billion per year.

Any tax on body art, however, would require at least some Republican support because of the constitutional requirement for two-thirds votes on new taxes. So it's not surprising that tattoo parlors and rock stars have been ramping up their opposition, distributing an informational handout explaining that citizens who would be impacted by this tax are individuals who, by lifestyle, reject the concepts of taxation and government control. .

The tattoo industry argues that tattoo taxes would encourage more "intimate and subtle body art" and fail to generate the purported $2 billion in new revenues.

Taxing tattoos or body piercings is politically attractive because polls consistently show it to be one of the few popular proposed levies. However, some critics argue that it's a regressive tax that falls mostly on lower-income consumers, and that tattoo revenues will fade as tattoing declines, making it an unstable source of money.

Californians purchased nearly 0.3 tattoos per capita per year four decades ago, but popularity has now increased to some 302 million tattoos a year in all.

The Mackinac study estimates that 16.8 percent of California's tattoos are hidden on shoulders, breasts, and lower backs, 10.7 percent on genitalia, 8 percent on the face, and 35.5 on the legs or arms.

We should hear a lot more about this in the months ahead as the state's fiscal noose tightens.

Save the Trees

I walked to town this morning. My household supply of martini olives had grown alarmingly low, so I strolled up to the local Shop 'N Bag with the goal of replenishing a few of life's staples. I almost turned back after spotting Corina Flatt-Tuttle perched at a card table just to the right of the automatic doors.

She's an energetic steel-eyed New Age gal who resembles a shorter and less mellow Bea Arthur. Corina was collecting signatures. I gathered my pluck and paced steadily forward.

"Corina, what a glorious morning. God's up there in the big chair and, basically, the world's not bad."

She lit up like a puppy.

"Nickie, I need your help. The Nevada County Mothers for Healthy Air need you to support us. We want people to breathe freely. I know you do too."

I looked for a quick escape, but a gaggle of Seniors were approaching the entrance with a hesitancy usually reserved for llamas leaping through inner tubes.

"It's at the top of my list."

Relief swept over her.

"We must ban fireplaces and woodstoves that spew out their filth and poison our children. You have probably noticed the extreme heat lately. Someone has to do something to lessen this County's carbon footprint. We'd also be saving our native forests and their habitat. Sign right here."

I breathed deeply and spoke slowly.

"I have noticed the heat. I chalked it up to that whole Summer thing. Corina, this community is surrounded my millions of acres of forest, and, at present, there is an active forest fire gobbling up thousands of acres a day. T'was ever thus. Show me where I can sign to have the government ban forest fires.

Anyhoo, I've always considered trees to be a renewable resource. Chestnuts roasting on an Aga stove? I'm gonna have to think this one over."

At that moment, I felt as one with child molesters perp-walked past glaring parents. Bill Buckner and I were birds of a feather. Corina Flatt-Tuttle's glare clearly wished harm to my spawn for generations to come.

The oldsters at the entrance had collectively solved the puzzle of the stacked red shopping baskets, so I slunk gingerly into the air-conditioned sanctuary.

I bought olives, ham steaks, and a jar of fair trade organic dye-free peppercorns.

I'm not totally unsympathetic to the cause.

Nothing is as liberating as prosperity

Janet Daley of The Telegraph takes a look at Britain's love-hate relationship with prosperity.

Then we were into the 1980s and suddenly the Conservatives were saying genuinely radical things to working-class people: you don't have to stay where you started out in life; you can buy your council house and join the property-owning class; you can start your own business and leave behind your old assumptions about your place in the world. There followed a generation of Essex Men, with their much-reviled "Loadsamoney" mentality and vulgar habits which Left-wing intellectuals found so easy to despise.

When I first arrived in Britain from America in the 1960s, I was shocked by the class system. Not because such social divides were unknown in the US, but because there was an utterly different attitude here towards the possibility of moving on from the condition into which you had been born. It was not the poverty or the deprivation of British working class life that staggered me – there was plenty of that where I came from. It was the passivity and defeatism, the ineradicable sense of resignation, of people who believed it was inconceivable that they or anyone they knew should transcend their social and cultural limitations. I had never met people who said, when you encouraged their children to aim for university, "Don't go putting ideas in his head."

My memories of that time had faded over the years, but they were brought vividly back to life by last week's controversy over which political party is the truly progressive one. I was on the Left in those days, a veteran of the student revolution at Berkeley: indeed, one of the reasons I had become an expatriate was my disenchantment with America's capitalist values. So my natural political sympathies hovered between the Trotskyite New Left and the fundamentalist wing of the Labour Party.

There was, at first, something deeply stirring in the message that class solidarity was the answer to the unjust arrangements of a hierarchical society, and that solidarity meant loyalty to your roots. It was easy to romanticise the attempt to make an ideological virtue out of entrenched social immobility. To believe, indeed, that to move out of the working class would be treacherous to your brethren, that it was selfish (a word that was to play an enormous role in anti-Thatcherite rhetoric) – an abandonment of those with whom you shared a common misfortune.

Labour's message to what it used to call "our people" was a mix of trade union militancy ("We hate this unjust society, so we will sabotage it") and paternalist, welfare state condescension ("Stay where you are and we'll look after you"). What it preached, above all else, was that the working class could only triumph collectively: that the true struggle was between one fixed set of people who had been born into disadvantage, and another who had, for illegitimate reasons, every privilege that life could offer.

But the Marxist mystique collapsed pretty readily once you looked at the real consequences. Individual aspiration and self-determination – the things that actually made a life worth living in terms of personal fulfilment – were being devalued or forcibly crushed. Opportunities were not so much being denied to working-class people as being renounced by them. And the party that was most enthusiastic in perpetuating this grotesque state of affairs was Labour, because its electoral power base depended on it.

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Palin wins 'death panel' battle

Sarah Palin makes Obama's Mob say "Uncle"
Wins public debate over Death Panels for Older Americans

"Recently, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speculated that Obama and other Democrats wanted to set up "death panels" to decide who gets medical services and who does not."

"The Palin claim about "death panels" was so widely discredited that the White House has begun openly quoting it in an effort to show that opponents of the healthcare overhaul are misinformed."

"Still, a week after first using the term on her Facebook page, Palin defended her claim this week with a new posting. And senators on the finance committee decided to get rid of the provision that appeared to be animating the claim."

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Senate committee scraps healthcare provision that gave rise to 'death panel' claims

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More Health Care Nonsense

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.

Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.

Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.

Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."

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More Health Care Nonsense

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Warning From the Tomb

Hat Tip to No Pasaran