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| Right after the election and especially after the inauguration, there was a rush of snippets on the news and other media of black children and teens saying that now that Obama was president, they knew they could be anything they wanted to be and other statements of that ilk. The last time I checked, we live in the United States of America (and did so prior to his inauguration) where anyone can achieve a dream as long as they have the desire and drive to WORK for it and PERSEVERE until it is accomplished. Where there's a will, there's a way. Especially in this country, even if you personally don't have the funds to pay for the education necessary, there are countless philanthropic, educational, institutional and government entities providing loans, grants and scholarships for deserving students. Again, one usually has to put forth some effort and search for such things, fill out applications, write essays, etc.; but the money is there.
As a girl growing up, my parents never said, "You can be anything you want to be as long as a woman has already done it. If a woman hasn't done a particular job before or fulfilled a certain role, you're out of luck. Your brothers could be president, but there's never been a woman president, so don't even try to become that because you can't. You can only do what women have already done. These are your limits." Preposterous, right? Apparently not if you listened to the people interviewed, since that seemed to be their mindset in regards to race.
Frankly, if you allow yourself to be limited by what others have already achieved, then YOU are the one who has set the bar too low.
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| An author and skeptic of manmade climate change says George W. Bush will leave office on January 20 with the earth's temperature cooler than when he took office in 2001. Chris Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed. He says despite the media and the left accusing Bush of inaction on climate change, Bush is leaving office with the earth cooler than when he started.
"We put up satellites in the atmosphere to measure the lower troposphere. We did this 30 years ago because of the global cooling panic. So we're measuring where we would find the cooling or warming signal, which is in the lower troposphere," he explains. "And we don't see either; there has been a slight cooling in the last few years. The warming of two decades stopped in 1998."
But Horner contends that global-warming alarmists are finding it difficult to switch their hysteria back to global cooling, so they created the so-called "climate change" crisis.
"And now, there is $300 million dollars from sources unknown [that has] been given to Al Gore to push a climate crisis rebranding campaign," he adds. "And that's what you'll see in 2009, coordinating with an effort to impose what's called a cap-and-trade rationing scheme."
He believes global warming became a "totem in the anti-Bush struggle," and that many people are going to wake up confused on January 20 when they cannot blame Bush anymore. Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 1/7/2009 7:20:00 AM
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=375526 What a shocker. NOT!
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| If you're anything like me, you've been disgusted with the "bailouts" that have been thrown willy-nilly to undeserving, irresponsible corporations and businesses. "You've driven your company into the ground with over-spending, ridiculous salaries and risky business practices ... please, take a few million dollars of the TAXPAYERS' HARD-EARNED cash and see if you can get it right this time. There's plenty more from where that came." (Don't even get me started on our president-elect's ideas for EXORBITANT spending intended to dig us out of a hole created by over-spending and not living within a budget in the first place.)
I'm sick of hearing free-market capitalism getting the rap for the shape of the economy, because free-market capitalism is all about adjusting to what the market will bear. Tampering with interest rates and creating flimsy loaning conditions to try to evoke social change (thank you, Clinton Administration) is all about Big Brother government being over-involved with the system. The fault isn't solely on the shoulders of the lenders though. Those who thought they could afford half a million to million dollar homes (that to anybody with sense didn't have that amount of intrinsic value in the first place) on a $50,000 annual salary were fools. It's the same, ignored, common-sense principle upon which the credit card companies make millions every year: just because the credit is available, doesn't mean you can actually afford it or should buy it. And again everyone cries to the government to fix the problems that were self-created. And again, the money garnished from responsible, tax-paying citizens is used to float the boat of the irresponsible.
One wonders from whence came this sense of entitlement; this knee-jerk reaction to look for the handout, rather than figure out a solution on one's own. What happened to fighting your own battles and standing on your own two feet? What happened to personal responsibility, owning up to one's mistakes, making amends and working to set things right?
Tonight I got my answer while talking with a friend. Her home was burglarized a couple of months ago by several teenagers who stole several thousand dollars worth of belongings. One of the most poignantly missed items (and one that was not recovered) was a DVD of her husband reading bedtime stories for her young daughter as her husband is currently deployed (and was already gone when the burglary took place). Though the authorities were able to figure out who had stolen her stuff, they were not able to recover all of it and most of it was pretty badly damaged by the time it got back to her. Most of the teens involved were 17. They're almost legal adults, but still under their parents' authority (and the grace of a more lenient law) for a few more months. One might assume the parents of said teens would be chagrined, mortified and angered over the actions of their children. One would hope they would hold their children's feet to the proverbial fire to make sure they had learned their lesson and never do such a despicable thing again. Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. She has had to fight, and I do mean fight, for two months to bring about any sort of consequences for the teens and families involved. The families have tried to intimidate her, have made excuses for their children ("Well, they only found a FEW of your things in our house, so I don't understand why you're making such a big deal out of this."), have hired expensive lawyers to try to extricate their precious darlings from any judge-appointed consequence, etc. Keep in mind, the actual VICTIM we're talking about is a military wife with two young children whose husband is deployed in a combat zone. The families of the BURGLARS have tried to vilify her for expecting and demanding some form of justice and have done everything in their power to get their teens off scot-free.
No wonder we have a dearth of personal responsibility nationwide. When we abet our children in avoiding responsibility for their actions when they're young, is it any wonder they dodge bigger repercussions for bigger actions when they're adults and CEOs? My hope is that personal responsibility is only in demise and can be revived. My fear is that it is already DOA.
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| There will be a major earthquake on the West Coast sometime this year. It's only a matter of time before the big one we've been waiting on hits. (Category S)
Upon BO's inauguration, a dove will descend from heaven and alight on his shoulder. We will hear the voice of Karl Marx saying, "This is my son, with whom I am well pleased." (Category A)
Please refer to bikekrusher's original post at http://www.xanga.com/bikekrusher for the definitions of the categories.
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| You've gotta love it when a few inches of snow brings school, business and restaurant closures across the board. Precipitation, *gasp*! Whatever will we do? Play in the snow as much a possible before it all melts away, and avoid drivers who have absolutely no clue as to how to drive in it. It's a great early Christmas present though.
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