U.N. Advocates Teaching Masturbation to Preschoolers

by: THRILL

According to FoxNews, the United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive manditory sexual education that would teach even PREKINDERGARTENERS about masturbation and topics like gender violence! What-the-****, over!

It makes no sense how the left will be the first for government "staying out of their bedroom", but they insist that this kind of bullcrap be enforced on our toddlers and tiny children?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Let kids be kids! They are already over exposed these days... we don't need to add to the weight by teaching them how to masterbate! THAT'S SICK!

Hell, kids under 14 are already dressing like hookers... better than hookers. I drive down San Marcos Blvd. or Melrose and can't help but notice all the streetwalkers- then suddenly say, "oh wait, those are whores! Those are teenage girls!" Why the hell do we let our daughters dress like a Deja Vu stripper?

N E Way, Parents need to parent... and don't give me any of that "you don't have kids, so what do you know about parenting"-bullcrap. Give me one week with any bastard child and I'll turn him into a warrior, 300 style.

I don't know, I'm just mad. I don't know if I'll be a good parent. I don't even know if I'll make a good husband.... oh yeah... that's why I'm not married yet.

For more on what the hell I've been talking about, check out: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,543203,00.html

Columbine-Style Attack by Armed California Teen Thwarted by 'Heroic' Teachers

by FOX NEWS
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A teen armed with a sword and chainsaw who had several pipe bombs strapped to his body was arrested Monday after two explosions rocked Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif., KTVU reported.

Police called the foiled attack that forced the evacuation of more than 1,200 students and teachers a Columbine-style plot, according to the station.

San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer told KTVU that the 17-year-old boy came onto campus with the chainsaw, a 2-foot-long sword and 10 homemade pipe bombs attached to a tactical vest he was wearing.

He detonated two of the pipe bombs in an empty hallway near the library, and the smoke activated a fire alarm, Manheimer said.

Authorities fielded several calls from Hillsdale High School beginning at 8:07 a.m. about a gunman on the grounds, the station said. Shortly thereafter, reports came in of an explosion inside the school.

Two teachers heard the explosions, ran into the hallway and confronted the teen, who then fled, Manheimer told KTVU. A third teacher caught up with the boy and tackled him, according to police Lt. Mike Brunicardi. Another arrived a minute later with school Principal Jeff Gilbert to help hold the suspect down.

Brunicardi called the actions by Gilbert and the teachers "simply heroic," according to KTVU.

"All the while that the teachers and principal are confronting this kid, holding him down and tackling him, he's got eight live pipe bombs attached to his person," Brunicardi said.

No one was hurt in the explosion and no gun was found, according to Manheimer.

The incident prompted the evacuation of about 1,270 Hillsdale students and several teachers.

Classes were canceled for the day as police and bomb squad units searched the premises to ensure no additional devices had been planted on school grounds.

The teen is currently classified as an uncharged minor, meaning authorities are not identifying him, San Mateo Assistant District Attorney Karen Guidotti told FOXNews.com.

He is in custody at the juvenile detention center while the district attorney's office awaits the full investigative report from police, she said. When they receive it, they will decide whether or not to charge him as an adult.

Guidotti said the boy is a former student at the high school but did not graduate from Hillsdale.

Punt Hits Video Screen at New Cowboys Stadium

by: Chris Chase

Spending $1.2 billion on a football stadium can get you a lot, but not apparently a good sense of how high to hang 2,100 inch video screens above the field.

At the debut of the new Dallas Cowboys' stadium last night, Tennessee Titans punter A.J. Trapasso kicked a ball that struck one of the gargantuan high-definition scoreboards that hang over the center of the field. Trapasso's punt sailed straight up and hit one of the two scoreboards that face the endzone. It deflected backward and was ruled in-play until Titans coach Jeff Fisher informed officials (who had been watching the players, not the ball) that the punt struck the scoreboard. By rule, the down was replayed.

Jerry Jones wasn't happy with the kick, not so much because he felt that somebody on his engineering team screwed up by placing the video boards too low, but because he seems to think that Trapasso was trying to hit the board on purpose. When asked whether he thought the scoreboard should be raised higher, Jones snapped:

"That's not the point. How high is high if somebody just wants to sit there and kick straight up?

"If you look at how you punt the football, unless you're trying to hit the scoreboard, you punt the ball to get downfield. You certainly want to get some hangtime, but you punt the ball to get downfield, and you sure don't punt the ball down the middle. You punt it off to the side."

Later, Jones reitirated that he would not be moving the scoreboard higher. Trapasso and the regular Titans punter, Craig Hentrich(notes), think that's a bad idea. Said Hentrich:

"I hit it probably a dozen times in pregame," Hentrich said. "Probably somewhere around a five-second punt is going to hit it and some of the guys in the league wouldn't be able to punt here if it's not raised, they'd just be non-stop hitting it. I don't know what the people were thinking. I guess they should have tested things out before they put that thing in place. It'll have to be raised."

Despite his dismissive response to the incident, Jerry Jones may have a point. Watching a replay of the kick, it sure does look like Trapasso is trying to boot the ball as high as he can, a method that punters usually only use on shorter punts designed to pin a team back. (The Titans kicked from their own 37-yard line, so Trapasso should have been trying more for length than height.)

That doesn't mean that directional punts won't find their way toward the "Jerrytron" this season. Even the Cowboys own punter, Mat McBriar(notes), thinks that a kick with a 4.9 second hangtime will strike the screen. If that happens more than once or twice, Jerry Jones and the Cowboys might find out that when it comes to video screens, bigger isn't is always better.

Q&A with Mark Levin: Obama’s Destructive Vision

By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief

[Editor’s note: This interview with author and talk show host Mark Levin was first posted on CNSNews.com on May 6. Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny” had debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times Best-seller list on April 12, and by the time of this interview had controlled that position for four straight weeks.
Since then, “Liberty and Tyranny” has remained continuously at or near the top of the New York Times Best-seller list. So far, it has spent 15 straight weeks on the list, including 12 weeks as No. 1 on the list. The three weeks “Liberty and Tyranny” was not the No. 1 best seller, it was No. 2.]

(CNSNews.com) - Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny” debuted as No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list and has retained that position for five straight weeks.

In the book, Levin explains his understanding of American conservatism.

In an interview with CNSNews.com, he discussed why he believes President Obama’s vision of “change” is destructive and contrary to America’s founding principles and why conservatives must reacquaint themselves with those principles and recommit themselves to the cause of individual liberty.

Terry Jeffrey: Welcome to Online with Terry Jeffrey. Our guest for this episode is best-selling author and radio host Mark Levin. Mark, a Pennsylvanian, earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Temple University. He served President Reagan in a number of capacities, including associate director of presidential personnel and as chief-of-staff to Attorney General Ed Meese.

He is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation and host of the highly popular Mark Levin Show, nationally syndicated by ABC. This show has been ranked No. 1 in its timeslot in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. Mark is also the author of three best-selling books. These include “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America;” “Rescuing Sprite: A Dog-lover’s Story of Joy and Anguish;” and his latest “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto.”

“Liberty and Tyranny” debuted No. 1 on the New York Times Best-seller List, and has retained that lofty position for four straight weeks. Congratulations, Mark.

Mark Levin: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Jeffrey: Well done.

Levin: Thank you.

Jeffrey: And well deserved. I’m going to throw a quote at you from your book.

Levin: All right.

Jeffrey: “For Edmund Burke, change as reform was intended to preserve and improve the basic institutions of the state. Change as innovation was destructive as a radical departure from the past and the substitution of existing institutions of the state with potentially dangerous experiments. … The Conservative believes, as Burke and the Founders did, that prudence must be exercised in assessing change. Prudence is the highest virtue for it is judgment drawn on wisdom. The proposed change should be informed by the experience, knowledge, and traditions of society, tailored for a specific purpose, and accomplished through a constitutional construct that ensures thoughtful deliberation by the community.”

Now, President Obama was elected more or less on a platform of change, and it’s become one of the catch phrases of his administration. Do you see the major proposals of the Obama administration for change in the Burkean tradition of reform or in the radical tradition of innovation?

Levin: I see them in the Marxist tradition of innovation, quote unquote. And Burke would be disgusted, and Adam Smith would be disgusted, and the Founding Fathers would be disgusted because what Burke rejected was the French Revolution, which was an assault on the institutions of French society as opposed to a righteous revolution, he felt.

Jeffrey: Quite different from our own.

Levin: Quite different from our own. He supported the American Revolution, which was tough for him because he was also a royalist. But no, we conservatives don’t oppose change. I mean, after all there’s a lot in this society we’d like to change, given what the statists have been doing to it.

Jeffrey: But that kind of change would be moving us back closer to our original principles.

Levin: Exactly. The goal is to preserve and improve our society, not to destroy it, not to transform it into something that’s foreign, not to spread misery, not to address the grievance of every malcontent. No, the purpose is to improve our society. So we support change as reform as opposed to change as innovation or change as destruction.

Jeffrey: Right, and you believe Obama is actually trying to effect a little mini-French Revolution right here in the United States?

Levin: Well, they can’t have it both ways, the Obama administration. Aren’t they telling us that? They want to change the way the automobile industry works. They want to change the way the energy industry works. They want to change the way the health care system works. They want to decide who gets paid what. They want to decide who gets rewarded, who gets punished, who gets rights, who doesn’t get rights. I’m accepting them at face value and putting a label on it.

Jeffrey: All of this out of the centralized government here in Washington, D.C.

Levin: Of course.

Jeffrey: Now, you talk in this book about an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, Mark. You say, “The Conservative is an originalist, for he believes that much like a contract, the Constitution sets forth certain terms and conditions for governing that hold the same meaning today as they did yesterday and should tomorrow. It connects one generation to the next by restraining the present generation from societal experimentation and government excess. There really is no other standard by which the Constitution can be interpreted without abandoning its underlying principles altogether.”

Now, in “Men in Black,” you talked about how the Supreme Court has basically been destroying the Constitution by interpreting it in a way that is not at all connected to the original interpretation.

But isn’t it true that the legislative branches and the executive branch do the exact same thing, and it’s been done not just by Democrats but also by Republicans? For example, President Bush, when he was in office, he pushed for the Medicare Prescription Drug Program. Can that in any way be justified in terms of the originalist interpretation of the Constitution?

Levin: No, it can’t. But, you know, at least we, the people, can do something about it by the next election cycle--changing our government, the representative part of our government. The problem with the judiciary is you have people that serve for life and act like politicians. And since it’s turned out that they have the final say, not that the Constitution gives them the final say, but they have seized the final say in our system, that’s the problem.

So if you have nine justices, really if you have five justices who decide that terrorists have due process rights for the first time in American history, reversing a decision they made in 1950 in another case, when these terrorists are held overseas, well, how do you change that? You can’t change that anymore under our system. So what’s happened is the judiciary seized authority that does not belong to it, the other branches have acquiesced to this authority.

But there’s no question, the federal government as a whole violates the Constitution on a regular basis. They conspire--and I don’t mean this in a devious way, I mean it out in the open, brazenly--against the individual, they conspire against the states, they conspire to skirt their constitutional limits.

And I also say in the book that the statist, or the leftist, likes it that way. He likes the court being as powerful as it is, or the bureaucracy being as powerful as it is, because it institutionalizes their philosophy and no election can reverse it.

Jeffrey: Right, and moves it away from the representative process.

Levin: From the people, yeah.

Jeffrey: It’s interesting, I interviewed Judge Bork a few months ago and I asked him: Did he believe Medicare and Social Security were constitutional? And he said, no, they’re not constitutional. But he argued that it’s politically impossible to go back and reverse that now, even though they were created by the legislature with the president. They’ve been in place so long that it’s just practically impossible to reverse them.

Levin: Well, they’re going to be reversed, because they’re going to collapse. We’re talking Medicare, Medicaid and Society Security, over $50 trillion in unfunded obligations that are growing by several trillion dollars every year. On top of that, it appears we’re going to get national health care. So they’re going to get reversed. It may not be done politically, but it will be done economically because the laws of economics speak to a higher authority.

Jeffrey: So you talk in “Liberty & Tyranny” about this $53 trillion in unfunded liabilities we have in these welfare-state dependency programs that President Bush added to with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan. President Obama wants to add to it in form some sort of national health care plan.

Levin: Right.

Jeffrey: So you say we have an electorate, Mark, that doesn’t want to reform these things or get rid of them. I mean, don’t we face a very big crisis that’s political as well as fiscal?

Levin: Here’s the problem. You know, Ronald Reagan built a pretty darn good foundation with conservative principles. Was it perfect? No. But it was the most perfect in my lifetime. And you would expect the next Republican president and Republican presidents subsequent to them to build on that foundation.

They didn’t. They lurched back to FDR New Dealism and Great Society. And for some reason, Republicans seem to think they don’t have the ability to slowly explain things to the American people and reverse course. They do, but they won’t because it’s hard work. It’s easier to go along.

Of course you can’t abolish Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid even though they will be abolished one day by their own weight. There’s no question about it in my mind. But what you can do is introduce some real reforms that slowly unravel them in the sense that people who really don’t need them shouldn’t get them. There should be limits on them. There should be private aspects to them.

Look, the statist knows exactly what he’s doing. I explain in the book why Social Security was created the way it was created. As opposed to a welfare program for poor people, FDR wanted to imprison everybody in the system. Lyndon Johnson wanted to use that trust fund for general obligations. This is all intended to build a political base, so if anybody dares to question these entitlements, they’ll be defeated. What we have to do is explain to the next generation: Do you understand that these programs are broke? Do you understand that you owe all this money? And explain it in a way that’s understandable.

Jeffrey: Right, in Social Security they created a welfare-state program that goes to middle-class people.

Levin: And that’s the purpose of national health care, is to suck everybody in, to make them to believe they’re getting something for nothing, when in fact what they’re getting is rationing.

Jeffrey: You get national health care--you already have Social Security which makes retired people, elderly people, dependent on the government. You have national health care that gets everybody, not just people on Medicare/Medicaid, dependent on the government for health care. And, essentially, a government-run school system for the majority of people. The sectors of our life that are controlled and dominated by the government are growing.

Levin: This is intentional. And that’s why, at this point, if we’re not going to stand up to it as conservatives, we’re not going to be confident in our principles, if we’re not going to do the things we have to do, which includes speaking out about our principles--You know, I’m constantly told, “Well, we can’t win that way.” You know, the last president to win landslides was Ronald Reagan, the most conservative president in my lifetime. And they said he couldn’t win either, and he actually did take a chunk out of Social Security even though--

Jeffrey: The liberal media said he couldn’t win.

Levin: The liberal media said he couldn’t win. Even a lot of Republicans said he couldn’t win.

Jeffrey: One of the things I find unique about your book, and also about your radio program, is you’ re one of the few conservatives who will directly attack FDR and the New Deal, and describe exactly what it was that FDR--Why have so many Republicans basically made peace with FDR and the New Deal?

Levin: Well, even the books that criticize FDR are careful not to criticize him too hard. Because it’s harder to step back and discuss with your constituents, if you’re a politician, why certain programs they like and may think they benefit from but which will undermine our society in the long run, are not the greatest programs ever created.

There is no Social Security program. There is no trust fund. It is a hoax. Milton Friedman spoke about it and wrote about it at length. Many people have. There is no trust fund. As a matter of fact, as of February, even the fake trust fund that they say exists just went negative. So, even the illusion is an illusion. And that’s intentional. And Medicare is a hybrid of a phony insurance program and a welfare program. Medicaid now consumes over 20 percent of every state’s budget, so states have very little room to operate as well.

Jeffrey: So we’re looking at a situation 10, 15 years down the road, when the deficit driven by sustaining these programs, Medicare and Social Security not to mention a possible national health care plan that Obama may create, is so big it’s impossible for the government not to deal with it.

Levin: My fear is the way the government will deal with it is to claim more private property and liberty. And in some ways, when I say enslave, I don’t mean in terms of a Gulag, but enslave the next generation by limiting their freedom and limiting their opportunities.

Jeffrey: Well, this is something that I think conservatives have to think through strategically, that Americans have to start thinking about. There’s this $53 trillion already that the government has promised to pay people in benefits, that we don’t have the tax revenue under the current system to pay for.

Levin: And never will.

Jeffrey: It’s fiscally impossible to maintain an economy. But when this crisis hits, the government is going to want to go and get revenue to cover that as it progresses. Where are they going to get it?

Levin: They’re not going to have any revenue to get. And they can print all the money they want and create a Weimar Republic if they want. Every avenue they take is anti-liberty, anti-constitutional. They’re going to become more and more desperate. And what’s really going to happen is they’re going to seize much more authority and ration wealth, and the people who think Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are so great, there will be no Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.

Jeffrey: Because the real-life situation is, you’ll have Baby Boom Generation on Social Security and Medicare, sucking in the government revenue, and the government will not be able to pay the benefits that it has promised to these folks unless they take 40, 50 percent of the income of middle-class, middle-aged people to cover those benefits.

Levin: What the government will do is break all of its promises. What the government will do is say, “We’re changing age limits, we’re changing benefits, we’re changing how this thing is funded.”

Jeffrey: We’re taking away your health-care benefits when you’re 70 years old.

Levin: We’re taking away whatever we have to take away. This is how authoritarianism works. If you look in Britain today--and I wish we would more often--or Canada for that matter, they have a complete rationing system in their health care. And the costly drugs and the costly procedures are delayed and delayed and delayed because they’re hoping a significant portion of the population will die before they have to pay for them, or go somewhere else.

I try to explain in this book in many ways that it’s conservatism that is compassionate, that it’s conservatism that nurtures liberty, that it’s conservatism that is the only anecdote to tyranny--whether it’s a soft tyranny or a hard tyranny--that what these other people are preaching is something that cannot work, has never worked in human history, and relies on a lie about some kind of a utopianism that can be created on Earth which simply can’t be.

Jeffrey: Is the question when we get to the tipping point? If the conservative vision of America is individuals and their families taking care of themselves. They earn their own money. They educate their own kids. They pay for their own housing. They pay for their own food. They pay for their own retirement. They’re self-sufficient. The liberal vision is the government takes care of many of those things, and, as you said, that’s fiscally unsustainable.

Levin: The liberal vision is, to be even more precise, that the individual needs to be controlled, that his aspirations need to be limited, that he has to learn to get along and go along. And that if that means dispiriting the individual, if that means economic or other forms or repression, then so be it for the good of the general society. And that a handful of individuals, self-appointed, who assume power one way or another, they will make the decisions for all the rest of us. In one form or another, that’s what the statist believes.

Now, they may unwittingly advance the case of tyranny in some cases, but at this point, given human history, given all we know about it, given all we know about statism, I have to question that.

Jeffrey: Well, Mark, if there’s theoretically a tipping point, where a number of people in the population are so dependent on the government that they are essentially a captive electorate for the left, for the liberals, how do conservatives reach out and persuade those folks on the margin to come back into the land of individual responsibility and self-reliance?

Levin: It’s the folks on the margins we need to go after.

Jeffrey: How do we do it?

Levin: The others are a hopeless case. The one-third, the 35 or 40 percent, we’re never going to get them. Well first of all, we, the conservative, need to be confident in who we are. We need to understand our philosophy beyond the superficial.

When I started this book, “Liberty & Tyranny,” I could have written one of these talking-point books, but I said, “You know, let me challenge myself. Why do I think the way I think? Why am I a conservative? What does it mean to be a conservative? And I went back, again, and I read the classics. I went into Plato and Aristotle and Cicero and Montesquieu and Locke, and more forward, Burke, and Adam Smith, and then the Founding Fathers. When you do that, which most people won’t do because they don’t have the time or the inclination to it, you come to an obvious conclusion that the only humane system that can possibly work is one that’s based on the conservative philosophy.

And what is the conservative philosophy? That’s the point of the book. The conservative philosophy, generally speaking, is the creation of a civil society with the focus on the individual, but not exclusively. Where the individual is responsible for his family and himself, where he has a duty to his community, where what he earns through his own labor--because remember, we’re only here so long on the face of the Earth, and that labor, whether it’s intellectual or physical or both, if somebody takes it from you, they’re enslaving you, it’s for an illegitimate purpose.

And there is a moral order. You know, it’s interesting. Adam Smith, who’s the hero of libertarians and one of my heroes, believed in a moral order, was a religious man. He and Edmund Burke, considered the father of modern conservatism--Burke, the conservative today, Smith, the libertarian today--they were friends and they didn’t think they disagreed on anything, these two guys. You know, they had an overlapping philosophy.

We conservatives wake up every morning and we thank God we’re in America. We thank God for our system of government. We thank God for this society. It is a magnificent place where we are. History has never seen this before. It is a contribution to mankind. We Americans, when we do what we do. We need to instill this spirit, this view of America, in the population or the population that may be receptive to it, because the other side has as their goal to dispirit, to demoralize, to tear down, to trash.

Jeffrey: Now, you do an excellent job in “Liberty & Tyranny,” Mark, in explaining these basic founding principles of the United States and how they articulate themselves in various different issue areas that we talked about. And your book is doing tremendously well: Four weeks at the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. I think you told me more than 900,000 copies--

Levin: Printed, half of a million sold, and we’re still pressing ahead, baby.

Jeffrey: But obviously these are adults who are buying your book.

Levin: We don’t know who is. They’re not children, we know that.

Jeffrey: We know they’re not kids. But is it--our schools are not teaching the founding principles of the United States to kids in kindergarten, first and second grade, let alone in high school or college. Do you think the liberals, the left in America, does not want young people coming up in America to learn these principles and to embrace them as they grow?

Levin: Here’s the thing. First of all, it’s my responsibility and your responsibility as fathers to make sure our children know why this is a great country. There’s no teacher, there’s no union member, there’s no administrator in any government school system who can do a better job of explaining it than you and me to our own kids at the breakfast table, the dinner table, when we put them to sleep, when we take them somewhere. This we must do, because if we do it there are tens of millions of us, and we are a bigger army than ACORN and the NEA.

Now, as to your question: The motives? We’ve litigated against the NEA now here in Landmark Legal Foundation for over a decade. They are a far-left, power-hungry organization. And that’s what comes first, second and third for them. Okay. If they cared about the children, they wouldn’t be promoting what they promote. For instance, you have teacher strikes in the states that allow them and cities that allow them. It’s absolutely outrageous. So, and I’m talking about the rule, not the exception, because of course we know that there are many good teachers. My wife was a teacher, my mother was a teacher. That’s quite beside the point.
Jeffrey: But they have a vision for what they want your child to grow up to be.

Levin: They want our children to be good soldiers of the bureaucracy.

Jeffrey: Right. It’s one thing for you and me to raise our kids to have our understanding of what the American founding principles are like. And if they are in one of those schools to fight some of their teachers, to fight the school bureaucracy, to fight the overall agenda of the school. Isn’t it quite another thing for immigrant kids, or kids coming out of families where their parents may not be as well-educated or not as focused on teaching those things, to ever in fact come in contact with these principles?

Levin: It’s a disaster. It’s a disaster, because first of all, if we are not insisting on immigrant kids learning English, they can’t possibly understand the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. We have people who understand English who don’t understand them today and refuse to understand them because they talk about living and breathing documents. When we say originalism--look at the words and try and relate them back to our history--if you don’t understand English, where the words can be debated, and you’re speaking in Spanish or something, you’re never going to get it. And the other problem is, how do you enter into contracts, how do you make something of yourself? And, of course, the Balkanization issue is real and it is a huge problem.

Look, here’s the problem. You and I know that at every level we’re under attack. We know the next shoe to drop is to create citizenship for illegal aliens and to open the borders to more because they want to change the demography and they want to change the electorate. We know this.

We know what they want to do with national health care. It’s not about making sure people have health care. You know, just because you have a health care policy, doesn’t mean you actually get health care, timely and in quality. No, it’s to secure as many drone-like citizens as you possibly can.

We know what they’re up to, and at bottom, what I’m saying is, we have to reacquaint ourselves with why we are a great nation, with who we are, with our founding, with our history, and what it is that makes humanity prosper and flourish. Everything Obama does counteracts that. Everything that this Congress is doing counteracts that. And people will be motivated and they’ll have a desire to really change things if they can really connect with it, and that’s the point of the book.

Jeffrey: Mark, in your book you point to a uniting principle that has been an American principle since the beginning. You say, “If man is ‘endowed by [the] Creator with certain inalienable rights,’ he is endowed with these rights no matter his religion or whether he has allegiance to any religion. It is Natural Law, divined by God and discoverable by reason, that prescribes the inalienability of the most fundamental and eternal human rights—rights that are not conferred on man by man and, therefore, cannot legitimately be denied to man by man. It is the divine nature of Natural Law that makes permanent man’s right to ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’”

Doesn’t this principle, and that fact that it is in fact true, give us an opportunity to reach out and proselytize to the immigrant community that’s come into the United States, to some of the people that are on the margin of wondering whether they’re going to go into the dependent class or into the class of self-reliant people?

Levin: I think it is. The problem we have now, though, is assimilation rarely happens. We have a government that’s opposed to it, that promotes the opposite: multiculturalism, bilingualism, dual citizenship. We now have corporations that promote both English and Spanish and we have a government school system that does the same thing. So we’re basically a bilingual nation now.

Jeffrey: And this principle can’t be taught in our public schools.

Levin: This principle can be taught in our public schools not as it is meant to be, but as sort of an arcane thought that the founders may have had--and of course they were slave owners so why pay attention to them anyway?

Jeffrey: If, ultimately, the reason the state cannot deprive us of our rights is because the state didn’t give us those rights, God gave us those rights, and a public school cannot even teach a child that there is a God from whom he got those rights, then a public school cannot teach the basic founding principle of the United States.

Levin: No. You have to do it, and I have to do it, and every parent and grandparent have to do it. Look, we are not going to change these government schools overnight. This I know as a matter of personal experience in litigation. We have to take it upon ourselves. We’ve had a counterrevolution in this country--a very successful counterrevolution, the intellectual basis of which goes back to the early 1900s, the effectuating of it started with FDR and the New Deal. It’s a counterrevolution to the American Revolution. Now we need a counter-counterrevolution, and one of the things I say is that we conservatives have to increase our numbers. That’s the purpose of a book like this, and hopefully other books that follow, and parents and grandparents talking to their children, and getting serious about the country and the future for the next generation.

Politics has consequences. It’s not just a sport to observe. People need to realize that right now we have a runaway government--and I mean every branch of it, the elected and the unelected--and the only way we’re going to stop this is if the next generation understands and is informed. And you’re not going to get it from an NEA member in a school system. If you do, it’ll be the rare, tenured teacher who does it. It’s going to have to come from you, and we can do this.

I mean, there’s still tens of millions of us who understand how wonderful this country is and believe in free markets, private property, faith and these other things. We can do this. You know, everybody can’t home school their kids, but there is a form of home schooling everybody can do. Those kids do come home, and they belong to us, and let’s do it.

Jeffrey: And they can read “Liberty & Tyranny,” the No. 1 New York Times Best-seller by Mark Levin. Mark, thank you very much.

Levin: Thank you brother, pleasure.

[End]

Heap Kingsford Coals Upon His Head

by: THRILL

The phrase, "heap burning coals upon his head" is from Proverbs 25:21,22. Paul quotes this to Rome in A.D. 57. Paul almost appears to be telling the Church at Rome to get their own back by doing something good.

F.F.Bruce says that "the original force of the admonition may have been 'Treat your enemy kindly, for that will increase his guilt; you will then ensure for him a more terrible judgment, and for yourself a better reward'."

An alternative view is that the proverb refers to an Egyptian ritual in which a man gave public evidence of his penitence by carrying a pan of burning charcoal on his head. In any case, by placing the proverb in this context and omitting the last clause, Paul gives it a nobler meaning:
"Treat your enemy kindly, for this may make him ashamed and lead to his repentance." In other words, the best way to get rid of an enemy is to turn him into a friend, and so "overcome evil with good." (verse 21).

J. Agar Beet says that "coals of fire" is "an Eastern metaphor for severe and overwhelming punishment. We cannot punish a man who is doing us harm more severely than by trying to do him good: and this kind of punishment is the most likely to lead him to repentance and salvation."

H.C.G.Moule gives three artsy possible explanations: "(1) of burning shame produced by requital of good for evil; (2) of the melting of the evil-doer’s heart by such conduct, as of metal by fire; (3) of the result of a spirit of love as producing at length the 'incense' of prayer and praise (as from a censor of coals) from the conquered heart."

William Barclay agrees with the first of these; "Vengeance may break his spirit; but kindness will break his heart. 'If we are kind to our enemies,' says Paul, 'it will heap coals of fire on their heads.' That means, not that it will store up further punishment for them, but that it will, as we ourselves say, move them to burning shame." With this last phrase Moffatt's translation also agrees.

Campbell Morgan has a final exhortation for the whole passage "How often are we tempted to say with a sigh of relief, Yes thank God, vengeance does belong to the Lord! Thus although active reprisals are prevented, the heart rejoices in the thought that at last the punishment of God will be meted out to the wrong-doer. This thought is entirely out of harmony with the will of God for His child, and therefore the believer is called to such action as will demonstrate the existence of true and unfeigned love. The hungry man is to be fed and the thirsty one supplied with water."

We cannot study this passage without reference to the words of Jesus in Matthew 5. 38-48. The reason that we must not retaliate, must not even have it in our heart to want any kind of vengeance, is because we are to be like our Father in Heaven.

However, imitation is the best form of flattery. Yes, vengence is the Lords... but if I may quote Thomas Jane in The Punisher, "It's not vengeance,... it's punishment." God upholds to Love by upholding to the rules He sets. The elder who disrespects me... I got no problem in confronting him and presenting to him why he is unrighteous in his behavior. Just as God has confronted mankind in establishing what is Right and what is wrong, I too can show someone how they have disrespected me. If they disobey my rules of respect, just as mankind has disrespected God's divine righteous authority, I will punish (not seek vengeance) in the name of love- just as God, in love, punishes those to hell.

Fine... I wont place actual Kingsford Coals on the man who disrespects me EVERY SUNDAY at church... but I will take action and let him know that his attitude is, by God, disrespectful! My confrontation IS in love... it just sounds angry, or mean because I'm built like a rottweiler, NOT a pomeranian.

But I'm not perfect like Jesus, and I definitely don't have his charisma, nobility, gentle hand, and inteligence. So on that note, here's a good point to end on:

During the second world war a Christian couple who were pacifists lived next door to a very patriotic family. In the first year or so of hostilities the elderly father of this family was particularly abusive and unkind towards the Conscientious Objectors. Then one night a bomb fell on the land between the neighbours and the patriots' home was partly demolished. Homeless they were grateful to be received into the 'home next door' where they appreciated refreshment and rest as the air-raid continued. Next morning, those same neighbours who had been so abused sorted out clothing and found accommodation for the old couple. The middle aged daughter shed tears as she turned to her neighbour and said "Now I know what kind of Christianity yours is".

Sources:
(1) DN of BSM
(2) Tyndale NT Commentaries IVP 1974
(3) A commentary on St.Paul's Epistle to the Romans, H & S 1900
(4) Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, CUP 1892
(5) Daily Study Bible; the Letter to the Romans St.Andrews Press 1972
(6) The Analysed Bible, the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans H & S 1909
(7) The mind of THRILL

The Apple Logo

Apple Inc. has revolutionized personal computing since its founding in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak. For more than 30 years, Apple Computer has introduced groundbreaking products and accessories that truly defy the technological barriers. It has now become one of the world’s most famous computer brands and has introduced innovative products such as iPods, Macintosh, QuickTime, etc.

Beyond its strong line of pioneering products, lies an interesting and powerful corporate identity. Apple is probably the only company not to use its name in its logo. Yet, the Apple logo is one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world. The first Apple logo was designed by Jobs and Wayne in 1976, featuring Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. It was inspired by a quotation by Wordsworth that was also inscribed into the logo that said: “Newton… a mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought” with ‘Apple Computer Co.’ on a ribbon banner ornamenting the picture frame.

That Apple logo was immediately changed by designer Rob Janoff into a multicolored apple with a bite taken out off its right side, better known as the “rainbow apple”. This was done to commemorate the discoveries of gravity (the apple) and the separation of light (the colors) done by Isaac Newton and possibly to tribute the ‘fruit of the Tree of Knowledge’ in Adam and Eve’s story. Even the term ‘Macintosh’ refers to a particular variety of an apple. But certain speculations exist about the proper meaning of the Apple logo. Some believe that the ‘rainbow colored’ Apple logo was used to advertise the color capability of the Apple II computer. Others, like author Sadie Plant of Zeroes and Ones, considers the Apple logo as homage to Alan Turning, the father of modern computing, who committed suicide using a cyanide-laced apple.


For the last few years, the Apple logo has appeared in various colors (aqua color scheme was famous among all). But now Apple has discontinued the use of bright colors in the Apple logo, instead opting for white and raw-aluminum color schemes. The polished chrome logo seems to fit ideally. The silvery chrome finish in the new Apple logo is consistent with the design scheme and freshens up the icon. For whatever reason Apple Inc. had to revamp its logo, the new Apple logo got a hearty endorsement by the customers and critics around the world. It can widely be seen on all Apple products and retail stores; and has become one of the world’s most renowned brand symbols.

Source: http://www.logoblog.org/apple_logo.php

Coming Soon to Theatres!

Chargers’ Twitter Cops Bust Cromartie for Tweet

By BERNIE WILSON, AP Sports Writer

The San Diego Chargers have fined their star cornerback $2,500 for using Twitter to wonder whether the “nasty food” has contributed to the Bolts failing to make it to the Super Bowl in recent years.

Cromartie said he was pulled out of a meeting by Twitter cop/head coach Norv Turner and notified that he was being fined. Cromartie also was a given a letter that spelled out the fine.
The fourth-year pro had a good laugh over the matter, but said he’s going to be more careful. Still, he’s not going to stop tweeting.

He also thinks the fine is a bit excessive.

“But other than that, I mean, I ain’t going to take back what I said,” Cromartie said after practice Tuesday afternoon. “I said what I had to say. But at the end of the day, I mean, I got fined for talking about nutrition and that. I can’t really say too much else.

“I just thought it was harmless. It was just me talking about the food and stuff. I took it as a joke. But other people took it as a different kind of way.”

Cromartie thinks the mole occupies an office somewhere in the team’s executive suite.
“I didn’t think it would cause a stir like I did, but me being me, I think I’m going to keep my mouth shut from here on out,” he said. “I ain’t going to say nothing else. I want to make sure I keep everything positive. Obviously, I mean, I can’t really say what I really want to say. My freedom of speech has actually been taken away.”

Cromartie said Turner told the team not to tweet while in the building and not to make them critical of the organization.

The Chargers use Twitter as a promotional tool, but apparently are worried about the players being too honest. The team even scooped the NFL during the draft by announcing their first-round pick via both Twitter and on their Web site before commissioner Roger Goodell announced it in New York.

Asked if that was a double standard, Cromartie said: “I can’t say what I really want to say.”
Cromartie had his laptop in his locker. He tapped it out of standby mode and guess what? “It’s on Twitter right now,” he said with a laugh.

Some Chargers, such as Philip Rivers(notes) and LaDainian Tomlinson(notes), want nothing to do with Twitter.

There are hard-core tweeters, including outside linebacker Shawne “Lights Out” Merriman.
Asked about Cromartie’s fine, Merriman said: “That’s steep man. That’s half a new set of rims or something. Those had better be some powerful words and they better be reaching a lot more than the 40,000 people I have right now.”

The fine set off some interesting tweets from Cromartie—whose user name is crimetime31—and Merriman.

“lets make a deal if all yall pitch in a dollar ill tweet more they handing out fines like free turkeys on thanksgiving, ya dig?” Merriman tweeted.

A few minutes later he wrote: “you can be tough alllllll you want to but the first time you get hit for a $2500 fine my name goes from LightsOut to just switch lol.”

Cromartie posted this: “I wld like to think (sic) all my new followers since I got fine I promise I wnt let u down ok look forward to sum grt stuff 2 come..”

And this: “man we had a grt practice 2day The defense flow aroun nd we made a lot of plays every1 knows I have 2 watch wht i say now cause i got fined.”

Then this from Merriman: “And by the way i thought the food was AMAZING today haha yea im a suck up.”

Turner apparently doesn’t tweet.

“We’re trying to be open and give the fans a look at what we’re doing, but certainly we’re not going to go out of our way to give our opponents a competitive advantage or give them something that we feel should stay in our building,” Turner said “So that’s been our approach with any forms of media that we’re involved with.”

Chargers general manager A.J. didn’t return a call seeking comment.

32 Story Highrise in Florida Has Just ONE Tenant

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 1, 3:37 pm ET

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Vangelakos' southwest Florida condominium has marble floors, a large pool overlooking a river and modern furnishings that speak of affluence and luxury. What they don't have in the 32-story building is a single neighbor.

The New Jersey family of five purchased their unit four years ago, when Fort Myers was in the midst of a housing boom and any hints of an impending financial crisis were buried in lofty dreams of expansion and development. They made a $10,000 down payment and eagerly watched as builders transformed an empty lot into an opulent high rise, one that now symbolizes the foreclosure crisis.

"The future was going to be southwest Florida," said Victor Vangelakos, 45, a fire captain who planned to eventually retire and live permanently in the condo.

Most of the other tenants in the 200-unit condo didn't close on their contracts, and the few that did have transferred to an adjacent building owned by the same company because more people live there.

The Vangelakos' mortgage lender will not allow them to do the same.

That leaves them as the sole residents of the Oasis Tower One.

"It's a beautiful building," said their attorney, John Ewing, who is representing 27 others who made deposits on units. "The problem is, it's a very lonely building."

When the Vangelakos' travel from Weehawken, N.J., to spend a week or a few days in their Florida home, they have exclusive use of the pool, game room and gym, but they miss having a few tenants around.

"Being from the city, it's very eerie," Vangelakos said. "It's almost like a scary movie."

A large, circular fountain in front of the building is dry. The automatic glass doors that lead to the front lobby are locked. On the front desk is a guest sign-in sheet. The last entry: Feb. 13, 2009.

"It's like time froze here six months ago," Ewing said.

Vangelakos said they closed on the apartment in the fall, unaware the other tenants had failed to follow through. When they visited around Christmas, they didn't think much of the emptiness. They were just happy to be there.

"We wanted to believe," Cathy Vangelakos said. "We were looking for what we were offered."

On subsequent visits, however, the building grew more deserted.

The lights on the pool and palm trees were off. Their garbage shoot was sealed, a trash bin placed in front of their unit instead.

Despite the empty units, they faithfully parked in their assigned spot on the second story of the parking garage. Then those lights went off, too.

Then there were security concerns. One night, someone pounded on their door at 11 p.m. They called the front desk at the next door building, which contacted police. A search turned up no one, though a pool entrance was open.

Another morning they awoke to find lounge chairs in the pool.

The parents and their children sleep with their cell phones by their beds.

"I'm not a chicken, but this is a big building," Cathy Vangelakos said.

Betsy McCoy, vice president and associated general counsel with The Related Group, which sold the family their unit, said they have tried to help find a solution — even offering them a unit in the building next door, free of cost, while the situation is resolved.

"They haven't wanted to take us up on that," McCoy said Friday. "They frankly rejected every solution and offer and proposal that we've come up with."

McCoy said some of the interested buyers who put down deposits lost their jobs, others were unable to get mortgages and some were just nervous when the financial collapse came.

The Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area in Lee County has some of the worst economic stress — a combination of foreclosures, unemployment and bankruptcies — in the country, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of more than 3,100 U.S. counties.

The latest AP Economic Stress Index, which assigns each county a score from 1 to 100 with higher numbers reflecting the greatest stress from the recession, found Lee County had a score of more than 20. Anything above 11 is considered stressed.

Victor Vangelakos said they don't want to move to the tower next door because they would still be paying the mortgage and maintenance costs on the condo they own. They paid $430,000 for the unit and took out a $336,000 mortgage — essentially spending their life savings.

He'd like for The Related Group to buy them out.

"They want us to be refugees in Tower II," Victor Vangelakos said. "That's not how I expected us to live here."

The family's attorney said he has filed two lawsuits on behalf of would-be tenants because the building wasn't finished as promised. He said they expected a clubhouse, marina, private cinema and restaurants.

McCoy said those amenities could be developed, but were never promised.

On Friday evening, the pool area was dark, most of the doors locked. Cathy Vangelakos and her 19-year-old daughter, Amanda, stepped into an elevator to head up to their unit. "Going up," an automated voice chimed.

"Going up," Cathy Vangelakos said. "That's all we hear."