It is bad when even the Russian's can comment on the decline of our nation, via El Greco an article by Mat Rodina - Russian Blogger: American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper:

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

Time to stand up to tyranny!

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

So said Thomas Paine in the introduction to The Crisis. Indeed these are times to try men's souls. The Obama and his merry band of socialist thugs are trying their damndest to subvert our freedoms and enslave us forever to a beheamouth government monster. So, indeed now is the time for the "Sunshine" soldier to get off the couch and stand to arms for this country lest we become another third world country like the land of the Obama's ancestors.

Further Thoughts

There is little doubt that Sotomayor will be confirmed to the Supreme Court - despite her myriad deficiencies as a jurist (Ricci). They say that a body like that of the Supreme Court is greater than the sum of its part - I fear, though, that with Sotomayor it will be somewhat less than that sum. Even with the Bleeding Heart nature of the other liberals on the court there is little of the blatant racism that attaches itself to the Obama and his court pick. One can have compassion and one can empathize but the law care not for all of that - it is "blind." And it is the defining character of a supreme, Supreme Court, jurist to be able to rise above their emotions and make decisions solely on the basis of the Constitution. If they feel that the law is not right then there is a mechanism outlined in the document - that the liberal justices so often spurn - for changing the law. It is not the job of a justice to enact laws but to interpret laws. So, when you are reading your Constitution this weekend think how the Obama's many new programs fit into the fabric of government as outlined in that document - my belief is that you will find non.

The Fourth of July

Bennett and Cribb: The Last Best Hope of Earth.

With the 4 of July upon us and this being the Obama's first 4th while in office it might do him some good to go to the National Archives and actually look at the documents that he is destroying daily with all of his socialist nonsense. It might do him good to see the document that led to eventual freedom for slaves - something that he and his family line known nothing of. The Obama calls himself a constitutional lawyer but that he really cares or knows nothing of the Constitution - he and others like him fixate on the a few amendments in the Bill of Rights and the 14th amendment and the rest of the document are a few bits of superfluous paper - for every day he ignores the core of the document as he constructs new government edifices that are in direct contradiction to the structure of our government prescribed in the Constitution. The Constitution is not the Bill of Rights. The Constitution is 7 articles - defining the form, structure and LIMITED responsibilities of our 3 branches of government and several amendments beyond the Bill of Rights.

Tomorrow, the 4th of July, it would do all of us good to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, because without the former, we would not have the latter. The basic rights of humanity - Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - in that order and in that order of importance - are spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and from those three flow all else - and with those three we are held to a high level of responsibility - a fact forgotten by today's spoiled government dependent generations. Starting from these three fundamental and un-dissolvable rights the rules by which human kind interact derive. There is no right to a house, or fancy clothing or a car or an iPod or healthcare - these latter "things" are all individual responsibilities - part of being a person pursuing Happiness. So, on the 4th the Obama might consider how it has become a right for someone to have some government handout just because that someone chooses not to get it for themselves.

Amendment: I need to amend the above post to include the most significant and relevant document of all mankind, from which all of the laws of our great country are derived - The Bible. Despite the leaning of the Obama, this country was founded on Judaeo-Christian principles - ALL of the founding fathers were of Judaeo-Christian descent and any attempt by a warped liberal left to make us believe otherwise is foolish nonsense. For America, there is no other source than the Bible to look to when it comes to human laws and behavior -PERIOD!

I volunteer ---- Congress, that is!

Science News: Become a guinea pig

Volunteering to take part in clinical trials is a duty whose importance should be viewed on a par with voting, they say. Toward this end, the NIH researchers argue that recruiting ads should stop referring to participants as “everyday heroes,” because this implies that volunteering requires action above and beyond what should be expected of us. Rather, recruiting programs should implore people to do their part, like World War II era campaigns for recycling, rationing and folding bandages.

You can tell that the Obama has infused his distorted "moral" obligation and "duty" rant (akin to Biden's, "It's your duty to pay taxes" carp) into the NIH. I volunteer - 535 members of Congress - they're pretty useless - don't you think???!!!

The real culprit in the housing crisis

This is important, read the whole article, from the WSJ: New Evidence on the Foreclosure Crisis

A simple statistic can help make the point: although only 12% of homes had negative equity, they comprised 47% of all foreclosures.

What about upward resets in mortgage interest rates? I found that interest rate resets did not measurably increase foreclosures until the reset was greater than four percentage points. Only 8% of foreclosures had an interest rate increase of that much. Thus the overall impact of upward interest rate resets is much smaller than the impact from equity.

The difference in policy implications is enormous: A significant reduction in foreclosures will happen when and only when housing prices stop falling and unemployment stops rising.

Unfortunately, recent attempts by politicians such as Barney Frank (D., Mass.) to again artificially increase homeownership levels might delay this return to sustainable equilibrium prices.

And we want to put this Sleaze on the high bench!?

Michael Barone: Firefighter case shows seamy side of racial politics

Bazelon and Judge Sotomayor, who voted to uphold the city's decertification of the promotion test, are typical of liberal elites who are ready to ratify squalid political deals -- and blatant racial discrimination -- in return for the political support and the votes that can be rallied by the likes of Kimber. You supply the numbers on Election Day, and we'll supply the verbiage to put a pretty label on your shenanigans.

But I think we ought to reserve some of our sympathy for the purported beneficiaries of this wretched discrimination, the black firefighters. Their champions -- Kimber and DeStefano, Bazelon and Judge Sotomayor -- are telling them that their way up in life should not be determined by the content of their character or by mastery of their worthy craft, but by the color of their skin. Not by a fair and unbiased test, but by dishonest wire pulling and threats of political retaliation.