About Orlando and the Massacre...

Since everyone else is "weighing in," I guess I better do so as well.  There are calls for gun control. Calls for more police. Complaints the FBI didn't do enough,  and so on. In the midst of this, we've forgotten the single most effective tool that we have against these maniacs, and that's...

PROFILING.

Why we won't use this methodology is beyond me.  I know that black people, Mexican people, Cubans, etc. believe that profiling is evil, but used properly, profiling protects the rest of us from the madmen. This is a tool that has been proscribed (opposite of PREscribed) since the 9/11 attacks, and when the Feds refused to use it, I couldn't understand. It made no sense. Yes, people are improperly identified, and so on, but it's a more reasonable solution than "gun control." If there are no guns in the hands of reasonable people, given the level of crime in our nation, you and I both know what will happen.

Remember, every public person who advocates for gun control has personal protection. Guards. Security. In other words, other people with guns who protect them. You and I have no such protection. In fact, one might argue that gun control caused this dance club scene, since if half a dozen of the attendees had guns, the murderer might well have been one of the few people killed there. 

The problem with "gun control" is that it really applies only to those who are willing to obey the law. If the shooter in Orlando could not get a gun, he could easily have used explosives. Same damage, different method. That's what the Islamic killers do in Israel. 

The answer? Figure out who these people are before they do their evil. That's the only answer that will work. 

Additionally, last year we heard multiple cries against the militarization of the police. Sorry, but cops need weapons equal to or greater than the criminals. If they don't have them, you can expect two things:

1.  More crime, more heinous murders.
2.  Fewer cops.  Nobody wants to put his life on the line for a society that won't support him. Nobody.

Finally, we have to recognize that our society has become terribly splintered. It's white vs. black, Mexican vs. Asian, etc. etc. We must come together as reasonable people and stop this. We have to stop listening to the people among us who want to divide and destroy our society. On the one hand, we have a President who makes heroes of "Black Lives Matter," and who also refuses to "out" radical Islamists, even when its clear that their intentions are destructive.

On the other, we have a mostly silent populace. 

Time for that to end.

National Review and the Elitist Class...GRRR...

So who's really on YOUR side?


Link to National Review Article saying, "Die, Middle Class, Die!"

Link to Breitbart's Article re: National Review article


If you ever wondered "Whose side we're on," National Review's article provides the answer.  The problem with this article is that it is, like all politically motivated articles, aimed at protecting a group of people who definitely don't need protection. It's a sort of "in reverse" effort, but the real power in some branches of the conservative movement comes from the export of jobs and technology outside of the US.  It's almost as if the entire movement had conspired to desert the people who brought us out of WWII, who gave us great electric utilities, water utilities, and the like, and to say, "Well, you helped us out. Now go away. It's time for you to die." Unfortunately, this is true of elitests of all stripes. Conservative or liberal, they use the "multitudes" until they are through with them, and then want them to go away, so that the elites can go on and have their nice life.
This is just as true of the elitist liberals, and if you read between the lines, every "race war," every court appointment, every move is about just one thing: consolidation of power. If the conservatives are "out," they seek power. If they are "in," they seek to consolidate power.
If the liberals are "out," they seek power. If they are in, they seek to consolidate power. Perhaps the greatest fear either group has is that someone might arise who can't be bought, and the people might vote for him or her.
Don't look for that person any time soon. We are left voting for "the lesser of two evils" as we see them.
In these times, it's wise to remember several Bible verses:
1. "My Kingdom" (said Jesus) "is not of this world." If you want someone who actually cares for you, whoever you are, He's just about IT. Nobody else.
2. "The devil took [Jesus] up to a high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time;" (and then the devil said to Jesus), " Worship me, and all this will be yours; for this is delivered to me..."
If you want to know who's really behind the current political situation in ANY country, look at Luke 4:5-7.
3. If you want to know if "your" political candidate is on your side, refer to the above passage. Being able to understand the likelihood of altruism in political candidates is essential to the process of deciding who you'll vote for.
4. Should you even bother to vote? Yes.  Christians have a grave responsibility, to vote for people who most truly represent the things in which they believe. However, you should not be so foolish as to believe that these people actually care. What they care about is the power.
5. There's almost always some human agency, or agencies, "behind the throne." In the case of liberal politicians, it's often someone like George Soros, who acts in HIS OWN BEST INTEREST; he supports politicians because they will do what he pays them to do. In the case of conservative politicians, there are often multiple "benefactors," but they all resolve into an elitist group of wealthy people who want to protect their income and status.  That's why tax laws are written the way they are. In short, please don't fall for the idea that someone will "help you." He/she will help themselves. If you benefit as well, that's nice. Otherwise, too bad.

This is why I believe Christians should be exceedingly careful about political endorsements, whoever it is they endorse--whether black ministers endorsing the current president, or white pastors endorsing one of the conservative candidates.

It sounds pretty dismal, doesn't it?  But it's not.  One day, all heaven will sing. "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Messiah."

It's for that day that we wait.

The GOP wants to "Dump Trump;" Why?

GOP and Tech CEO's meet to Stop Donald Trump

Interesting goings on; now why would they do this? (see the link above) Simple answer: Mr. Trump will change the way they do business. The CEO's of the various tech companies are petrified that Mr. Trump will force them to behave as proper corporate citizens; they see evaporating profits because of changes in the laws if he's elected, and they really don't like it. the GOP establishment, which has argued for "free trade" all these years, is terrified, too, since to them "free trade" has meant exporting American jobs via American companies so that we could all work at WalMart. Mr. Trump will be bad, very bad for the establishment, but possibly very good for the middle and lower classes, who, I think, would rather have actually good jobs than work at KFC for a "better minimum wage."

Now this is just my opinion, but when the wealthy vote no, it might be wise to look at why they are doing it. Today, we have one of the lowest employment participation rates since the '50's, one of the highest unemployment rates we've ever had (22.5% or so, if you look at ACTUAL unemployment), and the GOP and DEM establishments want to convince us that "more of the same" is good for us. In reality, it's only good for THEM.

Money...or the REAL reason people hate Donald Trump...Especially Mitt Romney

I have often maintained that if you want to find the "why" of something, you need to look beneath what people say, to their motivations, because these are often the real reasons for their words and actions, as opposed to what they are saying.
In politics, motivation is relatively easy to discover, and I'll talk about that in a moment.
But in the first place, please don't think that this is really an argument for or against a particular political candidate. I'm going to discuss him (Mr. Trump), though, because he represents a sea change in the way the US acts.  You will certainly decide what you plan to do by the first part of November, if he's a nominee. Please vote your conscience. Always.
In the first place, let me talk briefly about Mitt Romney.  I voted for him in the last election, because I didn't like the other choice.  I believed, and history seems to bear me out, that Mr. Obama was not good for the country--not good for citizens' rights, not good for minorities, not good for our nation's business, not good for the military. So I voted for the "less worst thing"--Mr. Romney. I've grown accustomed to voting for what I believe is the lesser of two evils, because the candidates have really not been much different, however they represented themselves, and whatever their press releases said.

However with Mr. Trump (and Mr. Sanders, on the other side of the aisle), there's a huge change coming.

Mr. Trump is avowedly a nationalist.  In other words, he plans to act in the best interests of the citizens of the US (assuming this is not just campaign rhetoric). Which would be us.  You and me. This really is a first in a long time.

For generations, elections have been bought and sold with lies and bribes. I know this because of multiple sets of facts, but let's use Obamacare as an example.  I'm not as much against it as some of the people I know, but imagine a system in which insurers are guaranteed money, in which the pharmaceutical companies can charge what they please, and in which the American taxpayer is required to purchase insurance to pay them. That's Obamacare in a nutshell. There are cost savings, and people can have insurance without reference to their pre-existing conditions, but Obamacare is a system almost wholly made up for the benefit of the people who put in the money to get it passed. Any benefits we get are side benefits.  If you doubt my words, look at what happened to insurance company stocks, and pharmaceutical stocks, once it was passed.

This leads me to a conclusion.  We will be lied to by the politicians.  Most of them, maybe all of them. Mr Sanders is complicit in this, as is Mrs. Clinton.  Mr. Sanders because he promises a minimum wage, which is set up to make low paying jobs well paying, and Mrs. Clinton because she is really a creature of the people who pay her, Goldman Sachs being a good example. The Republican candidates are almost all the same.

If you put them all, Republican and Democrat, in a huge basket, and bread them and fry them, you wouldn't be able to taste the difference.  They are virtually the same, despite what you hear.
We will be lied to because we don't bother to follow the money, since money is the chief requirement to get elected in these days.  The various pundits also seek money, and they want to be "in on the party," so they help elect people they like--or at least dislike less.

So what happens if we follow the money, in say, Mitt Romney's diatribe against Donald Trump?
Very simply, Romney is a creature of the stock market, and of his former company, Bain Capital. What Bain Capital did was to purchase and sell off companies that it deemed "unprofitable;" the jobs in those companies often disappeared, because one of the ways you make a company "more efficient" is to "outsource" your workers (i. e., you have your stuff made in other countries).

Mr. Trump is very much against (at least in his campaign words) against the very things that made Bain Capital and Mr. Romney rich, and indeed made all the moneymakers on Wall Street wealthy beyond their dreams.

Mr. Trump is FOR U. S. citizens getting jobs from American companies. He's FOR removing, if not reducing, the incredible impact of foreign workers on jobs here in the US.

This, whatever else it is, will be a giant shock to the system.  "Bring jobs back here? NO WAY!!! Make companies actually pay a living wage to their workers, HERE, rather than outsourcing everything from sweatpants to cell phones? NEVER!" That's what all the stock market folks are screaming, giving money hand over fist to whoever else they can find to keep the status quo going.

I am old enough to have seen the slow erosion of virtually all the moneymaking jobs in this country, except for finance, technology development, energy production, medicine, and government. The companies, by the way, who've been at the forefront of this are just about all against Mr. Trump, if not vocally, at least quietly, and they are donating money like crazy to whomever they think can challenge him.

The thing that terrifies them all is that this person, who has made his money locally (yes, I know he or his contractors employed foreign workers, but real estate is by definition local), actually HAS THE MONEY to fight them. And he's doing it.

So my point is this.  We need people, whomever they may be, who are willing to tell the truth in politics--the truth being that it is NOT good to invite people from another country into our country when we don't know who they are; The truth being that we need good jobs here for US citizens, and no amount of welfare, unemployment insurance, or fast food jobs that pay $15 an hour will replace the good jobs lost to outsourcing. After all, who pays for welfare? YOU DO.  Wouldn't it be better for the country to restore the jobs that we lost over the decades with good new jobs, and a nationalist policy that puts us first in trade negotiations, etc. than to have a host of fast food or retail jobs paying $15 an hour?

When I was a little guy, my parents bought and paid for two homes on my Dad's salary alone. They owned cars. They provided food. We had lobster sometimes (San Diego had a clean ocean then!), and we always had fresh fruit and vegetables. All this on ONE paycheck until I was about 15, when Mom went to work in real estate.  This was the real world back then. The country made its own stuff. We decided who would come into our country.

Please don't tell me it can't be like this again. That's been the mantra for decades, that we "needed to enter the global economy," that we needed to "once again become a nation of immigrants," that we were "going to enter times of change," that America would be OK, and that people would "find new jobs."

Sorry. It was all a smokescreen, beginning about 1964, and it was almost all lies.  The same people who told you, "We have to have less expensive foreign products" laughed at us as they cashed their ever-larger paychecks, and got us all to vote for people who systematically destroyed our way of life. And I'm NOT just talking about one political party or the other.  It was, unfortunately everybody. That's the sad part.
Perhaps saddest of all, though, with the political guarantees that they have of free speech, is that the various news organizations did not have the courage to stand up against the lying bribery, and to say, "enough!" In fact, with the rise of the internet, and the availability of information, they all railed against anyone who challenged their hegemony, and called them "Bloggers...not real reporters," and the like--but if you followed the money, you'd find the same thing to be true of them as of the politicians. They were not after truth.  They wanted the same "in" as the moneymen had. Truth was not just secondary. They created an untrue "reality" in the service of money.

How do we fix this?  Is it Donald Trump? I really don't know.  I DO know that if we maintain the course we've been on, we'll be a third world country much sooner than we realize. Mr. Trump, for all his faults, represents a genuine change in the way America does business. This, at least, commends him to me. Not one of the other candidates really proposes to do that. Even Mr. Sanders proposes "more of the same," meaning, "tax more people so that folks can get a free lunch;" (I'm for a free education, by the way, but an education that really means something, not an education that focuses on useless information. I'm for reasonably priced medical care, which is something we still don't have now, after years of Obamacare). I'm for a lot of things that probably won't happen for a while--but we have a chance.

What I want is that very elusive person: an HONEST politician--someone who works on behalf of his own constituents, and who has the commonsense to see that what we need to do is institute change that will give our country back to us.

Vote for whomever you think is most likely to do that, and you will give yourself and your children a shot at the future. 

Here I go again...Chiropractors!

I still remember my daughter calling chiropractors "ChiroQuacktors." She had evidently heard that nonsense from someone.

I only wish I had started sooner with a good chiropractic Doc. All the ones I've seen have been competent. They've all helped me.  They are not good for everything, but in general, they have knowledge far beyond their basic training, and that knowledge includes nutrition, posture, all the joints (not just the back--one of my chiropractors healed my shoulder with manipulation), and lots of other "stuff."
Most chiropractors today work on a per-appointment basis (in my view, and after ONE negative experience, it's not good to pay for a series of treatments up front), and my medical insurance sees enough benefit in chiropractic to include it in their plan for me.
One thing about chiropractors--they actually are interested in their patients (at least the ones I've seen are); My chiro spends as much time as necessary to 'fix' me when I go. So...if you haven't tried chiropractic, and if you hurt (but not if you have osteoporosis), you might find the same thing I have. Here's an article on Chiropractic that you might enjoy:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/02/28/wellness-chiropractic.aspx

Kids can't read. Why?

Teaching reading is the single most important thing schools can do, because the ability to read is the main way we receive and communicate information in our world. Videos work for lots of things.  I use them for DIY instructions, and lots of other stuff. But if you want to imbibe and absorb information, reading is king.
However, lots of kids don't know how to read. I started out as one of those. When I was in the first grade, my teacher told Mom that she thought I should be tested, because she believed I was "slow." I didn't learn reading "the school's way."
Mom knew better. She knew me.
So she sat my 6 year old behind on her lap, and read to me. Every day.  As she read, she carefully sounded out the words, placing her finger under each word as she read it so that I could see it.
By the 2nd grade, I was reading fine, and by the 4th grade, I was tested to find out my IQ.  I was immediately admitted to the "gifted" program (later to become the Gifted and Talented program). The teacher who thought I was "slow?" She went on to mess with other children's heads.  The problem? It really was not the teacher, or the way I was taught, except the crazy stupid stuff they tried to use to teach me to read--"See Jane. See Spot. See Jane and Spot." Even a two year old would be bored, much less a 6 year old of normal intelligence. It drove me nuts.  I still remember thinking "Is this reading? Waste of time!" or something like it.
So how did I learn to read? Individual attention by someone who loved me so much she could never have explained it.
The method? Simplicity itself. She read interesting stuff to me. She sounded out every word. She pointed to each word as she sounded it out. She kept it up. She did it until I not only could read the words myself, she did it until my mind turned words into imagination, and then turned imagination into visions of reality.
Mom used this technique with both me and my brother. We both have advanced postgraduate degrees, earned with honors from good schools. Our abilities were there, just never unleashed.
So what's this rant really about?
It's about the many kids who can't read, but who can be taught to read by parents who hold them on their lap and read to them. However, it's too late if these kids are older. They can still learn, but it's only with much greater effort and time.
If you're a parent, take the time to help your child(ren) learn to read. It is the single most important thing you can do for their education. It's more important than helping them play soccer, more important than teaching them to use a computer, more important than anything except loving them completely.
Do it. Don't make excuses. Just do it.

Of $15 per hour McDonald's jobs... and a broken society.

"Back in the day," my ex-wife worked as a part-time appraiser for the mortgage company that employed me.
Because of the nature of our business, she often had to go into parts of town that were "not the best;" so she was in one of these sections of town, and had to go down a certain street, where she was greeted with a good deal of hostility by folks in that neighborhood, since she was taking pictures. So she said, "I just got this job (it was new to her) appraising houses, and I have to take pictures."
Then the most saddening, pathetic thing happened (I think partly because she is a woman)--several of the women who were acting in a (sort of) threatening way got really interested, and they said, "Can you tell us where we can get a job?"
Whenever you get into an argument about welfare (I still don't like it much), or people who are the "have nots," remember this.
Even people who live in tough areas want good jobs. They want a way to get out of the hole they're in. They want a way out of the gangs for their children. They want to own their car, their home, their life.
The gateway to all of that is a truly good job.
Now fast forward a few years. Here we have similar people, people who "have it tough" wanting to get some job, any job, and they want it to pay what they perceive to be a living wage.  It is, if two people in the family work.
If you have ever been poor, you know what effort it takes to lift yourself up out of the hole you're born in.
What we don't need is to see the jobs that would go to people who are here go to imported people. We don't need to export more jobs. We need to bring them home.
The reason Wall Street fights this is twofold:
Stock price / earnings per share/ taxes paid
and
executive compensation.
Companies are all run in the US as if they are not citizens of the country, and as if they owe nothing back to the general economy. Some do choose to be good citizens, but for the most part these are privately held.
Many companies shield both their executive compensation and corporate profits from taxes, but that is not really the problem. The problem is that these same companies both export jobs to foreign lands because labor is cheaper there, and import people on H-1B visas because they are cheaper to hire, and because they are not "on the hook" for the same kinds of things as if they employ a US citizen. Neither of these practices is entirely the company's fault. They are to blame, because what they do is so destructive to people in our country, but the real fault lies elsewhere.
It's the fault of Congress and the President, who can change these laws with the stroke of a pen. Congress could, in any one year, change government policies to so dramatically favor companies who hire workers here, and who refuse to participate in the H-1B visa program, that nobody would do it.
So why don't they?
Bribes. Pure and simple. Bribes.  Say it with me. Bribes.  Bribes under the guise of campaign contributions, or in the case of some politicians, funding a foundation.
Make no mistake. If you're poor, the government is NOT on your side. The Democrats say they are, and they fund lots of "programs" for poor people, but where are the good jobs? In China. How did they get there? They were voted there by people YOU elected. 
The Republicans? Same thing.  This is why (or the secret reason why) there is so much support for $15 an hour jobs at McDonalds among certain politicians.  It's the old method of deflection. "Vote for me, I'll support more welfare;" "vote for me, I support free enterprise;" this is all code for,
"NO good jobs." I'll export these so you NEED welfare. Or, "I'll fight increases in the minimum wage for you poor small businessmen who can't afford to pay that won't have to."
All the while, these same people are all but worshipping the tycoons of Wall Street, the wealthy businesses that export YOUR job to China, and import people who will take your job away from you.
Please don't believe the lying fiction that "I can't get good employees:" THAT is code for, "I have to pay US citizens too much." If these same people want to do so, they can employ US citizens.
These economic crimes have nothing to do with political party.  Both parties are completely, absolutely guilty. What we need in our legislatures, and in our businesses, is people who consider their responsibilities as citizens of the US, and mandate and provide business that's centered here in the US.  If you think Democrats are better, think of the acronym NAFTA,or TPP.  Both eviscerate US business, if it's mid-size or small.
If you think Republicans are better, think to yourself, "Who was in office when Sam Walton died?" When Mr. Walton was alive, just about everything that could be made here was made here. Within a year of his death, everything was "made in China." The family had prepared for his death during the first Bush presidency, and was ready to send YOUR jobs to China. 
Mr. Bush was a Republican. Please don't think these legislators have your interests at heart. They do not.  They want to be re-elected. That's all, and they will accept bribes from anyone on earth if it will help them do that.
YOU can stop this, whoever you are, by demanding that your representatives represent YOU. YOU, not the people who send your jobs overseas, and import workers to take YOUR JOB.
End of rant. More coming soon.