FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN HAPPY VALLEY

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Why do liberals consistently equate freedom of speech with sacrilege, all the while condemning any and all valid forms of Christian religious expression as a violation of their rights.

Apart from the obvious hypocrisy and intolerance of this stance, the question which springs immediately to mind is, "Which right?" Could they be referring to their perceived right not to be offended?

As you may recall, the so-called "free speech movement" had its inception on the Berkley campus of the University of California back in the 60s. According to the university's history of that era (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calhistory/60s.html), the original goal of the movement was freedom of political expression, which soon morphed into freedom to offend.

Somehow, the quest for freedom of speech, like so many other causes in which the left becomes involved, became perverted. Rather than championing freedom of speech and expression, political or otherwise, the left now uses the notion as a cudgel to suppress any speech or expression they find personally objectionable — and they find anything remotely evocative of Christianity objectionable.

For people who decry the very idea of God, these folks seem to feel unduly threatened by the sight of an empty cross — and they see empty crosses everywhere. They're worse than those nut cases who see the image of the Virgin Mary on a slice of burnt toast or in the hoarfrost on a window pane!

The most recent example of this regrettable tendency is their objection to a Penn State T-shirt that's for sale to the student body.

The shirt is white, with a blue stripe down the front and back, representing the single blue stripe on Penn State's football helmets, and the words "Penn State" in blue letters across the stripe. In the lower right corner of the intersection of the stripe and school name are the words, "White Out!" On the back are the words, "Don't be intimidated… It's just me and 110,000 of my friends."

Anyone who's a Penn State fan is familiar with the student "white out" at home games, and knows that 110,000 is the capacity of Beaver Stadium. The shirt, which was designed by a Penn State student, combines the simplicity of the Penn State football uniform with the enthusiasm of the student body.

But the left has managed to find objectionable this shirt which epitomizes Penn State football. Despite the Nike swoosh at the top of the stripe, liberals claim the single blue stripe and the words "Penn State" form a cross — and they are offended by the cross.

Not to be outdone, the Philadelphia branch of the Anti-Defamation League also filed a complaint. I’d love to know what they find anti-Semitic about the shirt.

Michal Berns, a member of Penn State Hillel, a Jewish organization, is quoted as saying, “At first glance, you don’t necessarily think that’s what it looks like, but when you look at it more, it does look like a cross.”

In other words, you have to TRY REALLY HARD to find anything offensive in the design.

Is it possible to be any more dim-witted than these so-called proponents of "free speech" who find a student T-shirt objectionable? I doubt it.

The solution is simple: If you don't like the shirt, DON'T BUY THE SHIRT!

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

TONY BLAIR PRESIDENT OF THE EU?

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According to the UK’s Daily Mail, “Tony Blair could be crowned first President of Europe at a special summit of EU leaders next month.”

Under the Treaty of Lisbon, the nations comprising the European Union would replace the current rotating presidency with a “permanent president” having a term of two and one-half years.

One of the front-runners is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who enjoys the support of French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel. However, even if Blair is nominated, his nomination would not take effect until ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by all 27 member nations.

This turn of events has caused quite a lot of whining and complaining among British leftists, who hate Blair almost as much as American liberals hate George W. Bush — and for the same reason. They're invested in the lie that Saddam Hussein did not have "weapons of mass destruction", i.e. chemical and/or biological weapons.

It never fails to amaze me that these folks have such selective memories that they can totally dismiss the FACT that Saddam used chemical weapons on his own Kurdish population several times. This has been well documented by international groups such as Doctors Without Borders.

Libs also overlook the FACT that one of the conditions of the cease-fire in the first Gulf war was for Saddam to destroy those chemical weapons stockpiles and to present to the United Nations proof that he had done so. He never complied.

In fact, he violated a number of UN resolutions in the years leading up to the war. I refer you to http://www.c-span.org/iraq/timeline.asp and http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect2.html for a list of Saddam’s violations.

Those who insist that Bush and Blair led their nations into an “unjustifiable” war "based on a lie" are living a fantasy of their own creation and have deliberately and consistently ignored the facts, preferring liberal lies to the truth. (I have never understood the propensity of some people to deliberately choose to believe outrageous lies instead of acknowledging simple truths.)

Equally difficult to understand are those who feel compelled to destroy those brave men who courageously stand by their convictions. During the past decade, I've seen these attempted character assassinations over and over again. Rather than debate FACTS, which seem to be in dangerously short supply on the left, they launch personal attacks and spread outright lies. This is a very disturbing trend and, I think, is an indication of the moral bankruptcy of those who employ such tactics.

At any rate, it's really no concern of mine whom the Europeans choose to head the EU -- no more than it should be any concern of the rest of the world whom we elect as president. However, the rest of the world, in their lust to bring the U.S. down a few pegs, vociferously supported Barack Hussein Obama (Ummm! Ummm! Ummm!) and celebrated his election. Now, Obama, who was and is completely unqualified for the office of the presidency, is systematically taking over private industry, usurping civil liberties, and destroying our economy.

Has it occurred to the rest of the world that when our economy tanks, theirs may follow? Or is their anticipation and joy at watching Obama preside over our downfall so great that they don't care how it affects their own economies?

Barak Hussein Obama (Ummm! Umm! Ummm!) is presiding over a trashed economy with a multiple-trillion-dollar national debt. His policies have caused over a hundred banks to fail this year alone. He has allowed the Fed to monetize the debt, which can only result in hyperinflation and the collapse of the dollar. He is vilifying everyone who disagrees with his failed policies. He has explicitly stated his intention to "redistribute the wealth" and, to implement that plan, he has surrounded himself with avowed communists who openly revere mass-murderer Chairman Mao and madman Hugo Chavez.

Yet the world considers Obama a "man of reason". I cannot help but wonder what criteria the world used to arrive at that conclusion. Perhaps that conclusion was based on Obama's outstanding teleprompter-reading skills?

In this nation, there is unrest, anger and slowly rising panic among the populace. We aren't as stupid as Barack Hussein Obama (Ummm! Ummm! Ummm!) seems to think we are. We can see quite clearly what is happening.

To prepare for the coming economic collapse over which Obama is determined to preside, economists are advising people to buy gold. Those who cannot afford to invest in gold are buying seeds, dried food, guns and ammo. People are developing a bunker mentality. It's getting strange.

As one prominent commentator recently said, "There's a time coming that's going to really suck. It's going to suck really bad." Not the most eloquent statement, but true, nonetheless.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

THE INTOLERANCE OF THE LEFT

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As I’m sure everyone in America knows by now, Rush Limbaugh was part of a group that had entered a bid to buy the Saint Louis Rams. The parties involved were forbidden to speak publicly about their bid. However, someone of dubious integrity leaked the information and ESPN reported it. After being bombarded with questions, Rush simply confirmed the report but refused to discuss it further.

Rush has been a long-time NFL fan, so the appeal of being part-owner of a team is understandable. What is NOT understandable is the speed with which the left-wing attack machine swung into action.

Al Sharpton, who purports to defend civil rights and oppose discrimination, announced that he would urge NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to reject Rush Limbaugh’s bid to be part-owner of the Rams.

According to the Associated Press, Sharpton claimed Limbaugh’s “track record on race should exclude him from owning an NFL team.” And what “track record” is Sharpton referring to? Perhaps he means Limbaugh’s consistent color-blindness and refusal to define any man by race, as Sharpton does.

Not to be outdone, that shining beacon of tolerance, Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson, who has a long history of anti-Semitism, joined the opposition. Not only did he oppose Limbaugh’s bid, but he contacted players in an effort to stir up anger and opposition among them.

According to the Associated Press, Jackson claimed that Limbaugh “made his wealth appealing to the fears of whites with an unending line of insults against blacks and other minorities.” That’s odd. I listen to Rush almost every day, and I’ve never once heard him insult anyone because of his race — unlike Jackson, who consistently uses race and religion to stir up prejudice and hatred.

Even Democrat Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas) joined the racist coalition opposing Rush by making a fool of herself on the floor of the House Tuesday. It was not clear how the esteemed representative thought Rush’s bid for ownership of an NFL team was any business of the legislature.

As is their habit when they are determined to destroy a conservative, the left-wing attack machine saturated the airways with lies. They manufactured racist “quotes” and lied about the content of his radio program in their attempt to malign Limbaugh’s character — but they provided no proof for any of their accusations.

My question is this: Why did Jackson and Sharpton turn what was a simple business transaction into a three-ring circus? Why did they so vociferously oppose Limbaugh’s bid for an NFL team? What was their motive?

We KNOW their actions had nothing at all to do with civil rights, for they were running rough-shod over Limbaugh’s civil rights.

And we know their actions had nothing to do with Limbaugh’s suitability as an owner, for a number of genuinely unsuitable people have become owners or part-owners of teams with no objection from Jackson and Sharpton.

Most recently, trashy Black Eyed Peas singer, Fergie, was “pre-approved” as part-owner of the Miami Dolphins. She admits to having been involved in “wild sex” and drugs, but Jackson and Sharpton apparently don’t think that violates the NFL’s “high standards” for potential owners — perhaps because Fergie is a left-wing Obama supporter.

That leaves us with the conclusion that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are nothing more than race-baiting hypocrites and opportunists who are attacking the most popular radio host in the nation for no better reason than to stir up controversy and inflate their own importance.

It was announced Wednesday evening that the consortium that had placed the bid for the Rams, under pressure from the hypocritical left, had asked Limbaugh to withdraw.

I hope Rush Limbaugh sues Sharpton, Jackson, Lee and all the others who slandered and maligned him for no better reason than that he’s a conservative. Someone needs to take a stand against these idiots and, hopefully, put a stop to their nasty habit of trying to destroy everyone with whom they disagree.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

AMERICAN PRIMITIVE

10/10/09

The circular fluorescent bulbs in my kitchen light fixture need to be replaced, so I picked up a set of replacement bulbs. GE. The only brand available at Wal-Mart.

GE was once a highly-respected company, but they tarnished their reputation by selling machine parts to Iran while Iran was shipping men and weapons to Iraq to kill American soldiers. In any other war, this would have been considered treason.

But I digress. Since GE was the only brand available, I had no choice but to purchase the bulbs.

They’re made in China. And they don’t work. The small one gives off a dim flicker and the larger one won’t light at all. So I’ll have to return the defective bulbs and try another set.

An aside: China can’t seem to make light bulbs that work. They export toys coated with lead-based paint. Yet the government expects me to trust a swine flu vaccine that’s manufactured in China?? I don’t think so!

When I bought the defective fluorescents, I also picked up some incandescent bulbs. You know. . . the kind Congress elected to ban? I wanted 60 watt bulbs, but there were no 60 watt bulbs on the shelf. Instead of the standard 40, 60, 75 and 100 watt bulbs I’ve purchased all my life, there were with wattages of 34, 52, 67 and 90. What’s with that??

Since I wanted the bulbs for lamps by which I intended to read, 52 watt bulbs were out of the question. That left 67 watt bulbs, which apparently are intended to replace 75 watt bulbs, thereby forcing me to reduce my electricity usage.

There are two glaring problems with this approach:

1. The government does NOT have the constitutional authority to legislate to manufacturers what kind of bulbs they must produce.

2. The government does NOT have the constitutional authority to legislate to me what kind of light bulbs I can use nor how much electricity I am permitted to use.

You may be thinking, ‘If you can get the same amount of light from a lower wattage bulb, why not do it?’ and I would totally agree, if only to lower my electric bill. However, these bulbs do NOT produce the same amount of light. The label states, in fine print, that a 67 watt bulb produces 1015 lumens, compared to 1170 lumens produced by a 75 watt bulb. That’s 155 lumens LESS. In other words, they’re dimbulbs, just like the Congressmen who legislated them.

Now to the Rule of Unintended Consequences: Because 60 watt bulbs are no longer available, I will be forced to replace my 60 watt bulbs with 67 watt bulbs — thereby INCREASING my energy usage, rather than reducing it.

If our socialist legislature and communist executive branch have their way, besides telling us what kind of light bulbs we’re allowed to buy, they’ll soon dictate to us how much energy we’re allowed to use, what kind of car we’re allowed to drive, what foods we’re allowed to eat, and what appliances we’re allowed to use. If they have their way, we’ll soon be living like our Amish brethren, who, I’m sure, make a very small “carbon footprint’.

The population of America, the greatest nation in the world, the most innovative nation in the world, the richest nation in the world, will be reduced to a standard of living on a par with Third World countries. That is, after all, the expressed intention of our president.

All this nonsense is supposedly being perpetrated in the name of the hoax known as “global warming”, but is that really the reason, or does our government have an ulterior motive, such as greater control over our lives?

Think about it.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

PSEUDO SCIENCE

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Scientists have discovered a baby wooly mammoth frozen in the Siberian ice. The carcass was so well preserved that there were still traces of it’s mother’s milk in the stomach. Scientists announced they have been able to learn much more about wooly mammoths than they did from any previous discoveries.

Daniel Fisher, head of the team studying the mammoth, told reporters, "We had no idea from preserved skeletons and preserved carcasses that young mammoths had a discrete structure on the back of the head of brown fat cells."

Okay... so here we are. Scientists have been studying the woolly mammoth for decades, yet the recent discovery of an extremely well-preserved carcass reveals that they "had no idea" about some of the animal's basic physical features — even though they've had other carcasses to work with in the past. This is one of the very few times I've heard a scientist admit that he was wrong.

Having missed the mark while studying actual carcasses, just how accurate would you say their reports have been on various dinosaurs, when they've had only a few bones to work with? Yet they create entire creatures from those few bones and expect us to accept their imagination as fact.

Or how accurate do you think their descriptions of "cave men" are, when they have only a single bone to study? You might recall "Piltdown Man", which was presented as evidence of evolution, but which turned out to be nothing more than the jawbone of an orangutan attached to a human skull. Similarly, the remains of "Nebraska Man" turned out to be a pig's tooth.

No evidence of macroevolution has ever been produced. As someone once pointed out, if the leg of a reptile were to evolve into the wing of a bird, it would become a very bad leg long before it became a good wing. Common sense. Mere common sense.

How accurately do you think scientists can predict the temperature of the sun 50 million years ago? (That’s one of the factors some of them use to extrapolate the catastrophes they think will be caused by so-called climate change.) Or how accurately do you think they are able to predict earth's temperature 10 or 20 years from now — especially when they can’t even accurately predict next week’s weather? The plain fact of the matter is that scientists know far too little about the earth and the environment than they would like us to believe.

According to the Planet Earth series, entire colonies of coral suddenly die off and spring up a short distance away, and scientists have no idea why. Yet these same scientists want us to believe they understand the composition of the ocean and how that vast ecological system works? I don't think so.

I find the world around me endlessly fascinating and I've discovered that my little woods does best when left alone. The woods provides an ever-changing vista. For a few seasons, the woods was filled with great ferny stalks of hemlock. It was a beautiful site! But gradually, the hemlock gave way to dame's rocket, a tall wildflower with magenta and white blossoms. There also appeared lady's slipper (a type of pitcher plant), white violets, and a small but hardy patch of wild narcissus. The woods is ever-changing and is beautiful in all its phases, and who could possibly say which phase is "correct" and should be preserved? Surely not I!

But environmentalists would have you believe that Earth, as it is today (or as it was a couple of decades ago, depending on whose imaginings you believe) is the "perfect" temperature and that we should all strive to prevent that temperature from ever changing. That is nothing less than idiocy.

Our government once tried intervention in some of the national parks, and nearly destroyed Yosemite in the process. Man does not understand the extreme complexities of the environment sufficiently enough to interfere with nature. That fact is borne out every day. The best thing we can do is to control blatant pollution (no brainers, such as factories dumping pollutants directly into the water supply) and then stand back and get out of the way. Anything else is pure idiocy.

I believe in dealing with facts, not science fiction.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

GOVERNMENT WASTE

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I’m sure that, by now, we’ve all heard of the illegal conduct that seems to be the standard operating procedure of ACORN, from facilitating the smuggling into the country of minors for the purpose of prostitution to their eagerness to provide mortgages to unqualified applicants for illegal purposes.

The excuse given for the misconduct of ACORN employees was that they are assigned a quota of mortgages they must process each day. Thus, their advice, "You won't get a mortgage if you don't lie."

But… wait a minute… Wasn't that precisely the problem with the recent "housing crisis"? Mortgages were given to people who were not qualified for them, who lied on their applications? And many of those unqualified borrowers defaulted on those mortgages because they couldn’t make the payments, and so investors were left holding billions of dollars of worthless paper. So, why is ACORN still processing mortgages for unqualified applicants? Won’t that only exacerbate the problem?

A better question might be this: If it's necessary to assign a quota and if ACORN employees are having such a difficult time filling that quota legally — is it possible that low-income housing programs are being OVERFUNDED??

And take the food stamp program. I've seen large billboards advertising the program at who-knows-what cost to the taxpayers. Most people who are in extreme financial trouble go to the public welfare office. There, they are offered a variety of assistance, from food stamps to fuel assistance. If you don't know you need food stamps, or if you don't think you qualify for food stamps, YOU PROBABLY DON'T NEED FOOD STAMPS!!! Could this possibly be another government program that is grossly overfunded?

Yet every time conservatives try to limit the excess in these programs, they’re accused of wanting to starve children. I mean, what’s that about?! Even if it’s suggested that the federal government simply hold the line on such programs, liberals and their allies in the media complain about welfare “cuts”. Since when is “no increase” synonymous with “cut”?

I have no problem with providing a safety net for families in need and people temporarily unemployed, but something definitely needs to change when welfare becomes a way of life for entire neighborhoods. Here’s a heads-up for liberals: “promote the general welfare” does NOT mean “put everyone ON welfare”!

As for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and programs such as the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, I can find no constitutional authority for either the federal or state governments to engage in the mortgage business. The Constitution does NOT guarantee that every citizen should have his or her own house! If you can’t afford to buy a house then, for crying out loud, rent an apartment!

If Congress wants to cut spending — and I see nothing to suggest that they do, they could begin by taking a long, hard look at their motives for funding such corrupt organizations as ACORN and then deal with the superfluous spending on welfare and housing.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.