The War in Louisiana

While the media is directing all of our attention to budgets, deficits, the economy and stimulus, scientists of a certain stripe have been waging a quiet war against the state of Louisiana.

The cause? Last summer, state legislators overwhelmingly passed the Louisiana Science Education Act -- 35-0 in the Senate and 94-3 in the House. Signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal, the act allows teachers to use supplementary materials in the classroom. Fearing that the law will open the door of science classrooms and labs to religious materials and textbooks promoting intelligent design, some scientists are so outraged that they're calling for a boycott of Louisiana. In fact, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology was so upset that it has moved its 2011 meeting from New Orleans to Utah in protest.

Before other scientists get their test tubes in a tizzy, they need to practice scientific theory and look at this objectively.

First, what the bill does NOT do:
--It does NOT allow teachers to replace the current scientist-approved textbooks;
--It does NOT require school officials to glue any "offensive" materials into those sacrosanct textbooks;
--It does NOT require school officials to redact any information in those blessed textbooks; and
--It does NOT require science teachers to introduce any supplemental materials.

What the bill does do:
--It promotes academic freedom; and
--It allows for open discourse in the classroom. Isn't that what education is all about?

Another fact these scientists ignore is that the law applies only to public schools. Louisiana has a long history of relying on parochial schools to educate a large percentage of its students. Science teachers in these schools have been free to discuss creationism/intelligent design all along. So every year since the founding of the state, a large portion of Louisiana students, including many of the brightest, have been -- horror of horrors -- subjected to this subversive teaching.

One scientific conference, the Experimental Biology meeting -- which includes such organizations as the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and the American Physiological Society -- thought about canceling its April meeting in New Orleans, but it was too late to book another convention center that could house 12,000-15,000 scientists. And the group was bound by a contract with the convention center. Instead, the conference will include an open symposium on the "Evolution of Creationism" April 20. The group is inviting state legislators and high school science teachers to the free session. Do you think it will yield the microphone to scientists who have opposing views?

A professor at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Barbara Forrest -- who also serves on the board of directors for the National Center for Science Education and is the co-founder of the Louisiana Coalition for Science, which combats the use of creationist and intelligent design materials in schools -- said the symposium is well intentioned but unlikely to change the law. Instead, she is pushing for broad boycotts of Louisiana.

I guess her commitment to stamping out any beliefs or facts she disagrees with outweighs the needs of a state that is still struggling to its feet after a series of devastating hurricanes.

And liberals call conservatives intolerant!

Deficit too Big to Cut?

With his big budget debut just a day away, President Obama is starting to sound the alarms about out-of-control spending and is promising to cut our national deficit in half by the end of his first term. (His notes on the urgency of fixing Social Security sound like echoes of President Bush.) To deliver on any of his economizing promises, Obama is going to have to do an awful lot of arm-twisting with the big-spenders in Congress.

Just today, the House Democrats unveiled an ominous -- oops! omnibus -- spending bill that would add $410 billion to the fiscal 2009 federal budget. (Fiscal 2009 ends Sept. 30.) That's 8 percent more than they tried to pass last fall but gave up because they knew Bush would veto it. House Speaker Pelosi calls it "unfinished business."

We see all these tickers out there about how much the Iraq war is costing. But is anyone tracking how much the 111th Congress is costing us? According to one ticker (http://gooznews.com/), we've spent more than $599 billion on the war as of 8 p.m. EST Monday. The war has been going on for about seven years. The 111th Congress, which hasn't been in session yet for two months, is starting to make that look like a drop in the bucket with its unending bailouts, stimulus, omnibus, junkets, etc.

Oh, and remember, these overzealous overspenders who know just what to do with your money have been in the majority for more than four years now. A lot of what's wrong with the economy falls at their feet.

Tribute to a Grandmother

My grandmother, Mary Linn Farley, went to sleep Friday night and woke up in Heaven. She was three weeks shy of her 100th birthday.

For most of the world, Grandma's biggest claim to fame would be the length of her life and the events, technological innovations and shifts in society she witnessed. Born in a log cabin in the western hills of Kentucky March 13, 1909, Grandma did see a lot of changes. She went from traveling by horse and wagon to reading about her granddaughter serving on the fire crew for the space shuttles. She lived through two world wars, the Korean Conflict, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and two Gulf wars. She waved a son off to the Navy and boasted proudly of her two grandsons who served as Marines, a granddaughter who was in the Air Force and a great-grandson who is in the Coast Guard. And she went from a world of little opportunity to one that opened wide for her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

Grandma's unfulfilled dream was to take art classes and become an artist. But orphaned at 6, she was passed from one foster home to the next with no money and no time for the luxury of art. Rather than complain, Grandma channeled her creativity into raising her children and making her humble house more of a home.

The world will never know what works of art Grandma would have created had she been given the chance to follow her dream. But the encouragement she gave her offspring may yet produce a work worthy of the Louvre or the Museum of Modern Art. Everyone of her grandchildren who put crayon to paper knew that the resulting "masterpiece" would be hung proudly on Grandma's kitchen gallery.

For those of us Grandma left behind, her imprint on our world is far more than a pretty painting, a curiosity of age, a mention in a newspaper or a name on a grave. Grandma was our rock of faith and fountain of prayer. Even though I lived hundreds of miles from her, I took strength in knowing that I was always in her prayers. Those prayers and her quiet, patient modeling of unconditional love helped me through many rough times.

Now, as I look back on all the life lessons she taught me, I know that the greatest tribute I can give Grandma is not in words but in following in her footsteps of faith and love.

I will miss you, Grandma.

Fly the Friendly Skies ...

You had to see this one coming.

A few weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat cronies ripped the automaker CEOs a new one for having the audacity to hitch a private jet -- on the company dime -- from Detroit to D.C. to ask Congress for money. They berated the corporate execs with being out of touch with the rest of America.

Now Pelosi and some of those same cronies are galavanting around Italy -- on our dime -- spending about a quarter of a million dollars on a vacation we can't afford. At $10,000 an hour, the private government jet ride is costing $200,000. Then we're picking up the tab for hotel rooms (you can bet they're not staying at cheap tourist hostels), gourmet meals and chauffuered surface transportation.

They justify these expenses as a "fact-finding trip." To Italy? Let me guess, Pelosi tried to find the facts behind the pope's stance againt abortion during the private audience she and her husband had with the leader of their church. Her agenda so far has included trips to museums and sight-seeing escapades. Pelosi, the descendant of Italian immigrants, also was presented with the birth certificates of her great-grandparents. I'm sure it was an emotional moment for her, but it should have happened at her expense -- not mine.

The Italian trip is just one of several expensive and unnecessary jaunts our leaders are taking while their constituents are losing their homes, their jobs and their futures. Talk about being out of touch!

Put the Money Where the Need Is

Getting to and from work today was an exercise in patience and grace -- two virtues I often run short on when I'm stuck in wall-to-wall traffic on Interstate-66. The highway, notorious even at its best as being more of a parking lot than a throughway, was at its worst this morning. It took us an hour to travel nine miles, and that was with the advantage of being in the HOV (express) lane.

What made 66 the poster child today for the need for mass transit was D.C.'s ailing mass transit system. A Metro train had derailed, crippling one of the major train lines linking northern Virginia to the government center of D.C. After snarling commuter and highway traffic for morning drive time, the disabled train finally was removed from the track and the system got back on schedule. Until it was time to go home tonight, that is. Another train derailed on the same line, again snarling commuter and highway traffic just in time for the evening drive.

On the best of days, getting around the D.C. area takes major effort as the designers of the Metro system and the designers of the highways didn't talk to each other when they laid the two out years ago, and neither did a great job of planning for the future. So today, the Metro ends far short of where most commuters can afford to live, and the highways beyond the infamous "beltway" just can't handle the resulting traffic.

You'd think this would be the perfect target for stimulus money -- especially as so many government workers rely on the Metro for their commute and D.C. is so full of people giving lip service to the need to go green. But investing money in existing infrastructure is something conservatives do. It's not so popular with the people currently spending our money in Washington.

The stimulus package, which is supposed to be filled with projects that can generate jobs over the next two years, calls for spending more than $8 billion on high-speed rail. According to a White House news release, "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act makes an unprecedented investment in ... innovative high-speed rail initiatives to bring new, efficient transportation alternatives to millions of Americans across the country and finally start breaking the grip of foreign oil on our nation’s economy." (See http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Recovery_Act_Infrastructure_2-17.pdf, and yes, I know the grammar in that sentence is awful. But, hey, I'm just quoting from "greater minds than mine.")

The $8 billion far surpasses anything before attempted in this country — and more is coming, according to Minnesota's twincities.com. "Administration officials told Politico that when Obama outlines his 2010 budget next week, it will ask for $1 billion more for high-speed rail in each of the next five years," the paper reported today. (http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_11722742)

While some people are praising this initiative, others are groaning about the expense. But what few are discussing is the fact that there's no way a fast rail system will move from drawing board to rail lines in the two years required by the rationale for a stimulus package. There are too many environmental impact statements that will have to be researched, too many public hearings that will be have to be held, too many endangered species to look out for, too many state and federal agencies that will have to be consulted. Maybe that's what will generate all the jobs!

Other infrastructure needs mostly overlooked by our overzealous overspenders are those that still bear the mark of Hurricane Katrina. The Democrats rallied around the banner of "FEMA's failures" after Katrina and raised the specter of Katrina victims whenever it made for a good sound bite. But last week when they were tossing a few billion here and a few billion there, they all but ignored the needs of the towns and cities still struggling to regain their footing after being wiped out by the hurricane. And when it comes to creating jobs, the White House estimates that the stimulus package will create about 50,000 jobs in Louisiana and 30,000 jobs in Mississippi, both "red states" that are still trying to recover from Katrina. Compare that with the nearly 400,000 jobs that are expected to be created in Nancy Pelosi's blue state of California. So much for bipartisanship.

How Much Is Your Health Worth?

One of the many earmarks in the stimulus package that isn't getting much play outside the healthcare industry is $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research. What the government is saying this money will be used for is to compare various medical treatments to determine which ones are the most effective for most people with a specific ailment. To get the medical community onboard, several senators have promised that this will ignore cost. But will it? Can it?

The UK uses a comparative-effectiveness approach that basically comes down to cost effectiveness. Essentially, this means the UK-sponsored health system will cover whichever drug, biologic or medical device or procedure has been "proven" to be the most effective for a particular problem. There is a catch. It's known as "QALY." The British system has determined that the Quality Adjusted Life Year is $55,000. In plain English, the British healthcare system is basically saying a year of life is worth $55,000. If your healthcare costs more than your QALY, you're out of luck.

This one-size-fits-all approach doesn't mesh with the advances being made in medical research that show what works for one person may kill or seriously injure another person. But, if we are to have equal access to healthcare, which seems to be the goal of most reformers, we will have to do away with personalized medicine and accept government-imposed caps on the value of our life.

Is this really what we want?

Your Share of the Stimulus

They did it. The congressional Democrats and President Obama have made the so-called stimulus package the law of the land. In other words, they've committed themselves to spending $787 billion on an 1,100-page shopping list that none of them had the time to read.

To make it sit better with the public, they're touting the fact that the average American will get a $400 tax cut this year -- about $13 a week. Applause, applause.

Before you waste much time making your own list of how you might spend that money, think about this: In reality, they're just letting you keep $400 that you already earned. And if the stimulus pricetag were evenly divvied up among 200 million people who were working, we'd each be "contributing" $4,000 to the cause. In other words, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Obama are giving us a 10 percent kickback of what they're dunning us for.

There's more to come. A lot of the favorite earmarks that didn't make it into this package will find their way into future legislation. And Congress isn't even discussing the budget yet. The bottom line? They'll find a way to get that $13 a week back and then some. So hang onto your wallets. We're in for a ride!

Presidents Day

My most memorable Presidents Day was when my son was in preschool. As we drove down Main Street, which was ablaze in red, white and blue, Tommy -- my little boy of a million "whys" -- demanded to know why the streets of our small town were lined with large flags. When I told him it was to celebrate the birthdays of Presidents Lincoln and Washington, he said he wanted the flags to fly for his birthday too. So when his birthday rolled around the next month, I pointed out the flags flying at all the schools and government buildings we passed and told him they were flying for his birthday. He was so happy he wouldn't have needed a gift that year.

Speaking of flags ... we recently had flags flown over the Capitol in honor of some friends who had just become citizens. When we presented one of the flags, along with a certificate and a letter of congratulations from our congressman, to the father, he got tears in his eyes, kissed the flag and said in broken English, "God bless America, my country." It's at such moments that I'm reminded not to take our country for granted. This man and his family fled to America from Iran where they were persecuted for their religious beliefs. In fact, just a few days before we gave him the flag, he had learned that his cousins had been arrested in Iran simply because of their faith.

Yes, our country has its problems. But today, instead of dwelling on those problems, let's be thankful for all the things that are right about our country. Today, let the flags wave for all the presidents who have served our country, for all the troops who have offered their lives to keep us free, for all the people who have fled to our shores in search of freedom and for all our children who will someday find their own place in this great land of ours.

Recall Pelosi

I'm not one to believe in superstition, but today IS Friday the 13th, and Congress IS set on passing the so-called stimulus bill. Surely there's a connection there someplace??? The scary thing is that most of the people who voted for this bill haven't even read it yet. Is that why we sent them to Washington?

I've read enough parts of it to know it's the biggest congressional boondoggle they've foisted off on us. I checked out stimuluswatch.org for a list of some of the notorious pork projects and found four prime cuts landing in Nancy Pelosi's backyard. One hundred million here, 200 million there, another 250 million for projects in San Jose, and eight more million for water system improvement. That's what's called "Bringing home the bacon!" Or is it  "loading the larder?"

Then of course we have the half million for a dog park in Chula Vista, nearly a million for doorbells in Laurel, MS (Haven't people there learned to knock?), more than $400,000 for a police command vehicle for Pleasanton (this one's in Pelosi's backyard, too)...the list is endless. A state-by-state search of the tenderloins that are being distributed show which members of congress have the most clout with the meat  cleaver....or maybe they live higher on the hog?

To add insult to injury, Nancy Pelosi wasn't satisfied with the little jet that flies her back out here to California every weekend....she needed the comfort, speed and security of a 200-seater that costs $60,000 in jet fuel one way. Add it up, and Pelosi's  cross-country round-trips every weekend cost us taxpayers $480,000 per month or $5,760,000 annually! Why don't we just recall our Queen of the Spenders and really stimulate our economy?

Rare Show of Courage

It's refreshing to see a politician withdraw from a presidential nomination -- not because of a tax scandal or because he's being indicted or because he hired undocumented domestic "help" (otherwise known as servants) -- but because he's standing by his convictions.

Today, New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg withdrew his name from consideration as Commerce Secretary because he couldn't go along with President Obama's bloated stimulus package or his plans to take over the Census Bureau. Keep in mind that the 2010 Census will dictate representation in Congress, state lgislatures and judicial districts for the next 10 years. It also will be used to determine allocation of federal funds (in other words, our tax dollars). While some members of Congress have gotten behind a bill to make the Census Bureau an independent agency, Obama is trying to make it so the Census director answers directly to the White House. This could politicize what should be an objective counting of the people.

This took a lot of courage on Gregg's part. His Senate term ends in two years, and he's not expected to retain his seat because New Hampshire is becoming more liberal.

If you'd like to thank him for sticking by his beliefs, you can do it through his Senate website at http://gregg.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

What's Your Stimulus Solution?

By now I'm sure you've all heard that the Senate Democrats, aided by three Republicans, have passed their version of an $800 billion plus "stimulus" bill to keep our economic "crisis from turning into a catastrophe," in the words of our president. Of course, this is on top of the $700 billion plus bailout for the banks and automakers and in addition to the federal budget that Congress will be passing later this year. Yes, another golden opportunity for Congress to spend our money and our children's money and our children's children's money and our children's children's children's ... you know where this is heading.

Just out of curiosity, if you were in Congress, how would you stimulate the economy?

I think one of the first things I would do is limit congressional travel on the public dime. This would include tax-funded "fact-finding" missions to exotic locales as well as working sessions outside Washington or their home state. Just last week, the Democrats held their caucus -- not in Washington where they all work -- but in Williamsburg, Va. That meant the president, instead of being able to travel a few blocks in his armored limo, had to get in his helicopter and then on Air Force One to fly to Williamsburg. And of course, all the congressmen and women had to stay at hotels, eat and play at our expense. To be fair, the Republicans had their own caucus that we paid for. These are the same people who self-righteously screamed about companies, on the public dole, holding expensive retreats for their workers.

Such a travel restriction could save millions of dollars -- a drop in the bucket these days. But I think it would be a good starting point. And it would send the message that Congress is more about taking care of business than taking care of itself.

When Did I Go from "Babe" to Little Old Lady?

We were too busy this weekend to follow the political news, so I reflected a bit on the more personal aspects of life. For instance, at church yesterday, several guys gave me big bear hugs and their wives didn't even flinch. Instead, they smiled a sweet, benevolent, "Oh, isn't that sweet?" look. In the good ole' days when I was a "babe," if a man attempted to give me a hug, his wife would shoot darts of suspicion my way and glare at him as if to ask, "Was that little flirtation worth what it's going to cost you when we get home?

Before, when a fellow helped me down from the bleachers, he generally had ulterior motives. Now, he's just making sure I make it without falling down. When did I cross that line between "Babe" and sweet little old lady? When did beauticians and salesclerks start calling me "sweetie" or "honey?" Even my doctors treat me with a deference and gentle pats that used to qualify for sexual harassment....but it's okay now, because I remind them of their grandma.

In the inevitable law of gravity, my waist has increased by the same dimensions my bust has diminished. The glamorous 36-26-36 proportions of my glory days have switched to 30-36-40. Victoria's Secret has nothing in stock for that figure! I never thought I'd hit that point in life where my mind retains nothing and my waist retains everything, but here I am. To put it another way, I''m at that stage when the broadness of my mind and the narrowness of my waist have exchanged places.

Somewhere along the way, the "babe" in me lost most of her spic and turned into span.

I'm not giving up gracefully. Like the Oil of Olay commercial says, "I'm fighting it every inch of the way!" I've tried and tried to find an appropriate exercise video, one that will get me back in shape without too much effort. So far, I haven't  found one called "Buns of Putty." The only thing that works for me is  having a great incentive, like putting M & Ms between my toes for a great sit-up routine.

It's not that I eat too much. Most the stuff in my shopping cart these days says, "For fast relief." How can you gain weight on that? I'm not really fat, just getting heavier as I age. That's because there's a lot more information filling up my head, and rather than let my brains explode, all that intelligence seeps into other parts of my body, sort of like a heat-seeking missile with gravity pull. It has to go somewhere, so now my stomach is the most intelligent part of  my body.

Be Heard

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Welcome to the blog-o-sphere!

How much is a billion?

Well, it looks like three Republicans caved to give Obama his Economic Stimulus Package. Whatever were they thinking? So they managed to carve a few billion dollars of pork from it. One hundred billion off that monster package is only 10%...I won't even buy hamburger that has 10% fat...give me extra lean anytime!

Do you realize that a billion seconds ago it was 1959, and you were two years old, just learning the fine art of self-reliance? I remember your awkward attempts to stand alone, without holding onto my outstretched fingers. Or your arrogant assurances, "I can dress myself, Mommy!" Sure, you fell a few times, even still carry a scar on your cheek from a run-in with a hardwood floor. And in some of your toddler pictures, you wouldn't win any best-dressed baby awards! But I was so proud of you for your efforts to stand on your own two feet, and now, nearly 50 years later, I'm still proud of the way you've always landed upright, no matter what problems life threw in your path.

Too bad our congress and president didn't learn that people are stronger and better when they have to fend for themselves occasionally, instead of waiting for government bailouts. We've become such wimps, I wonder if we could have survived Pearl Harbor and World War II as our greatest generation did? If we were attacked today, would we have the guts to get our act together and fight, or would we whimper off into the history books as a "former world power?"

To put all those billions into perspective, a billion minutes ago Jesus walked the earth. It was only a billion hours ago that our ancestors lived in the Stone Age. And a billion days ago, God hadn't yet created man. Yet when the Democrats spend our money, it takes only 8 hours and 20 minutes for them to dispense with a billion dollars!

Do  you think it's just a coincidence that tax paying day, April 15, is in the month that starts with April Fool's Day??

Self-Reliance or Washington-Reliance?

In rolling out his Economic Recovery Advisory Board today, President Obama rightfully called for an end to the partisan bickering that has made government inept since before Bill Clinton came to town. But how quickly he forgets that until just a few weeks ago, he was a big part of the problem. His voting record in the Senate was among the most partisan of the Democrats -- even worse than Harry Reid's and Hillary Clinton's (according to the Washington Post's voting records for the 110th Congress). When moderate Democrats and Republicans came together to find a meeting place for agreement on troubling issues, Sen. Obama was never in the room.

But back to his speech today: "It is time to pass an Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan to get our economy moving again. This is not some abstract debate. It is an urgent and growing crisis that can only be fully understood through the unseen stories that lie underneath each and every one of those lost jobs. Somewhere in America, a small business has shut its doors; a family has said goodbye to their home; a young parent has lost their livelihood, and doesn’t know what’s going to take its place.

"These Americans are counting on us," Obama told Congress.

Perhaps that's the problem. Instead of counting on government to take care of our every problem, we should be relying on ourselves. Had our forefathers counted on government to take care of them, we'd still be part of England, we'd be huddled on the Eastern Seaboard and our national anthem would be "God Save the Queen."

Life isn't easy right now. But times have been tougher for our country and for many of us individually. It wasn't that many years ago that I was a single mom taking care of two kids on $17,000 a year. I lived in a trailer, chopped my own firewood, got up to stoke the fire a couple times a night because I couldn't afford for the furnace to kick on and came up with a lot of fun, free entertainment so my kids wouldn't realize what they were doing without. Recognizing I would never get ahead if I stayed put, I gave up the "security" of that job and my family support system to move with my kids across the country so I could go back to school. Relying on ourselves and God, we survived in student family housing on my 20-hour-a-week, minimum-wage student workstudy and what I could save from my school loan. In all that time, I didn't take any government aid -- no free lunches for the kids, no state health insurance, no food stamps, no welfare.

Had I counted on government, I'd still be back in Idaho living in a trailer, chopping my own firewood and scratching to make ends meet on poverty wages.

I freely admit I was blessed in that I had only to look to my mother for an example. The mother of three, she was widowed and homeless on her 30th birthday. Mom lived on faith in God -- not welfare. The sacrifices she made and the strength she exhibited helped me stand on my own two feet when I needed to.

America was built by generations of people who looked inward and upward to overcome adversity. If, in these difficult economic times, we trade our self-reliance for Washington-reliance, what role models will our children have when they need the strength to struggle through a crisis?

Taxes and Dependency

As the political top continued to spin nearly out of control today, I was struck by two things: Democrats' love/hate relationship with taxes and their conviction that government is THE answer to everything.

First, taxes. They love to impose them on everyone else, but they personally hate them so much that they avoid paying them at all costs. Did you see where yet another Obama appointee, Rep. Solis, has some tax problems? Well. not her, but her husband. She also "forgot" to disclose her connection with a union lobbyist effort all the time she has been serving in the House. Since she was the treasurer of the group and not a "lobbyist," she says she shouldn't have to disclose it -- despite House rules that say otherwise. And even though the president is requiring his staff who have had lobbying ties to recuse themselves from anything involving their past connections, Solis has made it quite clear that she shouldn't have to do that because she technically wasn't a lobbyist.

On the second point, Obama put the spin on today to pressure the Senate to pass the biggest boondoggle in our country's history. His mantra is that if they don't act now to pass the stimulus bill, crisis will turn to catastrophe. What I find interesting is that he never proposed a stimulus package himself. He just left it in the hands of Congress. That's leadership? Is he going to pull that with the budget too? Just hand Congress a blank check that our great-grandchildren will be paying for all of their lives? To get the public behind the stimulus, Obama released a 102-page promo with talking points of how each state will benefit from this package.

It all made me think about something Daniel Webster said nearly 200 years ago about people becoming too reliant on the government: "If left to their own choice of pursuits, they depended on their own skill and their own industry. But if government essentially affects their occupations by its systems of bounties and preferences, it is natural, when in distress, that they should call on government for relief." But after serving in Congress for a few years, Webster changed his mind and started pushing for government to establish tariffs and take other actions that negated free trade. I guess that even in Webster's day, there was something in the Capitol water!

Posted by Mari

Full of bull

FOCA means "freedom of choice..." Freedom of choice for who?? Does the health care professional who doesn't choose to take part in such a grizzly, barbaric procedure have the freedom to say "No?" Does the innocent baby have the choice to live or die? Does the hospital have the freedom to refuse to perform abortions? FOCA means only one thing...freedom for a woman to kill her unborn baby. From my viewpoint, a woman's choice ends when she chooses to have unprotected sex. She can choose to leave her panties on, or choose to remove them.

I caught a clip of Obama's campaign speech at the Planned Parenthood Convention, in which he promised he'd sign an executive order to do away with all the anti-abortion laws in all the states. Can the president undo all that legislation by a stroke of his pen?

I'm hoping that it was just more of his political campaign blather, and that like a lot of his other promises, he'll ignore it. He should learn that a closed mouth gathers no feet. I find it hilarious, watching him and other politicians with hoof and mouth disease trying to back track their promises on the evening news. Listening to the constant barrage of pandering spin doctors makes me dizzier than a cat in the spin cycle of a washing machine.

Talk is cheap because the supply greatly exceeds the demand. Reminds me of the mountain lion who ate an entire bull. He felt so good afterward he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral? When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

Stupidity got us into this mess; why can't it get us out? I make it a point never to vote for an incumbent. I believe that politicians are like diapers. They should both be changed regularly and for the same reason.

Focusing on FOCA

As the media give us play-by-play coverage of Congress' Christmas -- oops, "happy holidays" --catalog full of ways to spend our money and Obama Cabinet nominees who think they are above the tax laws they created for the rest of us, little attention is being given to FOCA, the so-called Freedom of Choice Act that the president has promised to pass.

When FOCA was introduced in the Senate in 2004, it was a pretty simple bill that guaranteed abortion rights to women. The bill -- sponsored by Sens. Boxer, Corzine, Murray, Lautenberg, Clinton, Cantwell, Jeffords, Lieberman, Feinstein, Sarbanes, Mikulski and six others -- was introduced "to prohibit, consistent with Roe v. Wade, the interference by the government with a woman's right to choose to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy, and for other purposes." (What in the world does that last part mean -- "other purposes"?)

Here's the meat of the bill as it was introduced four years ago:

(a) STATEMENT OF POLICY- It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.
(b) PROHIBITION OF INTERFERENCE- A government may not--
(1) deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose--
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or
(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.
(c) CIVIL ACTION- An individual aggrieved by a violation of this section may obtain appropriate relief (including relief against a government) in a civil action.

The bill leaves it up to a woman's physician to determine whether the unborn child has reached viability -- that is, s/he is mature enough to survive outside the mother's womb. It also commits the government to spend our money on abortions, abortion clinics, materials promoting abortion, etc.

Perhaps more interesting is what the bill leaves unsaid. For instance, are 13-year-olds considered "women"? Can the government force private hospitals, counseling services, doctors and pharmacists to commit acts against their conscience?

Although this bill died in the Senate Judiciary Committee last time around, Obama made campaign promises to Planned Parenthood that one of the first things he would do is get FOCA passed. Judging by what he has done already, this is a promise he intends to keep. Although the country was drowning in debt, struggling through a deep-seated recession and facing increased violence in Afghanistan when Obama took the oath of office, the first things he did upon entering the Oval Office included lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell production -- even though science has demonstrated that cord and adult stem cells may be more adaptive -- and committed our tax dollars to promote abortion in other countries. With priorities like that, I'm sure we can count on him to quietly bring renewed energy to passing FOCA while the rest of us worry about the economy. -- Posted by Mari

How Much Is A Trillion?

Sorry about the sushi thing, Mari. I don't know enough about sushi to realize it's not vegetarian! But I do know about politicians and their attempts to get their hands in our pockets!

A billion here, a billion there; sooner or later you're talking real money. And now with the Democrats in charge of the House, Senate, and White House, we've morfed the federal budget into the trillions. I think Nancy Pelosi discovered the power of zero—add a couple of zeroes here and a couple of zeroes there, and viola! Congress has  more of our money to spend..

The concept of numbers has increased exponentially since I was a kid. Back then, two bits was a quarter; a buck could buy three gallons of gas; and if I ever got my hands on a fiver, I was rich indeed. All I knew about millions was that the sun was 93 million miles from the earth, just far enough away to keep us warm without burning us up.

Congress has taken full advantage of  the fact that the computer has conditioned us into thinking in terms of billions and trillions—even my old G5 Mac can store over 10 million bytes of information and is cable of processing 80 billion units of info at two billion cycles per second. Compare that to my first Apple II, which came equipped with 64K of memory. Wasn't it Bill Gates who said that was all anybody would ever need?

The new bailout package, or Christmas wish list, is just another example of why it's getting harder and harder to support the government in the style to which it has become accustomed. They should change your zip code out there in D.C. to 00000, since nothing there adds up anyway.

Think about it—a billion is a thousand millions; a trillion is a million millions. With the national debt already in the trillions of dollars and our total population around 250 million, how much does each of us owe? You do the math; my brain stopped several gigabytes back.

I'm not into sushi, Mom. I'm a vegetarian. Sushi has way too much seafood for me!

You know, the weather is warming up in D.C. It's a balmy 64 degrees today, which means Congress and the Obama administration are busy growing more hands to stick into everyone else's pockets.

Have you seen the "stimulus" bill yet? This is in addition to the bail-out money Obama asked for. Supposedly Congress' best efforts to stimulate the economy, the bill, which has been introduced in both the Senate and the House, is nothing more than a glorified bundle of earmarks. While conservatives will draw the line at bail-out money, they love earmarks as much as their liberal brothers and sisters. Remember Bush's veto they overrode? It was all about earmarks. If they want to stay elected, they've got to deliver the goodies back home. So basically, earmarks are about keeping elected people elected. And they complain about Wall Street bonuses!

Seriously though, I looked at just a chunk of the 100+ page stimulus bill last week and was surprised to find a lot of it dealt with healthcare "reform." My first question was what is healthcare reform doing in a bill like this. Then when I read the "reforms," I realized this had nothing to do with reform. It was all about identifying more ways to spend our money.

Granted, some of these projects are worthwhile -- if we had the money to spend on them. But, I remember, Mom, that you and Dad taught us to live within our means. You never let us borrow ahead on our allowance because you knew that next week we'd want something more and would be even deeper in the hole. You also taught us that if something were worthwhile, we needed to figure out our priorities and do some saving. How many years did it take Billy and me to save up our pennies, dimes and nickels to buy our first bikes?

I guess it's different, though, if you're not spending your own money. I'm sure most of our senators and congressmen and women are careful about how they spend their own money. In fact, a number of them dabble in creative financing just to reduce their personal tax burden or to get favorable credit terms the rest of us can't get. But when it comes to government spending, they don't have to be that careful. It's not their money, and they won't be around when the debt collectors come calling for the trillions of dollars we owe in national debt.

---Mari Serebrov