The Crimes of TV Pastors

STOCK PUPPET

Posted on January 13, 2016
by Ron Patton 

in Articles

STOCK PUPPET

Whenever the world trends towards parapolitics, I find it unfortunate that much of the country fails to understand what parapolitical analytics are and why they are important to understand. The main political structure in this country is flawed, not because it was flawed during its construction, but only because it has suffered throughout its evolution.

To many, this is not obvious.

Those who try to point out the obvious are shut down and told that they are spoiling the process of government by being a storm crow. The fuzzy feeling from the pep talk given at the State of the Union has recharged the Obama brigade and anyone who is cynical becomes the object of derision.

Just last night, after discussing that the high lottery jackpot could be an indication of a drop in confidence about the economy, I found countless news items from all over the world indicating that something peculiar was happening and the new year has brought with it a lack of confidence, which should not be the case considering the enthusiastic speech that Barack Obama gave and how odd it was for a lame duck puppet to speak about his focus for the next five years or even 10 years.

“For my final address to this chamber, I don’t want to talk just about the next year. I want to focus on the next five years, ten years, and beyond. I want to focus on our future.” —Barack Obama, State of the Union Address 2016.



This is where politics turn into parapolitical paranoia.

This leads to some speculation about what lies ahead in the dark margins of the political landscape for the future.

Does Obama see himself as someone that will have a position and say how the future will end up?

Most Presidents when they reach their final term, begin to negotiate large sums of money for their memoirs, or they are looking over land where they can build their very own library so that they can have a shrine to themselves complete with a statue showing them hand in hand with children – or standing valiantly against the opposition and braving the storm.

We can only surmise that President Obama is looking for something to do after he leaves the White House that would no doubt generate enough grandeur to reflect his opinion of himself.

Rumors are floating around the world that he is actually secretly calling in favors from Republican colleagues, Democrats and friends of the United Nations in the United States to help him get the job of Secretary-General of the U.N.

The current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon’s term expires this year and apparently, Mr. Obama is said to believe he’s just the man to succeed him.



I think deep down many Americans assumed that he was already bucking for the position and has been doing it the whole time he has served as our President.

In his State of the Union address, he most certainly seemed optimistic defending his own legacy and simply telling us that he means something to history – as if we have forgotten giving us a retrospective of all of the good things he says that he has done while in office.

He wants to convince us that he has a handle on what is happening in the Middle East and that he can somehow resolve the deadly tensions between Shiites and Sunnis, Persians and Arabs, those in Turkey, the Kurds, and the Coptic Christians.

It seems Obama has not been successful in doing so in the Oval Office and so perhaps on a world stage, he can live up to the messianic standard that his disciples have foisted upon him.

He also has been a champion of sustainable development goals and in his speech to the nation, he had to conjure the bogey man of this UN program, which of course is global warming and climate change.

In his speech, he jabbed the so-called deniers of climate disruption by adding:

“Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it.

But even if the planet wasn’t at stake; even if 2014 wasn’t the warmest year on record — until 2015 turned out even hotter — why would we want to pass up the chance for American businesses to produce and sell the energy of the future?”


Well, as long as the government keeps the secret that the planet is now being geo-engineered and that weather patterns can be manipulated by cooking the ionosphere and disrupting the jet stream by the military industrial complex, we will be begging the government controlled businesses to help us out of the guaranteed catastrophes that become a byproduct of their weapons testing and aerosol spraying.

We already know that the process of engineering economic scarcity and destabilizing many governments across the globe is the worst kept secret objective of the United Nations world government. Engineering scarcity and providing economic and environmental panic will be the harsh reality used so that we as a people will surrender our sovereignty to what are now being called, The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

However, in his State of the Union address, Barack Obama seemed to reprimand those who say the economy is in distress.

“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction. What is true — and the reason that a lot of Americans feel anxious — is that the economy has been changing in profound ways, changes that started long before the Great Recession hit and haven’t let up.”

All this week, even before Barack Obama injected us with economic hope, the world media is not so optimistic, leading those who study parapolitics into believing that this is all being planned.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has recommended its clients prepare for a “cataclysmic year,” as major stock markets could drop by a fifth and Brent Oil could hit $16 a barrel.

Many world news sources like the Telegraph and Russia Today are reporting that a notice was sent to the bank of Scotland’s credit team that said:

“Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small.”

According to RBS analysts, the markets are showing the same stress alerts as seen before the 2008 crisis.

Andrew Roberts, the bank’s credit chief, says that “China has set off a major correction and it is going to snowball.” China “has very high debt levels (as a percentage of GDP) given they are still emerging” and crucially they have accumulated this debt incredibly fast, he said.

He predicts European and Wall Street markets to drop from 10 to 20 percent this year. London’s FTSE100 was predicted to plummet even lower.

Stocks have been roiled in recent weeks, with markets around the world seeing an extended sell-off to start the year. In the U.S., major indexes have already given up all fourth-quarter gains in the first trading days of the year.

A negative headline appeared today on the Drudge Report and Zero Hedge saying that stocks have plunged. It make one curious as to whether or not the forecast doom and gloom of 2015 has now arrived as investors are apprehensive about 2016 being a year where Barack Obama’s optimism is not shared.

It is also a troublesome time as rumors of a currency war with China is also shaking confidence.



China continues to manipulate the world market by devaluing its currency.

Investors appear to be afraid and their anxiety has been on full display. If you attempt to report the obvious, those who have walked away all fuzzy and fine from the State of the Union address will say it is all fear mongering.

Well rest assured that this is not some extinction level event or the end of the world, but what it may demonstrate is the pain of evolving and adjusting to something new, something that we are not used to. Something that will create real anxiety that will trickle down into your ability to create money for yourself and your family.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, which tends to climb as investors become more fearful about a drop in stocks, topped 20 on Monday, a rise of 11%. Think of the CBOE Volatility Index as an atomic clock that moves closer to midnight it move closer by 11%.

In some circles, it is being predicted that U.S. stocks would have another down year due to weak earnings, margin pressure and “investors keeping large cash balances because of global instability.”

Most people do not understand how this is going to affect them; they just look at buzz words in the media like anxiety, lack of confidence, fear, sell off, devaluation and plunge.

Sure, the Powerball is 1.5 Billion, but after it is stripped away with taxes and other fees, just how much buying power does it have? And is the massive amount an omen to how desperate the people are and that there really isn’t much optimism.

It has been predicted that this will happen for several months.

I appears that in our efforts to reduce oil consumption, the price of gasoline has gone down and the markets have now become lopsided.

If this continues, we can see that the globalists are moving quickly to evolve towards a new way of thinking.

Hearing the State of the Union address and the enthusiasm for what Obama is seeing as the future, gives me pause and actuates a parapolitical foreshadowing of the turmoil that will exist before the utopian solution.

This triggers a ragged intersection of political theories that may or may not trigger a civil uprising that the military has already been readied for.

For years, we have seen reports of agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security buying up and stockpiling ammunition and weapons as well as the disturbing reports of law enforcement agencies across the country being geared with military equipment used on the battlefield where it has become almost the norm to see it used on American streets.



While skeptics say that a massive civil unrest will never occur, flashpoints last year made us wonder if there would be more situations like what was seen in Ferguson, Missouri or Baltimore, Maryland.

This year kicked off with a group of armed militia men and self-described patriots willing to go to war with the BLM and the FBI if necessary, to make a point about their rights and their ability to preserve their land.

When we step back and encompass all the signs from the past year, we have seen a government preparing for some type of insurrection with new technologies provided in the Jade Helm 15 exercise, troops on the ground in many communities and the proposal for the United Nations’ Strong Cities program.

Keep in mind that President Obama pledged to shape a new, international order based on global cooperation and partnerships that address not just the police, the surveillance state and the military, but also economic and environmental challenges.

Therefore, we can only hypothesize that the so-called global cooperation will include partnerships which address the corporate interests and controls of both the banks and corporations to form the same order that has been attempted by leaders like Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler.

Now it can be shown that Obama is not another Hitler, nor is he another Stalin; he is simply an agent under the employ of those in the cryptocracy that see the need for a representative who can plant the seeds and pitch the benefits of the improved globalist order, nurture its future and seal its success by grinding the bones and blood of those who oppress the new empire into mortar that will be used to build its foundation.

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A New Disorder

AUG 4, 2014, VOL. 19, NO. 44 • BY STEPHEN F. HAYES

Moments of clarity often come when you least expect them. In a speech to contributors last week in Seattle, Barack Obama made the case that his presidency has made America better. In most respects, it was precisely the kind of political pablum you’d expect from a president who seems more concerned with legacy-polishing than governing. He ticked off his accomplishments, a list that was equal parts premature celebration (deficit reduction), hyperbole (Obamacare), and borrowed glory (rising college attendance, a strong stock market, increased energy production).

Even if few in this fawning crowd were going to question him, circumstances required the president to acknowledge the growing tumult around the world. Despite all of this success, he conceded, there are some “big challenges overseas” that have some people anxious.

What are these big challenges and why are we facing them? It’s worth quoting the entire passage:

I am very proud that we have ended one war, and by the end of this year we will have ended both wars that I inherited before I came into office. (Applause.) But whether people see what’s happening in Ukraine, and Russia’s aggression towards its neighbors in the manner in which it’s financing and arming separatists; to what’s happened in Syria​—​the devastation that Assad has wrought on his own people; to the failure in Iraq for Sunni and Shia and Kurd to compromise​—​although we’re trying to see if we can put together a government that actually can function; to ongoing terrorist threats; to what’s happening in Israel and Gaza. Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite yet to where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity, that’s based on economies that work for all people.

These are remarkable words from an American president. They suggest that Obama either doesn’t appreciate the causal relationship between his policies and the current crises​—​or doesn’t care. He is proud that he has brought about the “end” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he seems not to understand that the unrest he goes on to describe is their direct result: How those wars ended shapes how others perceive the United States and its role in the world.

In Iraq, the president was willing to sacrifice the hard-won gains of U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in the pursuit of his overriding objective​—​getting out. The United States hadn’t created a stable and peaceful Iraq when the president was sworn in on January 20, 2009. But we had largely defeated our enemies there, and even opponents of the war acknowledged the very real prospect of a relatively secure, democratic Iraq. We lost Iraq by choice.

Afghanistan might be worse. In the early days of the administration, the president and his team described the outcome of that war as crucial to U.S. national security. The goals of U.S. military and diplomatic efforts there​—​eliminating safe haven for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and reversing the momentum of the Taliban​—​were essential to keeping Americans safe here at home. But Obama long ago made clear that he was more interested in ending the war than in winning it. In his December 1, 2009, speech at West Point, the president announced the troop surge and the withdrawal in the same breath. Today, U.S. troops are coming home, U.S. objectives remain unfulfilled, and President Obama dismissively refers to Afghanistan as just one of the wars he “inherited.”

It’s not just the wars. With remarkable consistency, Obama has demonstrated that he is unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come with being the world’s only superpower. We said little as the Iranian regime put down a democratic revolution in 2009, for fear of accusations of “meddling.” We watched as Assad began to kill his citizens by the thousand, calling plaintively for restraint. When the Russian military rolled into Crimea in an audacious land-grab, we announced our disapproval and pushed for sanctions that we knew​—​that everyone knew​—​would have little effect beyond allowing us to say we pushed for sanctions.

In Obama’s telling, the chaos Americans see on their television screens every night​—​more than 150,000 slaughtered in Syria, a terrorist army taking over major cities in Iraq, dozens of rockets daily targeting citizens of Israel, nearly 300 innocent travelers dead after a surface-to-air missile downs a passenger plane, and continued Russian aggression​—​is just part of a natural evolution. In the old world order, the United States played a dominant role. In the new one, we will not. With a rhetorical shrug of his shoulders, Obama says that these things may be unpleasant, but better days are ahead​—​a new order based on a “different set of principles” with “economies that work for all people” and a “sense of common humanity.”

These views are a radical departure from decades of bipartisan U.S. national security and foreign policy, and they can’t be dismissed as just the careless ramblings of a president who has checked out. He’s said much the same thing before. In a speech before the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2009, Obama declared: “In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.”

This is naïve and dangerous. There are serious consequences to the United States relinquishing power and influence. We’re living them​—​and so are people in the rest of the world.


Source

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The Prince

by Niccolò Machiavelli

Written c. 1505, published 1515

Translated by W. K. Marriott
1908

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Rendered into HTML by Jon Roland of the Constitution Society

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Table of Contents

Chapter I	How Many Kinds Of Principalities There Are, And By What Means They Are Acquired
Chapter II	Concerning Hereditary Principalities
Chapter III	Concerning Mixed Principalities
Chapter IV	Why The Kingdom Of Darius, Conquered By Alexander, Did Not Rebel Against The Successors Of Alexander At His Death
Chapter V	Concerning The Way To Govern Cities Or Principalities Which Lived Under Their Own Laws Before They Were Annexed
Chapter VI	Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired By One's Own Arms And Ability
Chapter VII	Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired Either By The Arms Of Others Or By Good Fortune
Chapter VIII	Concerning Those Who Have Obtained A Principality By Wickedness
Chapter IX	Concerning A Civil Principality
Chapter X	Concerning The Way In Which The Strength Of All Principalities Ought To Be Measured
Chapter XI	Concerning Ecclesiastical Principalities
Chapter XII	How Many Kinds Of Soldiery There Are, And Concerning Mercenaries
Chapter XIII	Concerning Auxiliaries, Mixed Soldiery, And One's Own
Chapter XIV	That Which Concerns A Prince On The Subject Of The Art Of War
Chapter XV	Concerning Things For Which Men, And Especially Princes, Are Praised Or Blamed
Chapter XVI	Concerning Liberality And Meanness
Chapter XVII	Concerning Cruelty And Clemency, And Whether It Is Better To Be Loved Than Feared
Chapter XVIII	Concerning The Way In Which Princes Should Keep Faith
Chapter XIX	That One Should Avoid Being Despised And Hated
Chapter XX	Are Fortresses, And Many Other Things To Which Princes Often Resort, Advantageous Or Hurtful?
Chapter XXI	How A Prince Should Conduct Himself As To Gain Renown
Chapter XXII	Concerning The Secretaries Of Princes
Chapter XXIII	How Flatterers Should Be Avoided
Chapter XXIV	The Princes Of Italy Have Lost Their States
Chapter XXV	What Fortune Can Effect In Human Affairs, And How To Withstand Her
Chapter XXVI	An Exhortation To Liberate Italy From The Barbarians

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Source: http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm

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Protestant South Becoming a New Catholic Stronghold

(20731)
Dixie Catholics credit the strong Southern sense of community, and dialogue with faithful Protestants, with helping to power the Church’s growth there.



by STEPHEN BEALE 05/11/2013 

Courtyard of St. Dominic's Monastery in Linden, Va.

– www.lindenopnuns.org


LINDEN, Va. — In the waves of turbulence that rippled throughout the Catholic Church in the 1970s, the nuns of St. Dominic’s Monastery found themselves forced to leave their longtime home in Wisconsin in search of a new one.

The nuns moved to a temporary residence in Washington, D.C., while looking for a permanent setting conducive to the cloistered, contemplative life they sought to lead. It would be more than two decades before they found one. When they did, it was what may seem a most unlikely place: the rural northeast of Virginia, considered one of the Protestant Bible Belt states of the South.

The story of St. Dominic’s Monastery’s southern move may be the story of U.S. Catholicism. New data shows that some of the fastest growing dioceses in the country are deep in the U.S. South.

The third fastest developing diocese is Atlanta, which saw the number of registered parishioners explode from nearly 322,000 in 2002 to one million in 2012 — an increase of more than twofold, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Atlanta also has the largest Eucharistic Congress in the country, with an annual attendance of about 30,000, according to an archdiocesan official.

Atlanta is not alone. Charleston has seen a 50% increase in parishioners over the last decade. Charlotte grew by a third, as did Little Rock. The Diocese of Knoxville, established just 25 years ago, is now the 25th fastest growing in the nation — and would rank near the top if those official figures counted as many as 60,000 unregistered Hispanic congregants, according to a diocesan official.

Dioceses like Knoxville stand in stark contrast to former Catholic strongholds like Boston and Philadelphia where parish consolidations, school closures, and dwindling priests are the norm.

“Instead of us closing parishes and closing schools, we’re doing the opposite. We’re in total growth mode,” said Deacon Sean Smith, chancellor for the Diocese of Knoxville.

When Knoxville was established as a diocese in 1988 it had 37 parishes. It has since added 14, including four mission parishes. It has also expanded three parishes, built a new high school, and opened one middle-elementary school. Meanwhile, the number of parishioners has doubled.



Bountiful Vocations

One telling indicator is vocations to the priesthood. Knoxville expects to have 23 men in graduate seminary next year. Contrast the Archdiocese of Chicago, which has 37 times as many parishioners but only three times as many graduate seminarians next year, at an anticipated enrollment of 70. Boston, which is nearly 30 times the size of Knoxville, will have 60.

“There’s excitement here in Tennessee and I would say in the Southeast in general,” Smith said.

That sentiment is shared by the nuns at St. Dominic’s Monastery, who have found a thriving local Catholic community that boasts nearby Christendom College as another institutional gem.

“We ourselves are astounded by the depth and beauty of the Catholic culture and community that surrounds us,” said one nun, permitted to speak only on the condition of anonymity because of rules governing the cloistered life of the monastery. “We never felt so loved by the surrounding community.” The Southeast does not have a monopoly on exponential growth. Among the top 25 high-growth dioceses, nearly half are in the U.S. Southwest, stretching from Fresno, California, the second-highest ranking diocese, to Laredo, Texas, the first. But there, Hispanic immigration is behind most of the growth, according to Mark Gray, a research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

In the Southeast, however, something different is happening. In a region where churches sit on seemingly every street corner and billboards belt out Bible verses and calls for repentance, local Catholics say they have found fertile ground for the renewal of the Church.

“Our Protestant brothers and sisters have done us a great favor. Talking about faith here in the South is like eating, breathing, and sleeping,” said Randy Hain, a managing partner at Bell Oaks Executive Search in Atlanta and co-founder of The Integrated Catholic Life, an online magazine. “There’s an openness about faith here which makes it easier to be open about your faith if you’re Catholic.”

Smith, who grew up in Colorado, suggested that it is easier for Northern Catholics to take their faith for granted because most of their friends belong to the Church. “It doesn’t really challenge the Catholics there to know their faith as well or be able to explain it clearly,” added Lisa Wheeler, founder of Carmel Communications, a Catholic marketing firm in the Atlanta area.

But in the South, where they are a decided minority in predominantly evangelical Protestant population, Catholics must constantly defend their faith. As a result, they come to cherish it, Smith said.



Streams of Converts

Dialogue with Protestants has produced a steady stream of Catholic converts, who now constitute one of the driving forces of growth in the region, Wheeler said.

When Hain, himself a convert, was received into the Church in 2006, there were 27 members of his confirmation class. His wife’s class, in the same year, had 33. At the time, there were 1,900 registered families his parish, St. Peter Chanel in Roswell, an Atlanta suburb. Now, there are more than 3,000, according to Hain.

Converts do more than just fill pews: they bring enthusiasm and passion for their faith with them into the Church, said Hain and Wheeler, a fellow parishioner at St. Peter Chanel. Such energy is reflected in the breadth of ministries at the parish, which number more than 60—and that’s not counting the many independent ministries run by parishioners.The Integrated Catholic Life is one example of the broad reach of the parish: the other co-founder of the site is a deacon at St. Peter Chanel.

Besides converts, transplants are a second source of growth. In Knoxville, many out-of-state arrivals are known as ‘halfbacks’: people who moved from the cold North to Florida, only to move half-way back, settling in eastern Tennessee, where they can enjoy four seasons, without the cold weather, Smith said. Atlanta has the added allure of being a major transportation hub for business, Wheeler said.

Hispanic immigration is still a factor in regional growth, but it is mentioned more as a secondary contributor than as the leading cause.



Strong Sense of Community

Another potential advantage working favor of the South: a greater sense of community associated with the predominantly rural character of the region, as contrasted with the dense urbanization of many Northern states.

The difference between rural and urban dioceses can be measured in terms of vocations. “I have seen a trend over the last ten years where the most rural dioceses are tending to generate more seminarians per capita than the major rural metropolitan dioceses,” said Father Thomas Baima, the vice rector at Mundelein Seminary in the Chicago area. He says higher-density cities have greater mobility, meaning young people don’t put down roots and make those long-lasting connections to parish communities out of which vocations arise.

Every single state in the U.S. South has a lower population density per square mile than each state along the Boston to D.C. urban corridor, U.S. Census data shows. At the extreme ends, New Jersey has just over 1,195 residents per square mile against 56 in Arkansas, as of the 2010 Census. In the middle, Pennsylvania has nearly 284 residents per square mile while Virginia has just over 202.

Even a large city like Atlanta is more decentralized. Most of the metro population is in the suburbs outside city limits, where communities coalesce around church and school, Hain said.



Lessons for the North

Catholics in the South say their experience holds lessons for their Northern counterparts. Wheeler says Southern hospitality has also rubbed off on local Catholics.

“I think that is something that is missing from many parishes in the North,” Wheeler said. She noted that some of her extended relatives in the Northeast have moved to Protestant churches due to a lack of hospitality in their local parishes.

Hain believes that if Catholics in other areas were as open about their faith as Southerners are, there would be a resurgence in the Church.

“Let’s worry less about offending others,” Hain said. “Let’s worry more about practicing our faith.”

Stephen Beale writes from Providence, Rhode Island.



Source: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/protestant-south-becoming-a-new-catholic-stronghold/#ixzz2TBZnujcx

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Watch President Obama Address the U.N. General Assembly

Published on Sep 25, 2012 by PBSNewsHour

For more coverage: http://to.pbs.org/SQlyrS President Obama addresses the 67th U.N. General Assembly in New York with a focus on quelling violence spreading abroad.


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Obama's Tune at 50 -- 'Happy Birthday to Me'

By Dan Gainor

Published August 04, 2011 FoxNews.com

Happy Birthday to me,

Happy Birthday to me,

I’m narcissistic you see,

Happy birthday to me.

It’s the perfect romance: a man who loves to be loved and, well, his biggest fan – himself. It’s hard to tell if we should mark August 4 as Barack Obama’s 50th birthday or his 50th anniversary with himself.

In ordinary times, a concept now long-forgotten in Washington, we’d commemorate the president’s birthday with cake and candles. This anniversary is appropriately marked by the red ink of debt –- trillions more than ever before.

“One nation under debt” should be our new motto as Congress approved another couple trillion in spending and a budgetary gimmick that doesn’t actually cut much of anything.

But all that’s OK. It’s the president’s birthday, so America should party. That’s certainly the president’s position. In a nation swamped by trillions in bills we can’t pay, the Debtor-in-Chief is holding a Chicago fundraising party for “roughly 1,000 guests paying between $50 and $35,800,” according to ABC’s Jake Tapper.

What’s a bigwig’s party without top talent? The Washington Times reports the event will include “a concert featuring Herbie Hancock and Jennifer Hudson.” Even with A-list talent, Obama will be on center stage, his congressional failings hundreds of miles away.

That’s more than appropriate given Obama’s self-obsessed nature. No matter what the news of the day has been, Obama’s favorite topic has been himself. In his first 41 speeches back in 2009, Obama talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. Scarily enough, the condition seems to have gotten more acute.

In 40 speeches and remarks on the national debt, Obama has talked about himself 39 times more than he has the debt – more than 3,200 times about Obama to a mere 160 about the national debt.

Let me put that another way, keeping in the spirit of the president’s birthday. Picture two big cakes. The first has 160 candles on it. It’s burning pretty bright – a bit more than three times the number of candles the graying Obama should have. Then imagine the other cake in the shape of an “I.” That cake has more than 3,200 flaming candles on it – alarming party-goers and smoke detectors alike. That’s not a cake, it’s a weapon of mass destruction.

But that’s our president as he turns 50, or "Hawaii 5-O," if documents are to be believed. He’s a man who manages to insert himself into every issue and bypasses the issue entirely. He can’t see the forest or the trees. He’s too busy looking in a mirror. And the media are ignoring it as always.

It’s nothing new. For example, back in May 2010, he talked about the economy in Buffalo, N.Y. That appearance had Obama talking about Obama nearly 100 times and the national debt just once. In 40 appearances discussing debt, he only used the actual word “debt” 10 or more times recently, after the GOP forced the issue. Those three talks make up a third of all the mentions he’s made of it as president. The transcripts, pulled from the White House web site’s “economy” section, run from when he first took office through July 25, as the debt ceiling “crisis” was finally subsiding.

When Barack Obama was born, the United States budget was a bit more than $94 billion and ran only a $3 billion deficit that year. Ah the good ol’ days. The most recent Obama budget proposal was about 39 times higher – an inflationary growth equal only to the president’s burgeoning ego.

The Financial Times reports that a third of the people in a recent Pew research poll “have come away from the ordeal with a diminished view of Mr Obama.” Certainly, no one in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has acknowledged that reality.

It’s time they should. The economy is in trouble – national debt is still piling higher, residential real estate is continuing to fall, and unemployment stands at an unacceptable 9.2 percent. Our economic growth is just as paralyzed as our politics. Washington gridlock barely delivered any so-called “fix” in time. Wall Street fixes boosted the markets, but not the lives of everyday Americans.

That all might as well have happened in 1961, when Obama was born. It’s ancient history. We must look ahead. Like him or not, President Obama has about a year-and-a-half left in office and we all need him to do a good job – at least on the economy. But conservatives are up against an awful alliance of liberals, media and some in their own party who care more about getting re-elected. That alliance desperately wants to grow government as a universal solution to all problems.

The right has to fight that growth, but still try to find common ground with Obama to help get government out of the way so the economy can grow once again.

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.


Source: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/04/obamas-tune-at-50-happy-birthday-to-me/#ixzz1U6aSY1Lz

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Health Buzz: Swine Flu and Other Health News

Health Buzz: Swine Flu and Other Health News
Posted April 22, 2009

Two California Kids Diagnosed With Swine Flu

Two children in California were diagnosed with a unique kind of swine flu last week, the Associated Press reports. The kids, a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, became ill in late March; both have since recovered. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there's no reason for the public to be alarmed or take special steps to protect against this type of flu. Health officials are looking into the genetics of the virus and are testing people who may have had contact with the two infected children. The kids had not had contact with one another. Both had symptoms of fever and cough, and the boy experienced vomiting. In the past, the CDC has gotten reports of about one case of human swine flu every one to two years. The past few years have seen slightly more cases, with more than a dozen human cases reported since late 2005.
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Another form of flu, bird flu, has gotten attention in the past few months. Read about a breakthrough discovery that may fight off flu and bird flu. And learn how to keep your family safe from bird flu.

Soft Drinks and Energy Drinks: Too Sweet for Your Own Good

Sugary soft drinks and energy drinks are taking it on the chin these days, Katherine Hobson reports. Two researchers are saying the drinks contribute to obesity and need an extreme makeover. Walter Willett, who chairs the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, argues that there is a "direct causal link" between sugar-sweetened soft drinks and energy drinks and obesity, which is in turn linked to heart disease, some types of cancer, arthritis, and type 2 diabetes.
Willett and a colleague, Lilian Cheung, a lecturer in the nutrition department, suggest that we all focus on drinks with far lower levels of sugar and calories: things like water, tea, seltzer with a splash of juice, and coffee with one lump of sugar. They call on beverage makers to create reduced-calorie beverages with no more than 1 gram of sugar per ounce, without using noncaloric sweeteners like aspartame and stevia.
Just recently, two public-health experts floated the idea of a specific tax on sodas and energy drinks. Related: VitaminWater is a poster child for the importance of reading food and drink labels.

Narcissism Epidemic: Why There Are So Many Narcissists Now

Narcissism, or excessive self-love, is marked by bloated confidence, vanity, materialism, and a lack of consideration for others, Lindsay Lyon reports. Those personality traits have become so pervasive in American culture that they threaten to transform us into a nation of egomaniacs, research psychologists Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell say in their new book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement . Twenge and her team at San Diego State University also report in a new study that narcissism continues to spread quickly among college students, especially young women. Considering how cultural influences on girls have changed in the past decade, that's not surprising, says Twenge. Plastic surgery rates have jumped since the 1990s, and materialism is increasingly being emphasized in song lyrics, for example, she says.
Read up on 7 common myths about narcissism. Also, check out what Twenge had to say about narcissism a few years ago, not long after the publication of her earlier book, Generation Me , which examines why young people today are more narcissistic than their parents.

—January W. Payne

Source: http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/infectious-diseases/2009/04/22/health-buzz-swine-flu-and-other-health-news.html

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