Post Scripts

In an effort to help readers improve their vocabulary, we are introducing topical words often heard in the news. Today’s important word is liquidity: Liquidity: When you look at your investments and wet your pants.

by Tina Grazier

We must all be prepared to sacrifice. Thats what weve been told. The government has chosen to spendand spendand spend. They talk about transforming the way problems are approached in our country, which is just a hip word used to describe the act of making the federal government the manager of funding, innovation and invention. They will decide which technologies we will utilizeand which we will not. They will decide which states and cities will build a new ____ fill in the blank. They will decide how our business is conducted.

In this giddy exuberant rush to do something it would be wise to pause for a moment and consider. Credit card spending is always fun at the store. But when the bill comes due the mood is likely to transformed to something a lot less exciting. Thats the time when the sacrifices we must make will become quite real in the form of tax increases and rising energy prices. We need to be awareBIG taxes and HIGH prices are coming down the pike:

Continue reading “Making Sacrifices” »

Posted by Tina

Attorney General Eric Holder last week chided Americans calling us cowards because we avoid discussing issues of race. Gregory Kane, writing in the DC Examiner has taken up the challenge to begin having more “courageous” discussions with his article, Will Holder discuss these five racial issues?

I hope you’ll read the entire article. The following excerpt offers three of the five challenging topics:

Continue reading “Lets Start That Race Discussion” »

Mexico’s Narco-terrorism spreads…

by Jack Lee

The head of Homeland Security, Secretary Janet Napolitano (shown left), acknowledges signs of rising violence in Mexico, but says that violence has yet to spill across the border. She assures Americans, if and when it does, Homeland Security has a plan prepared!

Napolitano says violence has yet to spill across the border.”

However, according to the Dept. of Justice and the DEA, Mexican drug-gang activity now reaches from coast to coast and operates in at least 230 of Americas largest cities.

Jeremy Schwartz, Cox News Service recently reported, Powerful and well-organized Mexican drug-trafficking groups have seized control of drug distribution throughout Ohio, flooded local markets with increasingly cheap heroin and are using Columbus and Dayton as distribution hubs for southwestern Ohio and parts of Indiana, local and federal U.S. drug-enforcement officials say. The situation in Ohio reflects a larger national trend

Continue reading “PHOENIX KIDNAPPINGS – Napolitano, “Mexico’s Violence Not Here”” »

by Tina Grazier

** LANGLEY, Virginia: Visiting the Central Intelligence Agency to swear in Leon Panetta as the agency’s 19th director, Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. said Thursday that the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation policies “gave Al Qaeda a powerful recruiting tool.” International Herald Tribune **

Mr. Vice President, I respectfully disagree. The procedures and techniques used to discover information and enemy plans were conducted to save lives and defeat a monstrous enemy. The policy didnt create a recruitment tool for Al Qaeda. The enemy would expect such methods to be used. Instead, it was the public vitriol aimed at President Bush over the facilities and interrogation policies by fellow Americans in Congress, the press, and in public protests that did it. The enemy simply took advantage of anti-war sentiment, mimicking words certain Americans used against their own government to inflame young men and to recruit them.

Continue reading “Mr. Vice President, I Disagree” »

Posted by Tina

Recent border violence tests spillover plan, by Jeremy Roebuck, The Monitor

** As protests and gunfire erupted last week across Reynosa, Hidalgo County authorities stood prepared at the international bridges, ready for any possibility. *** With mobile command units connected to statewide intelligence centers and dozens of officers armed to confront potential threats, law enforcement officials responded to Tuesday’s violence like they never have before. *** The incident prompted state officials to enact for the first time a border-wide emergency plan developed to address threats from Mexico’s ongoing war against its entrenched drug cartels. *** Dubbed the “Operation Border Star Contingency Plan,” Gov. Rick Perry’s office drafted the policy with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies last year to prepare for the possibility of violence spilling over into the United States. *** “The most significant threat Texas faces is spillover violence from Mexico’s drug cartels,” Perry’s homeland security director, Steve McCraw, told state senators at a hearing Wednesday. “You can never be too prepared.” **

by Tina Grazier

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life.” – Lao Tzu

The quote above is often referenced by people of all political stripes to demonstrate a universal concept that is brilliant in its simplicity and easily understood. One would think that it would serve as a foundation for sound policy regarding the poor. Apparently for some of our lawmakers it is but a convenient phrase used to impress or to feign compassion and wisdom as a means of garnering votes. A recent example of this hypocrisy can be found in the stimulus bill.

The portion in question is the provision that reverses Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. This welfare reform program, signed into law by President Clinton, and supported by Democrats and Republicans, was designed to encourage people off of the welfare rolls and into the work force. It was highly successful:

Continue reading “The Democrat Stance on Public Assistance is Morally Bankrupt” »

by Jack Lee

Lake Oroville was so low it had only one last launch ramp, that is, if you happen to have a 4-wheel drive with those big monster truck tires, otherwise you would be stuck in some mud hole or high centered on piles of drift wood. (The lake hasn’t been this low for 30 years).

Well, the rains have come…finally! In some of the upper mountain areas, like around Lake Almanor, they have had over 108 inches of snow in recent days. The soft snow is bad for getting around, you can’t even drive a snow cat on, it just sinks! In Tahoe, there is now ample snow pack, but the recent rains have made it slushy. Now the 5-day weather forecast says rain, rain and more rain with more snow in the Sierras.

Out here in the flat land, south of Chico, around 7 Mile Lane to Butte City, this usually means the runoff canals breach their banks and form miles of shallow lakes that close down highways and bring flood waters to the door steps of many local farms, even though every farm house around here is built on high ground.

I recall a few years ago using my 2.5 ton military truck to drive down Hwy. 162, which was impassable to any vehicle with floorboards less than 4 feet off the ground. That was kind of fun, a combination of boating and trucking. But, for a lot of passenger cars it was the end of the line and a long diversion to other highways.

I doubt the water will get that high this year, but if it did I am looking forward to breaking out the kayak and boating across the submerged wheat fields and through hundreds of acres of orchards. In a high water year we can actually boat from the ranch house (near Butte City) to General Store in Afton which is about 3 miles away. Of course it’s never more than knee deep, but it’s the feeling of being on a surreal lake of trees, with pump houses and telephone poles sticking out of brown flood water.

I’m told this rain will help close that 60% of normal to a near normal year, which is a good thing because up till this point we’ve been flirting with the idea of we could be in a draught. For farmers in this area of the Sacramento Valley, a draught is about the worst thing that could happen, next to a recession that drives down commodity prices.

Well, thats my winter rain report from beautiful Butte City, population 60. Hey, don’t laugh, Afton is the next nearest place and it’s population is 10..well it could be 11 by now, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one. .

Posted by Tina

Al-Qaeda founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden, by David Blair in Cairo Telegraph (UK)

** One of al-Qaeda’s founding leaders, Dr Fadl, has begun an ideological revolt against Osama bin Laden, blaming him for “every drop” of blood spilt in Afghanistan and Iraq. *** Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s. *** Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda’s intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West. *** Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. “Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers,” writes Dr Fadl. **

Continue reading “Bin Laden Responsible for Every Drop of Blood” »