Shocked!

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sarah Palin is drawing criticism from around the world after declaring that the United States has to stand with "our North Korean allies."


Palin's gaffe, made Wednesday during an interview on Glenn Beck's syndicated radio show, was quickly corrected by her host. But it drew immediate fire from liberal bloggers, who cited it as an example of the 2008 vice presidential candidate's lack of foreign policy expertise.


Newspapers in Asia and Europe are repeating the criticism. The Times of India says Palin "did it again," while London's Daily Mail says she "may want to brush up on her geography."


The conservative U.S. website The Weekly Standard came to Palin's defense, pointing out that "she correctly identified North Korea as our enemy literally eight seconds before the mix-up."



I was shocked I tell you shocked! when I heard this.  Word of Mrs. Palin's gaffe has gone out to all 57 states in this great union and the people are just shocked.
I called up a friend of mine who just moved here from Vienna and although I don't speak Austrian very well I was able to get across to him what had happened and he was so shocked that he had to take a hit off of his breathalyzing inhalator.  He was in such distress that I was tempted to summon a corpse-man to attend to him.

Perhaps Governor Palin should take a lesson from our historic president and take a teleprompter with her everywhere she goes. 

Person of the Year

From Pundit Press:

NBC and its affiliates have been trounced in ratings over the last several years. With stations like MSNBC under their belt and liberals such as Matt Lauer and Keith Olbermann hosting programs, NBC is clearly disconnected with the average American. Another clear sign of their mismanagement: naming Sharif El-Gamal, developer of the Ground Zero Mosque, one of their "People of the Year."

In an interview set to air on Thanksgiving Day, Matt Lauer sat down with El-Gamal and discussed the "Park 51 Project." El-Gamal, who was apparently pleased to be named one of NBC's people of the year, seemed very comfortable answering questions. The excerpt released so far shows that Mr. Lauer gave El-Gamal a decidedly softball interview.
 
I have to wonder if NBC even realizes what it is doing. 
 
I mean do then not realize that they are flipping off the majority of the American public (you know the people whose viewership they depend upon to give them ratings)?
 
Or do they know exactly what they are doing and just don't care?
 
Is it that they have given up on reaching the great majority of the people and are just producing their "news" broadcasts for their fellow bi-coastal elite buddies?  That's the way it is in Hollywood after all.  Movies that have no possibility of making money get made just so the actors, writers, directors and producers can preen for their peers at A-list cocktail parties.
 
I hope this is the case because one of the biggest obstacles we will have to overcome in saving the country will be convincing the public that the mainstream media are not just "not too bright" but are actually the enemy - just as much as the Soviet Union during the cold war or the Islamofascists in the current war on terror.
 
If they stop even pretending they are anything other than propagandists for evil that task will be much simpler.

Sarah Palin's Thanksgiving

Angelina of Moonbatastan does not

Angelina Jolie Hates Thanksgiving, Refuses to Celebrate, Report Says

Published November 24, 2010 | FoxNews.

As families across America gather to give thanks this Thursday, one star who is determined to make sure her family doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving is Angelina Jolie, according to a report from PopEater.com.

Friends of the actress tell PopEater’s Rob Shuter that Jolie is completely “grossed out” by the centuries-old American holiday.

“Jolie hates this holiday and wants no part in rewriting history like so many other Americans,” the friend said. “To celebrate what the white settlers did to the native Indians, the domination of one culture over another, just isn’t her style. She definitely doesn’t want to teach her multi-cultural family how to celebrate a story of murder.”

Jolie, who has made a name for herself through charitable work in poverty-stricken countries, has six children, three of whom were from international adoptions.

POP TARTS: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Donate $150,000 to Promote U.S. Adoption

“Angelina gets so grossed out by Thanksgiving that she has made sure her family will not be in America this year on Thursday,” an insider tells Shuter.

And while Brad and the kids may have been looking forward to gobbling up some turkey and stuffing, Angie just won’t have it.

“If Brad wants turkey, he will have to cook it himself,” a family friend said. “For Angie, it will be another day when America tries to rewrite history.”

What is interesting in all of this is that the Thanksgiving holiday has nothing to do with the treatment of the American Indians by white Europeans. 

In 1621 the colonists of the Plymouth Colony (history usually refers to them  as the Pilgrims) had suffered through a devastating winter.  Of the 102 original settlers 45 had died of illness and exposure and the majority of those left alive were sick with diseases like scurvy.  By the time the first harvest feast (the pilgrims did not call it a Thanksgiving celebration - to them that would have involved a day-long religious service that would not have featured food or revelry) was celebrated following the harvest in November 1621 only four if the original 18 adult women were left alive to celebrate.

Had it not been for the friendship of the Wampanoag Indians it is highly unlikely that any of  the Englishmen would have survived that first winter.  However with the assistance of the Indians the colonists began to learn to adapt themselves to the New World.  By Autumn of 1621 the colonists had both planted and gathered in their first crop in their new home.

It was against this backdrop that the Pilgrims held a three day long harvest celebration in which the 53 surviving colonists hosted about 90 Wampanoag Indians (who added 5 deer to the geese, turkeys, fish, eels, clams and assorted fruits and vegetables provided by the colonists).

The Pilgrims of Plymouth did not make the harvest celebration an official holiday.  It was not until the presidency of George Washington that an annual feast of Thanksgiving was proclaimed (originally to celebrate the ratification of the Constitution) but the practice was stopped by Thomas Jefferson during his presidency because he found it to be "a kingly custom".

It was not until Abraham Lincoln was president that the last Thursday (later that was changed to the fourth Thursday) in November was officially declared to be "Thanksgiving Day" in which all Americans were urged to give thanks unto God for all his blessings upon us as individuals, families and a nation.

As can be seen the modern Thanksgiving has little to do with the original Plymouth harvest celebration.  It is about acknowledging God as the source of all good, not the murder of Native Americans.  Which makes declarations like that of Ms. Jolie both ignorant and crudely stupid.

Oh, two other points need to be made about "the first Thanksgiving".  One, it was not a religious observance.  While the Pilgrims certainly prayed and gave thanks to God for the first harvest and their Indian friends an actual Thanksgiving service would have involved spending all day in church praying and worshiping.  Not cooking and eating and engaging in other festivities.

Two, the Pilgrims organized their colony around the principle of communal ownership.  All crops harvested were to be placed in the communal storehouse (along with the produce of activities like hunting and trapping) and to be distributed equally among the population.

This experiment with communism brought the colonists to the brink of starvation and by 1623 it was abandoned in favor of private property.  This allowed the colony to prosper greatly.

I bring these things up because some in the Church try to make the story of the "first Thanksgiving" about how the Pilgrims suffered devastating losses during their first year but still chose to give thanks to God.  This demonstrates the point that a Christian is thankful despite rather than because of his circumstances.

While the Pilgrims were grateful to God even in the midst of adversity that wasn't really the point of their first harvest celebration. 

Another error made about the "first Thanksgiving" is being popularized by radio talker Rush Limbaugh and that is that the Pilgrims were giving thanks for being able to abandon their experiment with communism.  The idea is that they nearly starved under the system of communal ownership and when they went over to private property they begin prospering and held a big party to celebrate their new found wealth.

A nice story but not true.  The "first Thanksgiving" was held in 1621 and communism was not abandoned until 1623.

The "first Thanksgiving" was a big party held to celebrate the fact that the colonists had survived their first horrible year in the New World and had managed to grow enough food to see them through the coming winter.  It had nothing to do with genocide, racism, free-market capitalism or solemn religious observance.

Robin of Berkley gets it

My First Thankful Thanksgiving
By Robin of Berkeley


Thanksgiving was never a favorite holiday of mine. Now that I think about it, I never cared for any of them: 4th of July, Christmas, or Columbus Day (which, by the way, Berkeley long ago renamed "Indigenous People's Day").

If I'm being completely honest here, my main activities during the holidays were ranting and raving. For instance: Why should we celebrate Thanksgiving when the holiday marks the slaughter of Native Americans? Why do these cashiers keep cheerfully extolling me to "have a Merry Christmas!"? And if I hear one more [censored] Christmas song, I will lose my frigging mind.

I too feel blessed, even as I must face the unavoidable sorrows of this transient human life. My health problems flare up; I'm worried but still feel blessed. I live in an insane area and lack community -- and yet, through it all, my gratitude never wavers.

This is because I know what it's like to live with and without God. I know what it's like to search aimlessly for something I lack, not even knowing what it is, and to blindly embrace political leaders because they promise to fill the void. And I know the bliss of finding what I was looking for all along.

Because I live a before-and-after existence, every day feels brand new. Now when I start losing something precious -- which I am doing right now, as a close friend is broadsided by a deadly disease -- I know that something endures even after everything else is gone.

As my cup runneth over this Thanksgiving, my mind drifts to the many guides and mentors I've had along the way. I'm eternally grateful to American Thinker's mensch of an editor, Thomas Lifson, who embraced my writing from that first article two years ago, "Letter of Amends."

By doing so, Thomas opened a window for me into the conservative community -- "My Peeps" -- that I would not have discovered on my own. He gave me the chance to find my way to those readers who, quite frankly, changed my life. I can even recall the exact moment when the spark of the Divine was planted in my consciousness.

I was reading a comment by a reader who wrote the oddest and yet most intriguing thing. He/she wrote, "God is revealing Himself to you." I had no idea what the person was talking about; I had never heard language like this before. And yet because my eyes moistened, I knew that a door to something big and transformative had been opened.

But mostly, as I celebrate my First Thankful Thanksgiving, I feel so blessed that God gave me the opportunity to get my head on straight, even though I am on the cusp of my twilight years. For reasons I will never understand, He gently plucked me up and deposited me with this faithful flock. And given the dark times we live in, He did this just in the nick of time.

But then, three years ago, the bottom fell out of my life. Slowly but surely, it dawned on me that everything I had held as sacrosanct was a lie. I woke up -- and now I behold the world with fresh eyes. Consequently, I am celebrating my First Thankful Thanksgiving. Of course, I was just one of the progressive pack, parroting the party line. Being a Leftist means honing in on every possible injustice. Never-ending gripes and grievances are the glue that keeps progressives cemented together. 

 Instead of laser-focusing on every unfairness, I am now moved by life's bounty. I finally see my great fortune in being born in this country, in this moment in time. Although I used to lambaste the United States and everything it stood for, I realize that I was like a spoiled child -- ungrateful, mean-spirited.

I was under the delusion that living in another country, any other country, would be better than in the world's oppressor, the U.S. of A. And now that I've actually gotten a clue, I thank my lucky stars that I was not born a woman in Iran, Ethiopia, China -- actually anywhere aside from the United States.

I realize all of this now, but also much, much more. Because not only is this my first Thanksgiving as a patriotic American, but it's my first as a true believer. With my spiritual evolution, my life has come full circle.

So this Thanksgiving, I feel not only grateful, but blessed. I read something evocative in the illuminating book Back to Virtue. The author writes that before a person believes in God, he feels either happy or unhappy. The person will cling to fleeting pleasures, no matter how harmful they may be.

When a person wakes up to the Divine, he's still sometimes happy and other times unhappy. But through all the trials and tribulations of this human realm, he continually feels blessed.

... with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is.
(From Listen, by W. S. Merwin)

A frequent American Thinker contributor, Robin is a recovering liberal and a licensed psychotherapist in Berkeley. You can contact Robin through her website: www.robinofberkeley.com. She would like to wish her readers a very happy Thanksgiving!

Back to the Center

H/T: American Thinker

I can relate

Truths For Mature Humans

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How in the world are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

9. Bad decisions make good stories.

10. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

11. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

12. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

13. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

14. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

15. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

16. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

17. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

18. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

19. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

20. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds,eyes closed, first time, every time!

21. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974.That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

I stole this from The Silverbacks.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that You are listening!

REPEAL THE 26TH AMENDMENT!
by Ann Coulter
November 10, 2010


Jimmy Carter was such an abominable president we got Ronald Reagan, tax cuts, a booming economy and the destruction of the Soviet Union.


Two years of Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress got us the first Republican Congress in half a century, followed by tax cuts, welfare reform and a booming economy –- all of which Clinton now claims credit for.


Obama's disastrous presidency has already produced Republican senators from Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Illinois; New Jersey's wonder-governor Chris Christie; and the largest House majority for Republicans since 1946.


We deserve more. Clinton only threatened to wreck the health care system; Obama actually did it. We must repeal the 26th Amendment.


Adopted in 1971 at the tail end of the Worst Generation's anti-war protests, the argument for allowing children to vote was that 18-year-olds could drink and be conscripted into the military, so they ought to be allowed to vote.


But 18-year-olds aren't allowed to drink anymore. We no longer have a draft. In fact, while repealing the 26th Amendment, we ought to add a separate right to vote for members of the military, irrespective of age.


As we have learned from ObamaCare, young people are not considered adults until age 26, at which point they are finally forced to get off their parents' health care plans. The old motto was "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote." The new motto is: "Not old enough to buy your own health insurance, not old enough to vote."


Eighteen- to 26-year-olds don't have property, spouses, children or massive tax bills. Most of them don't even have jobs because the president they felt so good about themselves for supporting wrecked the economy.


The meager tax young people paid for vehicle licensing fees on their cars threw them into such a blind rage that in 2003 they uncharacteristically voted to recall the Democratic governor of California, Gray Davis. Wait until they start making real money and realize they share a joint-checking account arrangement with the government! Literally wait. Then we'll let them vote.


Having absolutely no idea what makes their precious cars run, by the way, young voters are the most likely to oppose offshore drilling.


How about 10-year-olds? Why not give them the vote?


Then we'd have politicians wooing voters with offers of free Justin Bieber tickets instead of offers of a "sustainable planet" or whatever hokum the youth have swallowed hook, line and sinker from their teachers, pop culture idols and other authority figures. (Along with their approved-by-the-authorities "Question Authority" bumper stickers.)


Like 18-year-olds, the 10-year-olds would be sublimely unaware that they're the ones who will be footing the bill for all these "free" goodies, paying and paying until they die of old age.


Brain research in the last five years at Dartmouth and elsewhere has shown that human brains are not fully developed until age 25 and are particularly deficient in their frontal lobes, which control decision-making, rational thinking, judgment, the ability to plan ahead and to resist impulses.


Unfortunately, we didn't know that in 1971. Those of you who have made it to age 26 without dying in a stupid drinking game -- and I think congratulations are in order, by the way -- understand how insane it is to allow young people to vote.


It would almost be tolerable if everyone under the age of 30 just admitted they voted for Obama because someone said to them, "C'mon, it's really cool! Everyone's doing it!"


We trusted them, and now we know it was a mistake.


True, Reagan tied with Carter for the youth vote in 1980 and stole younger voters from Mondale in 1984, but other than that, young voters have consistently embarrassed themselves. Of course, back when Reagan was running for president, young voters consisted of the one slice of the population completely uninfected by the Worst Generation. Today's youth are the infantilized, pampered, bicycle-helmeted children of the Worst Generation.


They foisted this jug-eared, European socialist on us and now they must be punished. Voters aged 18 to 29 years old comprised nearly a fifth of the voting population in 2008 and they voted overwhelmingly for Obama, 66 percent to 31 percent.


And it only took 12 to 14 years of North Korean-style brainwashing to make them do it! At least their teachers haven't brainwashed them into burning books or ratting out their parents to the Stasi yet. (On the bright side, before teaching them book-burning, their professors would be forced to teach them what a book is.)


It would make more sense to give public school teachers and college professors 20 votes apiece than to allow their impressionable students to vote.


The Re-Education Camp Effect can be seen in how these slackers living at home on their parents' health insurance voted in the middle of the Republican tidal wave this year. Youths aged 18-29 voted for the Democrats by 16 points. But the kids aged 18-24 -- having just received an A in Professor Ward Churchill's college class on American Oppression -- voted for the Democrats by a whopping 19 points.


Young people voted for Obama as a fashion statement. One daughter of a friend of a friend of mine spent her whole college summer in 2008 working at a restaurant and then, with teary eyes, sent everything she made to the Obama campaign.


Luckily, she doesn't have to worry about paying for tuition, rent or food. Or property taxes, electric bills, plumbers and electricians. After being exploited by the left, she'll end up paying for it for the rest of her life, with interest.


Liberals fight tooth-and-nail to create an electorate disposed to vote Democratic by, for example, demanding that felons and illegal aliens be given the vote. But it's at least possible that illegal aliens and criminals pay taxes or have fully functioning frontal lobes.


Republicans ought to fight for their own electorate, which at a minimum ought to mean voters with fully functioning brains and the possibility of a tax bill. Not old enough to buy your own health insurance, not old enough to vote.


COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106


I'm not sure how seriously to take Miss Ann on this one.  I absolutely agree with her stated opinion that the voting age should be raised back to 21 but like revoking the frnachise for women (another very good idea) it has almost no chance of happening.
 
Personally I would like to see the franshise further restricted to taxpayers.  Perhaps one vote per dollar of taxable income and one vote per dollar of property taxes paid.  Or better yet one vote per dollar of income tax paid and one vote for every dollar of property taxes paid.  That would be one way of getting Democrats on board with tax cuts for the producing class (you know "the rich").
 
That way at the very least those deciding who will spend our tax money would be the people who actually pay in that tax money.

You kind of had to see it coming

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Happy blogging!

I found this on Blogrolling's home page.

It was nice while it lasted.

New Computer

I finally had to break down and buy a new computer. It is working beautifully and for the folks who have messaged me complaining about how long this blog takes to load on this new setup it takes less than 30 seconds - while also downloading a large file and playing a YouTube video.

Tonight's Music

Here is a nice number from Aerosmith callled Hangman Jury. It is off the CD Permanant Vacation.

MSNBC suspendes loon for being honest

From MSNBC:

MSNBC has suspended prime-time host Keith Olbermann indefinitely without pay for contributing to the campaigns of three Democratic candidates this election season.

Olbermann acknowledged to NBC that he donated $2,400 apiece to the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grivalva and Gabrielle Giffords.

NBC News prohibits its employees from working on, or donating to, political campaigns unless a special exception is granted by the news division president—effectively a ban. Olbermann's bosses did not find out about the donations until after they were made. The website Politico first reported the donations.

Others have commented on NBC's rank hypocrisy in forbidding "journalists" like Olbermann from writing a check to a politician's campaign while allowing them to give millions of dollars of "in kind" contributions by doing everything from slanting news coverage to spreading out and out propaganda (think about the way that almost the entire MSM carried Obama's water during the 2008 campaign).

So I only have one question. If NBC goes ahead and fires Olbermann will Fox News give him a multimillion dollar contract?

Lessons from last night

1. This is a center-right country and attempting to govern it from the hard left will earn rejection from the people.

2. People were not voting for Republicans (in most cases) they were voting against Democrats (and especially Obama). The Republicans who now control the House now have two years to demonstrate that they are not only different from Obama and his Democrat party but that they are better than Obama and his crowd.

3. Republicans will most definitely not show the public that they are better than the Democrats by compromising their stated core beliefs in the interest of "getting something done". In other words if anyone is going to "cross the isle" it had better be Obama and the Democrats.

4. Christine O'Donnell lost her Senate race in Delaware because the local media was able to make enough voters in that state ashamed to vote for a believing Christian and conservative. This brings up an important point. The national mainstream media has lost most of its credibility along with its audience/readership. However the local media still retains the power to create a narrative which can alter the outcome of an election in a state or congressional district.

5. Some parts of the United States of America simply aren't America any more. The people of Connecticut chose an obvious fool over an accomplished businesswoman because they were embarrassed that her business involved professional wrestling. The people of California re-elected Barbara Boxer and sent Jerry Brown back to the governor's mansion. This is in spite of the fact that left-wing policies are driving California's economy into the ground like a tent peg.

6. Voter fraud is alive and well. There is no other way to explain Harry Reid's reelection.

7. Public employee unions like SEIU now serve the Democrat party like the brown shirted SA once served the Nazi party in Germany. It was a tragic mistake to allow government employees to unionize and in 2013 when the new Republican president is sworn in with a GOP House and Senate backing her every effort should be made to repeal the legislation which allowed government employees to organize. The fact is that in the old days government employees were in a better position regarding pay, benefits and especially job security than they are today. Most of the civil service protections which they once enjoyed have been lost or seriously watered down by congress on the rational that their unions didn't object - at least too much. Government employee union leaders have exchanged the pay, benefits and security of their membership for political power for themselves.

8. As Winston Churchill said this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it may, perhaps, be the end of the beginning. America in still in deep trouble. Our president is still a committed enemy of this nation and he still has a majority in the Senate to back him. Repeal of anything will not be possible for the Republican House because it will not be possible to overturn a presidential veto. However the GOP must try. We must show the people of this nation that we "get it" and are attempting to not only slow the nation's decline but reverse it.