From Doug's Blog, Tuesday, May 26, 2009
"New York Times Says Feminist Victories Have Created a Generation of Unhappy Women
From the New York Times
'American women are wealthier, healthier and better educated than they were 30 years ago. They’re more likely to work outside the home, and more likely to earn salaries comparable to men’s when they do. They can leave marriages and sue employers. They enjoy unprecedented control over [the amount of children they have]. On some fronts — graduation rates, life expectancy and even job security — men look increasingly like the second sex.
But all the achievements of the feminist era may have delivered women to greater unhappiness. In the 1960s, when Betty Friedan diagnosed her fellow wives and daughters as the victims of “the problem with no name,” American women reported themselves happier, on average, than did men. Today, that gender gap has reversed. Male happiness has inched up, and female happiness has dropped. In postfeminist America, men are happier than women.' "
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday Vol. II
This is from the blog Gun Owners of America that alerts gun owners when the Second Amendment (the right to carry guns) is violated.Here’s what they say about the Latino Judge Obama is appointing to the Supreme Court…
Quick clips from the article if you don’t have time to read it all:
“Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel earlier this year which ruled in Maloney v. Cuomo that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. What? Well, as she and her cohorts claim, the Supreme Court has not yet incorporated the states under the Second Amendment. Until then, she believes, the Second only applies to the District of Columbia.” Incredible arrogance!
“Sotomayor laid bare her raw grasping for power and lack of judicial temperament in a speech given at Duke University in 2005. She made it abundantly clear that she is not interested in applying the law and respecting the meaning of our founder’s words.“All of the legal funds out there, they’re looking for people with court of appeals experience because the court of appeals is where policy is made,” she told her Duke audience. Realizing that this did not sound very judicial (even though most judges act on this basis), Sotomayor tried to laugh off her brazen admission: “I know this is on tape and I should never say that, [audience laughing], because we don’t make law – I know. Um, okay. I know, I’m not promoting it, I’m not advocating it.” The audience continued to laugh. They got the joke.Sotomayor’s joke will be on us and our liberties.”
Obama Picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court
by Larry Pratt
"The gloves are off and the mask has been put aside. All of the President’s previous dissimulation to the contrary, he aims to use the Supreme Court to finish off what is left of the Constitution.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor is an Obama lieutenant in his assault against the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
We need to tell each Senator that this will be 1994 all over again. That is the year the Democrats lost control of the Congress when they voted for President Clinton’s gun ban.
Sonia Sotomayor is currently on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District. There she has racked up an anti-Second Amendment record. Generally she has displayed contempt for the rule of law under the Constitution.
The Heller decision put the Supreme Court in support of the Constitutional protection of the individual right to keep and bear arms. Sotomayor, a politically correct lover of centralized government power (as long as she is part of the power elite), immediately went into counter-attack mode against the Heller decision.
Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel earlier this year which ruled in Maloney v. Cuomo that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. What? Well, as she and her cohorts claim, the Supreme Court has not yet incorporated the states under the Second Amendment. Until then, she believes, the Second only applies to the District of Columbia.
This is pure judicial arrogance -- something Sotomayor relishes (as long as she is one of the ruling judges). In fact, protection of the right to keep and bear arms was a major objective for enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, as recently freed slaves were being disarmed and terrorized in their neighborhoods.
But Sotomayor disdains this important right of individuals, as indicated by an earlier opinion from 2004. In United States v. Sanchez-Villar, she stated that “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”
Sotomayor’s Second Amendment views flow naturally from her politically correct views on the law and the role of judges.
Sotomayor thinks that her being a Latina with the appropriate genitalia qualifies her to rule better than “a White male who hasn’t lived that life.” This was the judge’s “learned” opinion delivered in a Cultural Diversity lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001. As a politically correct elitist, we can be sure that she will continue to rule against the Second Amendment.
Sotomayor laid bare her raw grasping for power and lack of judicial temperament in a speech given at Duke University in 2005. She made it abundantly clear that she is not interested in applying the law and respecting the meaning of our founder’s words.
“All of the legal funds out there, they’re looking for people with court of appeals experience because the court of appeals is where policy is made,” she told her Duke audience.
Realizing that this did not sound very judicial (even though most judges act on this basis), Sotomayor tried to laugh off her brazen admission: “I know this is on tape and I should never say that, [audience laughing], because we don’t make law – I know. Um, okay. I know, I’m not promoting it, I’m not advocating it.” The audience continued to laugh. They got the joke.
Sotomayor’s joke will be on us and our liberties.
President Obama said he was looking for a judge based on their “empathy.” I have no doubt that is but a more considered rephrasing of Sotomayor’s genitalia philosophy of judging. Absent in all the chatter about Sotomayor is fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution.
Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy might be best characterized by the Queen of Hearts who proclaimed that “I can believe eight different things before breakfast” -- except, of course, for the true meaning of the “right to keep and bear arms.”
By her own admission she wants her experience to rule from the bench, and thus, it is highly unlikely that her Ivy League, elitist factory background will lead to her “feeling good” about folks owning guns."
Thursday vol.1
In the first article, Walter Williams writes about the major role of the housing market collapse in our financial market crisis… the George W. Bush administration urged Congress to enact the American Dream Down Payment Assistance Act, which subsidized down payments of homebuyers whose income was below a certain level. Public Money for Charity!!!
Also included below is another old article (from last October) by Walter Williams about "America's Most Over-rated Product: Higher Education… Is College Worth It? (Interesting statistics we already know…) Interesting he wrote about it…
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2009
The Housing Boom and Bust
Hot off the press is my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell's 43rd book, "The Housing Boom and Bust." The book is an eye-opener for anyone interested in the truth about the collapse of the housing market that played a major role in our financial market crisis.
The root of the problem lies in Washington. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, later given teeth during the Bush and Clinton administrations, forced financial institutions to make risky mortgage loans they otherwise would not have made. President Clinton's Attorney General Janet Reno threatened legal action against lenders whose racial statistics raised her suspicions. Bank loan qualification standards, in general, came under criticism as being too stringent regarding down payments, credit histories, and income. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored enterprises, by lowering their standards for the kinds of mortgage paper they would purchase from banks and other mortgage lenders, gave financial institutions further incentive to make risky loans.
In 2002, the George W. Bush administration urged Congress to enact the American Dream Down Payment Assistance Act, which subsidized down payments of homebuyers whose income was below a certain level. Bush also urged Congress to pass legislation requiring the Federal Housing Administration to make zero-down-payment loans at low-interest rates to low income Americans. Between 2005 and 2007, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac acquired an estimated trillion-dollar's worth of subprime loans and guaranteed more than $2 trillion worth of mortgages. That, Sowell points out, is larger than the gross domestic product of all but four nations.
There were numerous warnings that went unheeded. In congressional hearings, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said, regarding the risks assumed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, "The concern is, if something unravels, it could cause systemic risk to the whole financial system." Peter J. Wallison, American Enterprise Institute scholar, warned that if Congress did not reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, "there will be a massive default with huge losses to the taxpayers and systemic effects on the economy."
There were many other warnings of pending collapse but Congress and the White House in their push for politically popular "affordable housing" ignored them. Congressman Barney Frank, who is now chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, said critics "exaggerate a threat of safety" and "conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see." Chairman Chris Dodd, of the Senate Banking Committee, called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "one of the great success stories of all time" and urged "caution" in restricting their activities, out of fear of "doing great damage to what has been one of the great engines of economic success in the last 30 or 40 years."
Sowell provides numerous examples of government actions at both the federal and state levels that created the housing boom and bust and its devastating impact on domestic and foreign financial markets, but here's what I don't get: What can be said about the intelligence of the news media and the American people who buy into to congressionally created lies that our problems were caused by Wall Street greed and Bush administration deregulation? In the words of Barney Frank, "We are in a worldwide crisis now because of excessive deregulation" and "mortgages made and sold in the unregulated sector led to the crisis." The fact of the matter is our financial sector is the most heavily regulated sector in our economy. In the banking and finance industries, regulatory spending between 1980 and 2007 almost tripled, rising from $725 million to $2.07 billion. I challenge anyone to come up with one thing banks can do that's not covered by a regulation.
For the Washington politicians to get away with spinning the financial crisis the way they have suggests that American people are either stupid or ignorant. I hope it's ignorance because "The Housing Boom and Bust" is the cure.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at http://www.creators.com/.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2008, AND THEREAFTER
___________________________
Also included below is another old article (from last October) by Walter Williams about "America's Most Over-rated Product: Higher Education… Is College Worth It? (Interesting statistics we already know…) Interesting he wrote about it…
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2009
The Housing Boom and Bust
Hot off the press is my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell's 43rd book, "The Housing Boom and Bust." The book is an eye-opener for anyone interested in the truth about the collapse of the housing market that played a major role in our financial market crisis.
The root of the problem lies in Washington. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, later given teeth during the Bush and Clinton administrations, forced financial institutions to make risky mortgage loans they otherwise would not have made. President Clinton's Attorney General Janet Reno threatened legal action against lenders whose racial statistics raised her suspicions. Bank loan qualification standards, in general, came under criticism as being too stringent regarding down payments, credit histories, and income. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored enterprises, by lowering their standards for the kinds of mortgage paper they would purchase from banks and other mortgage lenders, gave financial institutions further incentive to make risky loans.
In 2002, the George W. Bush administration urged Congress to enact the American Dream Down Payment Assistance Act, which subsidized down payments of homebuyers whose income was below a certain level. Bush also urged Congress to pass legislation requiring the Federal Housing Administration to make zero-down-payment loans at low-interest rates to low income Americans. Between 2005 and 2007, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac acquired an estimated trillion-dollar's worth of subprime loans and guaranteed more than $2 trillion worth of mortgages. That, Sowell points out, is larger than the gross domestic product of all but four nations.
There were numerous warnings that went unheeded. In congressional hearings, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said, regarding the risks assumed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, "The concern is, if something unravels, it could cause systemic risk to the whole financial system." Peter J. Wallison, American Enterprise Institute scholar, warned that if Congress did not reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, "there will be a massive default with huge losses to the taxpayers and systemic effects on the economy."
There were many other warnings of pending collapse but Congress and the White House in their push for politically popular "affordable housing" ignored them. Congressman Barney Frank, who is now chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, said critics "exaggerate a threat of safety" and "conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see." Chairman Chris Dodd, of the Senate Banking Committee, called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "one of the great success stories of all time" and urged "caution" in restricting their activities, out of fear of "doing great damage to what has been one of the great engines of economic success in the last 30 or 40 years."
Sowell provides numerous examples of government actions at both the federal and state levels that created the housing boom and bust and its devastating impact on domestic and foreign financial markets, but here's what I don't get: What can be said about the intelligence of the news media and the American people who buy into to congressionally created lies that our problems were caused by Wall Street greed and Bush administration deregulation? In the words of Barney Frank, "We are in a worldwide crisis now because of excessive deregulation" and "mortgages made and sold in the unregulated sector led to the crisis." The fact of the matter is our financial sector is the most heavily regulated sector in our economy. In the banking and finance industries, regulatory spending between 1980 and 2007 almost tripled, rising from $725 million to $2.07 billion. I challenge anyone to come up with one thing banks can do that's not covered by a regulation.
For the Washington politicians to get away with spinning the financial crisis the way they have suggests that American people are either stupid or ignorant. I hope it's ignorance because "The Housing Boom and Bust" is the cure.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at http://www.creators.com/.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2008, AND THEREAFTER
___________________________
Is College Worth It?
As parents pack their youngsters off to college, they might ask themselves whether it's worth both the money they will spend and their children's time. Dr. Marty Nemko has researched that question in an article aptly titled "America's Most Over-rated Product: Higher Education (www.martynemko.com/articles/americas-most-overrated-product-higher-education_id1539)."
The U.S. Department of Education statistics show that 76 out of 100 students who graduate in the bottom 40 percent of their high school class do not graduate from college, even if they spend eight and a half years in college. That's even with colleges having dumbed down classes to accommodate such students. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million students who took the ACT college entrance examinations in 2007 were prepared to do college-level study in math, English and science. Even though a majority of students are grossly under-prepared to do college-level work, each year colleges admit hundreds of thousands of such students.
While colleges have strong financial motives to admit unsuccessful students, for failing students the experience can be devastating. They often leave with their families, or themselves, having piled up thousands of dollars in debt. There is possibly trauma and poor self-esteem for having failed, and perhaps embarrassment for their families. Dr. Nemko says that worst of all is that few of these former college students, having spent thousands of dollars, wind up in a job that required a college education. It's not uncommon to find them driving a taxi, working at a restaurant or department store, performing some other job that they could have had as a high school graduate or dropout.
What about students who are prepared for college? First, only 40 percent of each year's 2 million freshmen graduate in four years; 45 percent never graduate at all. Often, having a college degree does not mean much. According to a 2006 Pew Charitable Trusts study, 50 percent of college seniors failed a test that required them to interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, and compare credit card offers. About 20 percent of college seniors did not have the quantitative skills to estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station. According a recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the percentage of college graduates proficient in prose literacy has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent within the past decade. Employers report that many college graduates lack the basic skills of critical thinking, writing and problem-solving.
Colleges are in business. Students are a cost. Research is a profit center. When colleges boast about having this professor who has won a science award or that professor who has won the Nobel Prize, very often an undergraduate student will never be taught by that professor. It is a "bait and switch" tactic and very often your youngster will take classes not taught by a professor but taught in large classes by a graduate student. Faculty who bring in large grants are more highly valued than faculty who teach well. Teaching excellence is so often undervalued that the late Ernest Boyer, vice president for Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, quipped that, "Winning the campus teaching award is the kiss of death when it comes to tenure."
Parents and taxpayers cough up billions upon billions of dollars to the nation's colleges and universities. Colleges make money whether students learn or not, whether they graduate or not, and whether they get a good job after graduating or not. Colleges and universities engage in "bait and switch," confer fraudulent degrees and engage in other practices that would bring legal sanctions if done by any other business. There is little or no oversight of the nation's over 4,000 colleges and universities that enroll over 17 million students. There are some colleges, such as Grove City College and Hillsdale College, that do a fine job of undergraduate education. Useful information about what colleges are doing what can be found in the Delaware-based Intercollegiate Studies Institute's "Choosing the Right College" (http://isi.org/college_guide/choosing_right_college.html).
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at http://www.creators.com/
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
As parents pack their youngsters off to college, they might ask themselves whether it's worth both the money they will spend and their children's time. Dr. Marty Nemko has researched that question in an article aptly titled "America's Most Over-rated Product: Higher Education (www.martynemko.com/articles/americas-most-overrated-product-higher-education_id1539)."
The U.S. Department of Education statistics show that 76 out of 100 students who graduate in the bottom 40 percent of their high school class do not graduate from college, even if they spend eight and a half years in college. That's even with colleges having dumbed down classes to accommodate such students. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million students who took the ACT college entrance examinations in 2007 were prepared to do college-level study in math, English and science. Even though a majority of students are grossly under-prepared to do college-level work, each year colleges admit hundreds of thousands of such students.
While colleges have strong financial motives to admit unsuccessful students, for failing students the experience can be devastating. They often leave with their families, or themselves, having piled up thousands of dollars in debt. There is possibly trauma and poor self-esteem for having failed, and perhaps embarrassment for their families. Dr. Nemko says that worst of all is that few of these former college students, having spent thousands of dollars, wind up in a job that required a college education. It's not uncommon to find them driving a taxi, working at a restaurant or department store, performing some other job that they could have had as a high school graduate or dropout.
What about students who are prepared for college? First, only 40 percent of each year's 2 million freshmen graduate in four years; 45 percent never graduate at all. Often, having a college degree does not mean much. According to a 2006 Pew Charitable Trusts study, 50 percent of college seniors failed a test that required them to interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, and compare credit card offers. About 20 percent of college seniors did not have the quantitative skills to estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station. According a recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the percentage of college graduates proficient in prose literacy has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent within the past decade. Employers report that many college graduates lack the basic skills of critical thinking, writing and problem-solving.
Colleges are in business. Students are a cost. Research is a profit center. When colleges boast about having this professor who has won a science award or that professor who has won the Nobel Prize, very often an undergraduate student will never be taught by that professor. It is a "bait and switch" tactic and very often your youngster will take classes not taught by a professor but taught in large classes by a graduate student. Faculty who bring in large grants are more highly valued than faculty who teach well. Teaching excellence is so often undervalued that the late Ernest Boyer, vice president for Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, quipped that, "Winning the campus teaching award is the kiss of death when it comes to tenure."
Parents and taxpayers cough up billions upon billions of dollars to the nation's colleges and universities. Colleges make money whether students learn or not, whether they graduate or not, and whether they get a good job after graduating or not. Colleges and universities engage in "bait and switch," confer fraudulent degrees and engage in other practices that would bring legal sanctions if done by any other business. There is little or no oversight of the nation's over 4,000 colleges and universities that enroll over 17 million students. There are some colleges, such as Grove City College and Hillsdale College, that do a fine job of undergraduate education. Useful information about what colleges are doing what can be found in the Delaware-based Intercollegiate Studies Institute's "Choosing the Right College" (http://isi.org/college_guide/choosing_right_college.html).
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at http://www.creators.com/
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Monday
These are the letters of Lt. Col. John Augustus Butler, Sr. to his son “Johnny Boy”.
To read the complete story and article go to Doug’s Blog: http://www.visionforumministries.org/issues/gods_hand_in_history/the_league_of_grateful_sons_1.aspx
Remembering those who gave their life for us…
Copies of letters from Doug's Blog...
Lt. Col. Butler fell in battle the day after this first letter on D-day.
To read the complete story and article go to Doug’s Blog: http://www.visionforumministries.org/issues/gods_hand_in_history/the_league_of_grateful_sons_1.aspx
Remembering those who gave their life for us…
Copies of letters from Doug's Blog...
Lt. Col. Butler fell in battle the day after this first letter on D-day.
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