It's somewhat difficult for those who continue to insist that Barack Obama produce his "long form" birth certificate, if no one (outside of Hawaii, anyway) has ever seen one.  What's the difference, if any, between the form Barack Obama had on his website during the campaign, and what those now called "birthers" want to see"

Well, here's the difference: PHOTO COMPARISON

To be honest with you, my reaction was to get kind of creeped out.  The long form birth certificate on this website looks authentic, with handwriting, signatures, etc.  The one Barack Obama keeps insisting is his "real" birth certificate looks even more sterile and inauthentic than before.

I think as these photos make their way around the blogsophere, it is now going to become increasingly difficult for Obama and his apologists to continue to insist that the certificate he has shown the world is all there is.  The difference between these two, coupled with the President's bizarre intransigence about this document (as well as all his other records), creates even more suspicions.

This, when placed in the context of his "ohmyGodwehavetodoeverythingNOW" attitude starts to feel like someone who knows he must cram as much through as possible before he is found out.

 How many Americans, enamored with über-Lefty Barack Obama’s promise of “hope” and “change” have stopped to consider what America will look like when made over in the liberal ideal? One need only look at GM and Chrysler to see what this presages for the rest of private enterprise in this country.

Liberals profess to “love” all kinds of things: whales, polar bears, snail darters, the planet. Strangely, few of them are human. Or anything that makes humans’ lives better. What seems to drive most liberals is hatred and a need for control. What they control, they destroy. And there are few things they hate as much as American business.

Michael Moore is a perfect example. He has peddled his “love” for the working man for at least two decades. But when the corporation that employed tens of thousands of blue collar workers and put millions of Americans into affordable vehicles goes belly up, what does he say? “The company's body is not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy.”

Oh, there is no question but that General Motors has made catastrophic mistakes in its history. Pundits have written about its ponderous decision-making processes, its intransigent leadership, and its dull designs. What few have remarked upon, however, is that General Motors’ business model was a liberal’s wet dream: for every person working for it, it was supporting ten more.

We should not be surprised that liberalism’s approaches to business are failures. Consider its 40-year reign over our social policies, and witness the legacy:

Liberals wanted to redefine marriage and remake the family. The result? A divorce rate that now hovers between 45 – 50%, a precipitous decline in the number of two-parent households (a primary indicator of poverty), a birthrate that barely replaces the population (with corresponding devastating consequences for Social Security) and an illegitimacy rate of close to 40% (among African-Americans it is over 70%). Need we mention welfare’s role in all of this?

Liberals wanted to revamp our public education system.   Now we perform at embarrassingly low levels, despite staggering per capita spending, even compared to some of the poorest nations in the world. As two experts have said, “The public schools lack focus; instead of concentrating on education, they dabble in social re-engineering.” And “Half our job is education, and the other half is social work." This is liberalism at its finest.

There is a lesson here for any well-meaning person intending to follow liberals down their well-trodden corridors (with apologies to Roger Waters). 

Liberals have hated the internal combustion engine, blaming it for pollution (later, “global warming,” and then, after numerous record-breaking winters, “climate change”), “urban sprawl,” the end of inner cities, the devastation of public schools, and on and on ad infinitum.

They hate farming. Oh, not penny ante, backyard, organic farming. They hate the kind of farming that takes hundreds of acres of land and feeds hundreds of thousands of people.

They hate pharmaceutical companies.

They hate power companies. Nuclear power poses too many risks. Coal and natural gas pollute. But what does that leave? Solar? Only good when the sun shines. Wind? Only good when the wind blows. And wood? Ah, ah, ah – can’t do that – that contributes to deforestation.

They hate the military. For that matter, they hate guns and ammunition generally. (Unless, of course, they remain in the arsenal of a left-wing dictatorship, in which case they’re just dandy.)

They hate the Judeo-Christian tradition.

For decades, liberalism has crept surreptitiously through our courts, our educational system and our media. Now, with the election of Barack Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress, liberalism is in full glory and ascendant. All the things they have loathed in private, they can now assail in public. And American businesses are at the top of the list.

Having nearly destroyed the American housing market and the related financial sector, and crippled the American automotive industry, the Obama administration now turns its attention to tobacco. As an ex-smoker, I loathe smoking, and God only knows how much money is spent on illnesses attributable to it. That said, it is a legal activity for adults, destructive though it may be. Liberals have a stereotypically schizophrenic relationship with the tobacco industry; it is among their favorite whipping boys (I know, they have so many), and yet they need its tax revenues as a vampire needs blood.

The reaction of the tobacco executives – like that of the automotive executives, and the housing executives, and those in financial institutions – reflects a frequent and fatal error of judgment. They tell themselves that they can “work with” whatever administration is in power, and they flatter themselves that political contributions will assure their survival.

Fools. Karl Marx said, “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.” That adage needs to be modified a bit for today’s political reality: the last company to hang will have taken the rope from the Obama administration, tied to a millstone of cash.

After tobacco, it will be the turn of the energy companies. And then pharmaceuticals. Then hospitals. And doctors. Each time, Obama will have some distorted and horrific narrative about how these industries, and the people in them, have contributed to the sufferings of untold numbers of Americans, how he and he alone can fix things, and how it must be done now. Never mind the jobs these industries have produced, the workers and farmers, chemists and engineers, physicians and nurses they have employed, the vehicles they have manufactured, the life-saving drugs they have developed, the surgeries and other medical procedures they have performed, the heat and light and refrigeration they have provided – and all of this done for hundreds of millions of people in this country and around the world.

Obama will take them all over, one by one, and Obama will destroy them.

Obama himself, in his characteristically Humpty Dumptyesque fashion, told us as much, when he said this past week that, “[i]f we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way of GM; paying more, getting less, and going broke.” (Obamese translation: “If [you let me] fix our health care system, America [will] go the way of GM; paying more, getting less, and going broke.”)

(Side note: Obama’s “drug czar,” Gil Kerlikowske, said recently that legalizing marijuana is not part of Obama’s plan. Too bad. As a Libertarian I support eliminating the billions we spend on interdiction, freeing our prisons from the thousands of inmates there for marijuana-related offenses, and halting the corruption we foster in countries that produce the drugs for our insatiable demand. On the other hand, illegal drug sales may be the only business we have left. Plus, if the Obama administration were truly serious about addressing the illegal drug problem in this country, they would legalize them, and then put the government in charge of the entire industry. Nothing would kill it faster.)

Some commentators dismiss concerns about Obama’s interference in private enterprise, arguing that the only businesses affected are huge, multinational corporations already in peril. This is nonsense. When government and big business are in bed together, the one squeezed out is the entrepreneur. As author Clayton Christensen has observed, innovators ignore the market dominance of established firms. In a system with free competition, this results in new products, new services, new business models, and new successes – all to the benefit of the public. But when big business is propped up by big government, market dominance becomes imbued with the force of law. Anyone challenging that system – the innovator, the disruptor, the visionary, the entrepreneur - becomes a lawbreaker. Senior secured bondholders in General Motors are sadly aware of this.

Hailed as a god, Obama now seeks to “remake America” In His Own Liberal Image. How devastating this will be. He is a man who has created nothing, invented nothing, designed nothing, manufactured nothing, produced nothing. When he is finished, we will be left with nothing.

The last two weeks of any college semester - as well as the two weeks afterwards - are always the worst.  After untold numbers of papers and exams graded, I think I can finally resume something like my old life.  :)

So, I hear that Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, the new dean of the Episcopal Divinity School has pulled her "abortion is a blessing" sermon off her website.  And I'm sure it's only a matter of time before you can't find it anywhere.  But NARAL Pro-Choice Texas still proudly posts it.  So here it is in its entirety:

Remarks of the Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, Birmingham, AL

Posted: 08/17/2007

Well Operation Save America came, they saw, they harassed, and they annoyed; but they did not close the clinic. The clinic stayed open, no patients were turned away, and the doors never closed. We remain victorious. And that victory is a good thing – but, make no mistake, even though OSA has gone home; our work is not done.

If we were to leave this park and discover that clinic violence had become a thing of the past, never to plague us again, that would be a very good thing, indeed; but, still, our work would not be done.

If we were to find that, while we were here, Congress had acted to insure that abortion would always be legal, that would be a very good thing; but our work would not be done.

If we were suddenly to find a host of trained providers, insuring access in every city, town, village, and military base throughout the world, that would be a very good thing; but our work would not be done.

When every woman has everything she needs to make an informed, thoughtful choice, and to act upon it, we will be very close; but, still, our work will not be done.

As long as women, acting as responsible moral agents, taking responsibility for their own lives and for those who depend on them, have to contend with guilt and shame, have judgment and contempt heaped upon them, rather than the support and respect they deserve, our work is not done.

How will we know when our work is done? I suspect we’ll know it when we see it. But let me give you some sure indicators that it isn’t done yet:

- When doctors and pharmacists try to opt out of providing medical care, claiming it’s an act of conscience, our work is not done.

Let me say a bit more about that, because the religious community has long been an advocate of taking principled stands of conscience – even when such stands require civil disobedience. We’ve supported conscientious objectors, the Underground Railroad, freedom riders, sanctuary seekers, and anti-apartheid protestors. We support people who put their freedom and safety at risk for principles they believe in.

But let’s be clear, there’s a world of difference between those who engage in such civil disobedience, and pay the price, and doctors and pharmacists who insist that the rest of the world reorder itself to protect their consciences – that others pay the price for their principles.

This isn’t particularly complicated. If your conscience forbids you to carry arms, don’t join the military or become a police officer. If you have qualms about animal experimentation, think hard before choosing to go into medical research. And, if you’re not prepared to provide the full range of reproductive health care (or prescriptions) to any woman who needs it then don’t go into obstetrics and gynecology, or internal or emergency medicine, or pharmacology. Choose another field! We’ll respect your consciences when you begin to take responsibility for them.

- Here’s another sign. Did you notice the arguments that were being shouted at us in front of the clinic? They’ve been trying for years, and seem to be pushing especially hard now, to position themselves as feminists – supporters of women. You heard them – yelling that they understand that it’s all men’s fault. That men must do better at supporting women and children so that women, presumably, won’t feel the need to abort. They yelled that they understood that the women going into the clinic had been hurt by men and were reacting to that pain and betrayal. They pledged to help men be more responsible so that women wouldn’t want abortions.

Let me tell you something. Any argument that puts men alone at the center – for good or for bad -- any discussion of women’s reproductive health that ends up being all about men, is not feminism. Nor, for that matter, is it Christian, or reflective of any God I recognize. And as long as anyone can even imagine such an argument, our work is not done.

- And while we’re at it, as long as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States can argue, as Justice Kennedy recently did, that women are not capable of making our own informed moral decisions, that we need men to help us so that we won’t make mistakes that we later regret; as long as a Supreme Court Justice can deny the moral agency of women simply because we are women – and can do it without being laughed off the public stage forever – our work is not done. What has happened to us that he could even think he could get away with publishing such an opinion? Our work most certainly is not done.

- Finally, the last sign I want to identify relates to my fellow clergy. Too often even those who support us can be heard talking about abortion as a tragedy. Let’s be very clear about this:

When a woman finds herself pregnant due to violence and chooses an abortion, it is the violence that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.

When a woman finds that the fetus she is carrying has anomalies incompatible with life, that it will not live and that she requires an abortion – often a late-term abortion – to protect her life, her health, or her fertility, it is the shattering of her hopes and dreams for that pregnancy that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.

When a woman wants a child but can’t afford one because she hasn’t the education necessary for a sustainable job, or access to health care, or day care, or adequate food, it is the abysmal priorities of our nation, the lack of social supports, the absence of justice that are the tragedies; the abortion is a blessing.

And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight -- only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

I want to thank all of you who protect this blessing – who do this work every day: the health care providers, doctors, nurses, technicians, receptionists, who put your lives on the line to care for others (you are heroes -- in my eyes, you are saints); the escorts and the activists; the lobbyists and the clinic defenders; all of you. You’re engaged in holy work.

Thank you for allowing me to join you in that work for a few days here in Alabama. God bless you all.

Sick, Sick Sick.

Newsweek's recent cover story certainly is getting a lot of attention.  It's bad enough that they declare the end of Christianity.  But it's laughable for a bunch of arrogant little human specks with some stapled sheets of glossy paper to declare the end of God.  Because, of course, that's what they're really doing.  God isn't what He says He is anymore; He's what we say He is.  This week.  Or month.  Or however often they can publish anymore.  And, thus marginalized, He can be disregarded.  Won't politics be "calmer" when those bothersome Christians stop trying to bug us all with their morality?  Of course, we can still hold some warped notion of Christian morality over their heads and call it "social justice," but that's beside the point.

The Pravda press are doing with religion what they have done with politics for years: writing the story to CREATE the result they want.  The Left loves to demonize all believing Christians as barbarians.  (Unless, of course, they actually are barbarians, like this one, who calls for human sacrifice and characterizes it "a blessing."  She's cool.) 

Here's an idea: why don't all of us Christians just slink back into our churches and leave the Left to fight off the Radical Islamists when they arrive?  Then Meacham, Zakaria and their many compatriots in search of  "calmer" politics and a "more theologically serious religious life" can discover what religious zealots who are barbarians do when they "don't have answers to modern problem" or "a worldview that satisfies the aspirations of modern men and women"...

They simply take everyone back to the Stone Age.

While you guys are there, do you think you could find out if our President was born there?

Guess when the pressure is on, Arizona State caves.  Everybody's drooling all over themselves to throw plaudits at this talentless hack.  Pathetic.  And what's with this "local criticism" b.s.?  Since when is 260,000+ signatures opposing his honorary degree "local"?

It is a happier Easter for me.  And no doubt for this man's family and friends.  Hooray for the United States Navy!

I don't think so. 

The President of the United States performs an obsequious act of submission to the leader of a Muslim country as part of the European visit in which he apologizes for America, offers to unilaterally disarm, and endeavors to set U.S. financial institutions under some kind of "global governance"????



No, I don't think there are more important issues.  (OK, I wouldn't vote for Nader, but as a kid I watched "Love, American Style" and thought this montage was hilarious.)

On, the other hand, this one's kind of fun, too:



Interesting choice of background music for that one.

Pathetic, isn't it, how Obama's press secretary has to lie and deflect. The only person whose job must suck more than Gibbs' is Tim Geithner's.

Camille Paglia.  Folks, read her whenever you can, but this is a good start.  She is a true liberal in the traditional (which is to say, 18th century) sense, proud of liberty, and freedom of speech, and differences of opinion, and personal success.  Any liberal who listens to and defends Rush Limbaugh is worth a read.  (And, as one who has read at least two of her books and innumerable articles, I can say she rarely disappoints.)

(For further proof, read the letters that follow Paglia's column - now, anyone who is HATED that much on Salon should definitely be read on Townhall!)

It's unfortunate, of course, that she's still so enamored with Barack Obama.  But it's not surprising, and it's NOT because she is an America-hating communist like so many of Obama's other cheerleaders.  She blames his gaffes on his goons.  Nice try, but Barack runs the show, and if she thinks otherwise, she is being naive.  But Camille Paglia is anything but naive, and so I think it is only a matter of time before she abandons him the way she abandoned the contemporary voices of "feminism."  And I, for one, will be waiting with anticipation for that essay.

I agree with everything Novak says here.  Except for the part about "respecting" Kmiec and Kaveny.  I'm sorry, but it doesn't take brains or guts to go along with the "leg-tingle" crowd, and only one utterly bereft of any knowledge of history or economics could support Obama's economic "plans."  Since both of these individuals are law professors, I can't give them a pass on that, either.

or more well-reasoned than this.  And I take great pleasure in seeing Robert George trump Doug Kmiec, whose political positions - grounded as they are in some misguided lefty contortion of Catholicism - are a profound disappointment,

 The American corporation has been the greatest creator – and distributor – of wealth in the history of the human race. Nothing else even comes close: no government, no individual, no private foundation. In fact, the largesse that governments, individuals and foundations “distribute” would not even be possible without the American corporation. (And Americans gave over $306 billion to charitable causes in 2007).

But you would certainly never know that from the news today. Corporations – and by extension inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs – are being demonized, denigrated and blamed for every social ill – including and especially the social ills that are the fault of well-meaning but brainless government programs like Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act.

This is the worst climate I can remember for American business in my whole life. Yes, the oil crisis of the 1970s was bad, and yes, the car companies’ reputation at the same time was not much better. But it was viewed as an economic crisis, not an identity crisis. Never have I seen such worldwide antipathy for business and commerce generally. People smashing bank windows, urinating on buildings, and carrying signs that read “capitalism is terrorism”? (Meanwhile, actual terrorists get a pass; they’re just misunderstood and in need of a great big geopolitical hug.)

Our President is not only not helping, he is inflaming the problem, as he usurps the authority of corporate boards, unilaterally fires executive officers, and calls for federal control over salaries. He may have “inherited” a wounded economy (*yawn* – that’s happened umpteen times before), but he has kicked it when it was down, by contributing to the perception that it is American commerce that is the problem; and that government takeover – specifically, takeover by Barack Obama -- is the solution. And he will take the same measures with every industry he can. It started with banks, the financial industry, and the car companies. Soon it will be insurance and medical care and pharmaceuticals. Every “takeover” will be precipitated by a “crisis” that will be translated as the American “public’s” call for more “federal intervention,” that will be touted as “temporary,” but will be permanent. Charles Krauthammer has called these measures a “sideshow.” With all due respect to that esteemed and honored journalist, he is wrong this time. These tactics are the main event. They are right out of the Marxist and socialist playbooks going back to the 1930s, and Barack Obama has been well-trained.

The presidency of Barack Obama is deplorable, and it is contributing devastatingly to American malaise. It’s long past time that American corporations take matters into their own hands, and take their message directly to the American public. So this, American corporations, is my message to you: STOP PARTICIPATING IN YOUR OWN DESTRUCTION, AND FIGHT BACK!

The media makes it look as if corporations are dependent upon government. It’s the other way around. Where would the government be without your taxes? Where would individual politicians be without your campaign contributions? Corporations often donate to both political parties, in order to curry favor no matter who is in office. Now that the Democrats are in power in the Executive Branch and both houses of Congress, how’s that working out for you? Have you figured out that you are funding the very organisms that are committed to destroying you? STOP. Stop funding gutless politicians who take your money, and then get on national television and blame you for the problems they themselves brought on. No more campaign contributions, no more lobbying as under the rubric of “special interests.” NOTHING. Cut them off. Deprive them of their lifeblood (which is really your blood). Starve them.

More to the point, stop letting the federal government tell Americans what to think about you. 56 million people voted against Barack Obama and the initiative-destroying socialism he represents. They and their families represent a wide and deep potential audience. As individuals, we may lack the assets to craft a polished message that will reach our fellow citizens; but you don’t. Most of us cannot reach millions of other like-minded folk; but you can. You have massive amounts of power that you have inexplicable ceded to Obama and Congress. Take it back. Use that power not to sell products this time, but to sell yourselves.  (Here’s my prediction: the first CEO to tell Congress to “*%$@ off” will single-handedly send the Dow up 500 points.)

What should your message be? That every American corporation is the product of someone’s dream. People like Henry Ford. Andrew Carnegie. John D. Rockefeller. Thomas Edison. Mark Charles Honeywell. William Proctor and James Gamble. John Deere. Benjamin Holt. Bill Hewlett and David Packard. Doris Christopher. Robert and Sheila Johnson. Bill Gates. Michael Dell. Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.   The American dream may be viewed as dead or dying in Washington, D.C., but it is alive in thousands of companies – public and private – across the United States. And every company has a compelling narrative. You all need to remind Americans what those narratives are.  

Entrepreneurial enterprise is the quintessentially American story. And America is a better place because of American corporations. Where there was once filth, American companies provided soap and sanitation.   Where travel was once confined to horseback, American ingenuity provided automobiles, trains, airplanes, and ships. Women once slaved over housework; American companies provided vacuum cleaners, ovens, washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers. (Even the Vatican opined, to much feminist consternation, that the washing machine was a greater liberator of women than the Pill.) Northerners went without fruit in the winter until American companies provided refrigerated transportation. Food spoiled until American manufacturers made freezers and refrigerators available. Farms could feed far more when machinery made large-scale agricultural production a possibility. Where disease and despair were once rampant, American scientists and American companies have provided life-saving drugs and other medical treatments. And where geographical distance traditionally meant long spans of time without correspondence with loved ones, Americans invented the telephone, and later commercialized personal computers and the internet, putting communication and information at our fingertips.

American corporations have not just made our lives better with the products and services they have provided for us. They have helped untold numbers of people in multiple generations achieve personal, if perhaps less grandiose dreams, by providing employment - including for those with little to no education, immigrants who fled unspeakable horrors or intractable poverty in other nations, and others who aspired to political and economic freedom. American corporations have also made millions more prosperous, financially secure, and even wealthy, with opportunities to invest – often one share at a time – in the growth of the companies themselves.

We are so accustomed to the prosperity that the American corporation has provided that we no longer appreciate it, even though most of us cannot conceive of life without it. If you want to know what life would be like without American enterprise and American corporations, just look at any third-world country: the poverty, the disease, the violence, the oppression, the truncated life expectancy.

Yes, it’s true that we’ve taken some serious bruises in the past year or so. But as with everything else, the Pravda press and our craven, opportunistic President love to tell about the extreme exceptions – but don’t tell about the rule: the vast majority of American corporations are not embroiled in financial scandals. Just as it would be manifestly ignorant to accuse all human beings of murder because some do, so it is that painting all corporations with the same brush of corruption is inaccurate and unfair.  And it is worsening the crisis by undermining American confidence in our companies, our products, our entrepreneurs, ourselves.

Capitalism is under attack. American enterprise and ingenuity are under attack. But every entrepreneur knows that a problem contains the seeds of an opportunity. Americans are growing weary of the daily onslaught of negativity, and the government that is fueling it. The opportunity here is for visionary corporations to remind Americans about what has always been great and grand about you – and by extension, about themselves. In the short term, people will buy your products when you make them feel good about being Americans again. But the larger point is that it’s no longer market share you are fighting for; it’s your very survival.

Star Parker's article today contains startling and disturbing information that everyone should read.  Please keep in mind that we are borrowing from Social Security to pay Medicare and Medicaid.  Guess what?  $3 billion won't be enough.

I called this months ago.

And, as I often say paraphrasing Thomas Sowell, "and then what?"