Questions to ask the Occupy Wall Street crowd

Wow, these people are the gift that keeps on giving!  The contrasts to the Tea Party couldn’t be more glaring.  We could run these 24×7 for the next year.

And here’s another set of . . . uh . . . well-informed critics who are not sure if Al Qaeda is Worse than Evangelical Christians.

Then there are these jewels about Communism.

In a better world the mainstream media would ask these fairly obvious questions.

1. What percentage of total income tax receipts should the top 1% of earners pay?  Now, they might say something silly like 100%, because their overriding motive seems to be coveting.  But it would be interesting to see if they would say a figure higher than 38% (the actual amount).

2. Did you know that Barack Obama got 20% of his record 2008 contributions from Wall Street?  Did you know that he is the largest recipient of Wall Street donations ever?  Did you vote for him?  Will you vote for him again?

3. Do you approve of violent means to make the top 1% pay their “fair share” and/or to overturn capitalism?

Dear OWS folks: Please, please, please don’t go away.  The more attention we get on you the better.  Nothing could advance conservatism faster than people learning more about you.

About that top 1% that allegedly isn’t paying taxes . . .

On a more accurate note, here’s what they pay in Federal income taxes:

The Occupy Wall Street protesters insist that the top 1% should be paying more than 38% of the total tax burden.  Seems to me that they should be sending thank-you cards instead of complaining.

Thoughts on the “Occupy Wall Street” self-parody

I’d rather be part of the 53% movement (workers who pay taxes) than the 99% movement (covetous, spoiled whiners who fail at basic economics).

1. The OWS (Occupy Wall Street) movement is sad.  I see lots of college-educated people who can’t see how ridiculous this movement is.  They live in a liberal echo-chamber and never consume any conservative media, so they are hopelessly uninformed.  They spout inane things finally making the rich pay, even though the top earners pay wildly disproportionate amounts of taxes.

2. They tend to be petty and bitter as well.  They continually refer to the Tea Party by the “teabagger” pejorative.  I guess they must be homophobes, because why else would they call conservatives the term of a gay sex act?  Haters!  Hate speech!

3. The anti-capitalists have rightly been mocked for using all sorts of capitalist tools to convey their message.  And they’ll need capitalists to clean up the filth they are leaving behind.

4. Do they really expect us to believe that 99% of the country is poor?  Have these people ever seen real poverty?  They should get outside of the U.S. sometime.  I’ve met countless people who would love to upgrade to being “poor” in America.

5.  Sad but true.  But they are the tolerant ones, right?

6. Their hero and leader, Barack Obama, got 20% of his record funding from Wall Street and he took more money from them than any candidate, ever.  His fans don’t know that so they don’t see the hypocrisy.

7. This is not a grass roots thing.

California to teens: No tanning beds even with parental consent, abortions OK even without parental consent

From the “I am not making this up” category:

. . .that’s not the only ban California has implemented.  Teenagers who get preyed upon for a procedure that its providers claim is entirely harmless but can lead to serious health complications have been barred from such providers — even with parental consent.  Yes, Brown and the legislature have saved California teens from … tanning beds:

Minors in the state of California will no longer be allowed to use tanning beds after Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill on Sunday prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from using ultraviolet tanning devices. …

Previously, California had banned minors under the age of 14 from using tanning beds, but allowed those between 14 and 18 years of age to use tanning beds with parental consent.

via California Banning: Unloaded guns and teenage tanning sessions « Hot Air.

California used to require parental consent for tanning beds, even while not requiring it for abortions.  Now kids can’t use tanning beds at all but can still have a physically and emotionally dangerous medical procedure to kill your grandchild without you knowing.

What a freak state.

Guess which candidate got 20% of his record funding from Wall Street?

You guessed right!  Seems kinda hypocritical to me for the President to bash Wall Street now.  Have your preferred media sources told you this?

See Obama attacks banks while raking in Wall Street dough:

Despite his rhetorical attacks on Wall Street, a study by the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Project shows that President Barack Obama has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the past 20 years, including former President George W. Bush.

In 2008, Wall Street’s largesse accounted for 20 percent of Obama’s total take, according to Reuters.

When asked by The Daily Caller to comment about President Obama’s credibility when it comes to criticizing Wall Street, the White House declined to reply.

Shocking!

Fleischer continued by saying that President Obama and Democrats, such as New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who has received approximately $8.7 million from Wall Street since 1989, should stop taking campaign donations from Wall Street banks if they are so offended by their actions.

“They can’t say we hate Wall Street, but we love their money,” Fleischer said.

 

. . . the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks lobbyist spending and influence in both parties, found that President Obama has received more money from Bank of America than any other candidate dating back to 1991.

 

Whoa! Even the Associated Press recognizes Obama’s hypocrisy on the jobs bill

His public speeches are pure politics.  If you can’t see that, your media of choice has left you hopelessly misinformed.  He’s only trying to save one job, and that is his.

Via SPIN METER: Obama disconnects rhetoric, reality.

In President Barack Obama’s sales pitch for his jobs bill, there are two versions of reality: The one in his speeches and the one actually unfolding in Washington.

When Obama accuses Republicans of standing in the way of his nearly $450 billion plan, he ignores the fact that his own party has struggled to unite behind the proposal.

When the president says Republicans haven’t explained what they oppose in the plan, he skips over the fact that Republicans who control the House actually have done that in detail.

And when he calls on Congress to “pass this bill now,” he slides past the point that Democrats control the Senate and were never prepared to move immediately, given other priorities. Senators are expected to vote Tuesday on opening debate on the bill, a month after the president unveiled it with a call for its immediate passage.

To be sure, Obama is not the only one engaging in rhetorical excesses. But he is the president, and as such, his constant remarks on the bill draw the most attention and scrutiny.

The disconnect between what Obama says about his jobs bill and what stands as the political reality flow from his broader aim: to rally the public behind his cause and get Congress to act, or, if not, to pin blame on Republicans.

He is waging a campaign, one in which nuance and context and competing responses don’t always fit in if they don’t help make the case.

“0 mammograms. 332,278 abortions. There is a better way to fight breast cancer.”

I stopped supporting the Susan G. Komen foundation when I found out that they donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood.  Hopefully they will re-think their relationship with the nation’s largest abortion provider (that also systematically hides statutory rape).

Unite for Life and tell your friends, family and co-workers who are Pro-Life to sign the petition to encourage the Susan G. Komen Foundation to stop funding Planned Parenthood’s assault on Life and focus instead on real breast cancer research. Add this petition to your Facebook page, Twitter and your blog and spread the word!

To Nancy G. Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure:

Please reconsider Susan G. Komen Foundation’s support of and affiliation with Planned Parenthood.  Funding Planned Parenthood over real mammography clinics and credible research agencies does not help women; rather, affiliation with Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, sullies the reputation and benevolence of the Komen Foundation and its popular Race for the Cure.

Planned Parenthood has convinced the public that it actually performs mammograms, and your support enables that lie to continue.  According to its own most recent reports, Planned Parenthood performed a total of 332,278 abortions in 2009.  In that same period, Planned Parenthood performed zero mammograms.

Zero mammograms and 332,278 abortions!  That is an astonishing ratio for an agency wanting to earn public approval as a truly charitable “full-service” health clinic for women.

Until your organization breaks its partnership with Planned Parenthood, I pledge to support alternative breast cancer charities that affirm Life instead. Until you end your partnership with America’s largest abortion provider, I will boycott your Race for the Cure, and I will urge my friends and family to do the same.

 

Thoughts on Steve Jobs

Image via Wikipedia

Yeah, I know there are countless posts on him today.  Indulge me.

1. Condolences to his family and friends.  He appeared to be a genuinely sincere family guy (once he finally acknowledged the out-of-wedlock daughter).

2. He was adopted.  His father wanted to keep him but his biological mother’s father was against the relationship.  He was very, very lucky not to have been aborted.  Fortunately for him he was conceived well before Roe v Wade.

The abortion would have been just as tragic if he hadn’t become famous, of course.

Here is the story as Steve Jobs told it in a commencement address at Stanford University in June 2005. His birth mother, he said, “felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.”

3. I can’t help but think of how many people eulogizing him are part of the anti-capitalism crowd.  How ironic.  He is the poster-boy for capitalism and will be a legend for decades, if not centuries.  His energy, ideas and competitive nature created products that benefit nearly all of us.  The government could never invent the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.

4. He is now where he’ll spend the rest of eternity.  I don’t know where he is, I just know that at least until recently he claimed to be Buddhist.  If he didn’t change his beliefs then this spectacularly powerful, rich and famous man will spend eternity in Hell paying for his sins.  If he did repent and believe, then he’ll be with his creator and Savior in Heaven for eternity.  The same goes for the other ~150,000 people who died yesterday.

One site had typical God-related comments such as “RIP — A help to God in heaven.”  I realize that there is a lot of sloppy religious talk when people die, but it is interesting to see how people seem so confident in their universalism (i.e., everyone except Hitler goes to Heaven).  One commenter (not me) merely asked if Jobs was right with God, without noting a specific religion, and it was quickly deleted.

The story within the story on the Operation Fast & Furious cover-up

Why are Department of Justice and White House personnel yelling and screaming at a reporter over her coverage of the Operation Fast & Furious cover-up? Via Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith requests Special Counsel on possible Eric Holder perjury:

[Laura] Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?
[Sharyl] Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me. [Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?] Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House.”

It isn’t just the obvious perjury of Eric Holder about when he knew of the program.  It is how these high level Obama officials assume that they can tell the media what they can and can’t report — as if that’s what they’ve been doing since he’s been in office!

Queue the crickets on the impact of the overturned gun control laws

Don’t miss both important lessons here:

1. Contrary to predictions by gun control proponents, overturning gun control laws caused crime to plummet.

2. If you only consume mainstream media, you wouldn’t know that.  And that should bother anyone with intellectual integrity.  Do not pretend to be fully informed if you aren’t consuming conservative media along with your liberal media.

Via Media Silence Is Deafening About Important Gun News:

Murder and violent crime rates were supposed to soar after the Supreme Court struck down gun control laws in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Politicians predicted disaster. “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence,” Washington’s Mayor Adrian Fenty warned the day the court made its decision.

Chicago’s Mayor Daley predicted that we would “go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets . . . .”

The New York Times even editorialized this month about the Supreme Court’s “unwise” decision that there is a right for people “to keep guns in the home.”

But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in Washington, murder and gun crime rates didn’t rise after the bans were eliminated — they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate.

Not surprisingly, the national media have been completely silent about this news.

One can only imagine the coverage if crime rates had risen. In the first six months of this year, there were 14% fewer murders in Chicago compared to the first six months of last year – back when owning handguns was illegal. It was the largest drop in Chicago’s murder rate since the handgun ban went into effect in 1982.

 

Weekly roundup

The Doctrine of the Trinity: No Christianity Without It – a superb overview of the Trinity — read and enjoy!

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This is great news: Congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood: What to expect

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Abortion proponent “thrilled” by an abortion on “Grey’s Anatomy” – great analysis of the moral schizophrenia of the pro-abortion movement.

One of many problems abortion proponents have is sending mixed messages about getting one.  Whether to act glib and risk offending normal sensibilities, or to act serious and risk humanizing the baby, that is the question.

. . .

And then the abortion. It ends up only looking sick and pathetic for a father to go so far as to willingly watch the baby he loves and wants being killed, all to support that child’s mother. And why all the drama if it isn’t human children being killed by abortion?

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Scott Klusendorf is one of the world’s best pro-life apologists.  He had a good analysis of Ray Comfort’s 180 movie (go watch it if you haven’t yet).  You can only put so much in a 30 minute movie, so here are some things to be aware of if people have questions about the movie.  (Scott had lots of good things to say as well.  I just included the critiques here.)

My concern: The film overlooked some important distinctions:

1) The distinction between people in the film (Venice Beach?) and the public at large—The sample used in the film is not only small; it’s not where most people are in terms of historical knowledge. . . .

2) The distinction between shouting a conclusion and establishing one–A sharp abortion-choicer could easily say, “Ya, I value human life. What Hitler did to Jews was wrong, but the unborn are not valuable human beings, so the comparison fails.” To succeed, pro-lifers must first establish that the unborn are indeed human (which the film does through images rather than scientific evidence), but then show that none of the differences between the embryos we once were and the adults we are today justify killing us at that earlier stage of development. Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency, are not value giving in the way that abortion-advocates need them to be in order to make their case. In short, jumping from killing Jews for bad reasons to killing the unborn for those same reasons leaves out important premises in the pro-life argument.

3) The distinction between killing a “baby” and unjustly killing human beings—Perhaps I am nitpicking here, but I think Comfort asks the wrong question when he points to a 6-week fetus and says, “Doesn’t that look like a baby?” What if the critic says “no?” End of discussion. . . .

4) The distinction between voting for pro-life candidates and voting pro-life–Put simply, what does it really mean to vote pro-life? . . .

5) The distinction between intentional killing and killing that is merely foreseen–Is it always wrong to kill an innocent human being? What about ectopic pregnancy? . . .

Despite these concerns, the film is worth seeing and Comfort gets huge accolades for his courage in confronting abortion head-on. Say what you want, at least he’s doing something about it and for that I am immensely grateful. Before ripping him, his evangelical critics need to ask themselves what they are doing to stop the bloodshed. Are they taking this holocaust as seriously as Comfort does? I can only pray that one day they will.

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The dealth penalty and deterrence: what the research shows – contrary to myths, the death penalty is a deterrent.  The question is whether it is appropriate as a deterrent (I think it is).  After all, capital punishment for speeding would be a deterrent, but perhaps over the top.

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Random thought about evolution by Glenn — good stuff!  My favorite, which the Darwinists typically gloss over or ignore:

DNA can only be produced with the help of at least 20 different types of protiens.  But these proteins can only be produced at the direction of DNA.  Since each requires the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin of one must also explain the origin of the other.  Apparently, this entire manufacturing system came into existence simultaneously.  This implies Creation. (Walter T. Brown, Jr., In the Beginning, p.6)

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False teacher Chuck Currie named Associate Director of False Teacher (Westar) Institute

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San Francisco Values: White ‘Master,’ Black ‘Slave’ Adorn Cover of Folsom Street Fair 2011 Program Guide – This goes on in Nancy Pelosi’s district.  The police do nothing to stop it.  The Left doesn’t protest it.

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False ‘it gets better’ promise claims a victim

Homosexual activists Dan Savage and Lady Gaga should be brought up on charges of murder for issuing wholesale false promises and lies to young people confused about their sexuality.

Watch Youtube Videos twice as fast!

I love time savers like this.  Listening to Podcasts at 2x speed (actually is is more likely 1.5x) lets me cover a lot more material on my commute.  Now this: How to Watch Youtube Videos Faster (2x speed) – Apologetics 315.

Go towww.youtube.com/html5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the link that says “Join the HTML5 trial.” Once you have clicked that link, all videos you play in Youtube will not play with flash, but will play with HTML5. That will enable a speed setting on the video player control bar. Just click it to select your listening speed. Now you don’t have to waste so much time on Youtube.

Warning: Others driving with you may not appreciate the faster speed.  At least I know my wife doesn’t.