I wish Congress would publish the text of bills it is proposing to pass, because too often they write these bills and pass them into law without the benefit of public input.  All we ever see, before it's too late, are little snippets that get leaked to the press.

The health care legislation that is currently being prepared is a perfect example.  Has anyone seen the draft proposals in the press?  I haven't.  All I've seen is little blurbs about what it may contain.  This is little more than rumor.  Congress needs to be more responsive and accountable to the people.

If they propose legislation, as is rumored, that will prevent me from changing my insurance carrier to anything but the Federal Insurance Program, I would actively oppose that, because it would be wrong.  Who are they to be able to tell me who I may and may not insure with?

If they propose legislation, as is rumored, that will allow the government to decide whether or not I can have a medical procedure done and when I can do so, I would oppose that too.  That is wrong -- wrong -- wrong. 

Oh I know, the government will say that they aren't going to restrict my right to a hip replacement if I need it; they only want to restrict what my insurance will pay for it at different times in my life.  Later in life, that will be nothing at all.  But if I can pay for it myself, by all means go ahead.

Hello!  What is that but restricting my right to a medically needed procedure to ease my pain and make my life a little bit more comfortable.  Afterall, I pay for insurance, and when I am most likely to need it, the government comes along and say no, they won't pay because some "cost benefit analysis in Washington" says that statistically I won't live long enough to justify the cost in terms of what society can expect to get back from the expense.

That is nothing less than a form of euthanasia -- without my consent or the consent of my family -- a way to cut costs by killing off the elderly.  If this really is in the Obama health care package, we will truly have become a morally corrupt society. 

It is imperative that the legislation fail.  If it does not, only the wealthy will be able to have hip replacements or heart transplants or whatever once they reach retirement age.  But if it passes, you can be sure that the formula to calculate whether or not you are a "cost-worthy" individual will favor those who have money and power.

Always I hear people arguing about George Lucus' Star Wars saga, and sooner or later someone says they really hate SW I.  Some hate all three of the prequels.  Of course, others will immediately chip in with equally strong opinions about why the love the prequels.  With nothing better to do, I have, therefore, decided to weigh in on the matter.  Here then are my thoughts on the Star Wars movies, presented in release order.

SW IV - good clean fun.  It didn't ask you to think about any deep and weighty subject matter.  It was good vs. evil almost literally in black and white.  And when you left the theater, you didn't have to digest what you had just seen.  To top it off, it reached out and grabbed you in the opening scenes with a fantastic shot of two ships in space duing battle.  Even the bar scene was believably because the weird characters were not computer generated.  They were played by real people in costume, and the viewer knew it and could live with that.

SW V - Totally believable, except maybe for the worm in the asteroid and the Imperial Walkers, but what the heck -- you can't have everything.  Besides, those Walkers were just another form of tank, and we all understand tanks.  I developed a crush on Billy Dee Williams.

SW VI - Believable up to the point of the speed bikes in the woods.  Then it really fell apart with the band of teddy bears.  That was the beginning of the end of Star Wars for me.  Come on.  Teddy Bears fighting imperial storm troopers?  Effectively too.  Give me a break.  I've never before seen anything that was so transparently for the marketing of toys.

SW I - A cartoon.  I don't go to the movies to watch cartoons.  I especially don't want to spend that much time watching a retarded cartoon character like Jar-Jar.  It just isn't believable that he is a sentient being and a representative of a more or less advanced race.  But what was a real turn off was a 6-9 year old kid, with no experience whatever, flying a fighter and defeating half the Imperial Star Fleet by himself with practically no Jedi training.  Even Luke couldn't do that after receiving some training from Obi-Wan.

SW II - In a desperate attempt to save money, I guess, Lucas again went to Computer Generated Imagry and produced a whole army of cartoon robots in a misnamed movie that should have been called Attack of the Robots, not clones.  The only clone of a living being in this movie was Jango Fett's son Boba.  All of this is surrounded by an ineffective love story between two people of different ages.  One would think that with at least ten years (and maybe more) between them, you would see that difference clearly in Amidala's overall appearance compared to that of Anakin.  It does tell me something about Anakin's youth, however.  Also, too much line stealing from the first trilogy.  I can live with the rebellious teenager at this point, though it seems border line believable from one who is to become a Jedi.  Maybe I'm just expecting such individuals to be more studious at this point.

SW III -  The whole reason for Anakin turning to the dark side of The Force was that he was upset that his "mommy" had died and was afraid Amidala would die too.  Movies of any kind make their way by asking you to suspend your disbelief just a little bit.  In order to accomplish that, they must create a story line that is at least plausible.  This story line was completely unbelievable and the most disappointing of the three prequels.  A complete turn off.  By this time, Anakin had at least 10 years of association with the way of the Jedi.  Someone with any ability with The Force whatever would know that he wasn't going to defeat the cycle of life and death.  And again, too much time wasted stealing lines from the first trilogy.  Couldn't the writers come up with anything original?!

In the end, the 1st two releases were pretty good; the 3rd began to go down hill; and the last three were a complete waste of of the viewer's time, up to the point of the final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan.  It was there, in the dual, that we saw the birth of Darth Vader, but we never did get a satisfying reason for his transition from sweat kid under the protection of the Jedi to a ruthless killer of men, women, and children.

So there you have it.  For better or worse, that's my take on the entire Star Wars movie set.

Whereas many of us, myself included, have seen fit to question the right of President Obama to hold the office he now occupies on the grounds that he may be constitutionally ineligible to do so, I feel it only fitting and proper, in the interest of fair play, to report the following: 

"I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barrack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."

This according to an article in USA today and in a similar article posted on Breitbart.com yesterday evening.

There is an axiom in law that says that when the evidence can equally support both a defendant's claim and the prosecution's claim, the benefit of the doubt must be given to the defendant.  I think at this point that the evidence leans more in The President's favor than against him, because Dr. Fukino is probably the best independant witness we have available and is in a position to know what she is talking about. 

Since I am unwilling to call Dr. Fukino a liar, and in the absence of hard evidence to the contrary, I must accept that President Obama is constitutionally qualified to hold his office and legally does so. 

I can only point out that the President himself could have saved everyone a lot of time and grief with a simple phone call and a signature on a piece of paper. 

That said Mr. President, I hope for your sake and the sake of our nation that there is no cause for this issue to be revisited by anyone.

The new kween_of_Queens has observed that each of us, at one time or another, have had our lives changed by a piece of music or a particular song.  She has expressed an interest in hearing what song may have influenced my life and how. 

I guess I would have to answer that the one song in particular that changed my life is The Holy City.  It was written by Frederick Weatherly, a Barrister in London, and put to music in 1892 by Stephen Adams.  The song was recorded by Richard Crooks with an orchestral background in 1932. Jeanette MacDonald sang it in the movie "San Francisco" in 1936. It is based entirely on the 21st chapter of the Book of Revelation.

What attracted me to the song was not just the message, but the quality and the majesty of the song.  It is so much more than a hymn or some contemporary praise song. One can make a mistake in a hymn, and no one will notice; but a mistake in this song, and everyone will know it. It's somewhat demanding, having qualities of both an operatic piece and a March, making timing with the music critical. Vocal tone is also critical. And the voice must be able to generate sustained power.

I first heard the song sung by Steve Amerson while I was visiting Jerusalem in May 2000.  When I heard it, I fell in love with it.  I thought about that song for the next two years, until February 2002, when I got on the internet one night and found the words, along with an example of one verse being sung.   I mentioned it to my Pastor, because I thought it would be a great song for our Music Director to sing during our Easter Pageant the following month.  My pastor said I should sing it.

Well that was a problem, because I wasn't a singer. Besides, I hadn't really learned the song, and I had no music for it.  My Pastor was adamant, however, that if I didn't sing it, it would not be sung.

Why I did it, I don't know.  Anyone who has ever heard the song would know that I would have to be as mad as a hatter to try to sing that song in a debut performance.  But something was driving me hard, almost against my will, and I really did want to hear that song again.  So I learned it, and over the next three weeks I practiced until I could do it well.  Then, on March 17, 2002, before a congregation of more than 150 people, I took the stage to open the evening event, and despite my terror, I sang for only the second time in public, and I did it a cappella.

Well, I brought the house down.  Never in all my life did I ever think that I would stand before a live audience to sing, but I've been doing it ever since that night with a self-confidence that I had previously not known.

Life is uncertain.
Eat dessert first.

You will recall that a couple of days ago Obama said that Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" for arresting a Cambridge Professor after he broke into his own house.  He said that without knowing the facts of the case.  I can only imagine that this 1st instinct, gut reaction on the part of Obama comes from a deep, underlying, automatic assumption that when the police arrest a black man, racism is automatically the underlying cause of that arrest.

If that is the case, Obama is demonstrating a racist attitude himself, and a very stupid one.  The President of the United States should know better than to inject himself into local issues at any time, and especially when he doesn't know the facts of a case. 

Now the Cambridge Police Department is demanding an apology from President Obama.  And well they should, for it turns out that the police were responding to a call of two men trying to force their way into a house -- a possible burglary in progress.  When they arrived, the Professor had already gotten into his home, but when police asked to see his identification to establish that he, in fact, did live there, the man flew into a rage, yelling at the officers and accusing them of racism when all they were doing was trying to ensure that his property was secure.  The charge - disorderly conduct.  He's lucky; it could have been interfering with an officer in the proper discharge of his duty.

In the mean time, the President himself has nothing to say other than expressing a regret over the furor that his remark has caused.  The furor!  Not the fact that he interfered in the justice system!  Not the fact that he used a form of racial profiling in jumping at what was essentially a trivial incident!  Not the fact that he has worked in some small way to undermine police departments all over the country!  And certainly no apology for having injected himself in the first place.

This debacle demonstrates once again why Barack Obama is not qualified for the office he holds.  He's already done enough domestic damage.  I hate to think of what the reaction would be if he popped off like that on an international scale. 

Just weeks before she plans to step down from her position as Alaska governor, Palin signed a joint resolution sponsored by state Rep. Mike Kelly on July 10 claiming sovereignty for the state under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States."

The Tenth Amendment Center also reported that Florida State Sen. Carey Baker, R-Eustis, introduced a memorial earlier this month urging "Congress to honor the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and United States Supreme Court case law which limit the scope and exercise of federal power."

"Now more than ever, state governments must exercise their Constitutional right to say no to the expansion of the federal government's reckless deficit spending and abuse of power," said Florida State Sen. Carey Baker.

WorldNetDaily also reported that South Carolina's proposal, S. 424, is titled: "To affirm South Carolina's sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution over all powers not enumerated and granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution."

Essentially it's a reminder that the United States is made up of individual states; it's not a federal authority broken up into political subdivisions.

Among the other states where such proposals at least have been considered are Louisiana, Colorado, Wisconsin, Florida, Illinois, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Nevada, Oregon, Alabama, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, Virginia, Kentucky, Alaska, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota, South Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Missouri, Iowa, Montana, Michigan, Arizona, Washington and Oklahoma.

In Louisiana, it passed the Senate in May and the House in June.

In Idaho, it passed the House in March and the Senate in April.

In North Dakota, it passed the House and Senate both in April, with the House a short time later adopting changes made by the Senate.

In South Dakota, it was approved by both houses of the Legislature and under that state's rules does not need the governor's signature.

In May, Rep. M.J. "Manny" Steele, a Republican in South Dakota, wrote that he believes up to $11 trillion is being wasted in the coming years by Washington's efforts "to duplicate and micromanage our states' affairs."

He said states should manage their own affairs and not be dependent on a federal cash cow to make ends meet. Likewise with industries, he said, citing federal cash dumps on the banking, insurance and automobile industries.

Does anyone disagree?

I see that the military has rescinded the deployment orders for U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida who was scheduled to leave for Afghanistan.  He sued arguing that to obey such an order might leave him open to charges of war crimes if it should later be shown that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and was not a legal citizen and, therefore, is not legally entitled to hold the office of President.

By rescinding the order without explanation under threat of a law suit, the military seems to have decided that it could not prove it's case against the officer.  If that is so, then what they are saying is that they cannot prove Obama was born in America.  That would then put the burden on the White House.  At stake is whether this nation will live by its Constitution or admit that the White House doesn't care, Congress doesn't care, and the Supreme Court doesn't care. 

This whole matter could be so easily cleared up if Obama would authorize the release of his records.  The most secretive man ever to live in the White House refuses access to the following documents related to himself and his wife:

1. Occidental College records -- Not released
2. Columbia College records -- Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper -- "Not available"
4. Harvard College records -- Not released
5. Selective Service Registration -- Not released
6. Medical records -- Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule -- Not available
8. Illinois State Senate records -- Not available
9. Law practice client list -- Not released
10. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate -- Not released
11. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth -- Not released
12. Record of baptism -- Not available

 

What are we to think?  What has the man got to hide?

But that is what obama is trying to do, isn't it?!