What a sham. This Obama campaign is built on fraudulent donors and ties to the biggest scum on the earth.

His felon/fundraiser pal, Tony Rezko is singing like Henry Hill at the end of Goodfellas.

Also, we have, at least, 3,000 fictitious donors to the Obama Campaign.

This is a criminal enterpise and leftist/socialist coup being waged.

The smear is that Obama did not write his memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

The real author?

You guessed it: Ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers.

This is claim of Jack Cashill, writing in the October 10, 2008, edition of the right wing online magazine American Thinker.

“Prior to 1990,” Cashill writes, “when Barack Obama contracted to write Dreams From My Father, he had written very close to nothing.  Then, five years later, this untested 33 year-old produced what Time Magazine has called -- with a straight face – ‘the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.’  The public is asked to believe Obama wrote Dreams From My Fatheron his own, almost as though he were some sort of literary idiot savant.  I do not buy this canard for a minute, not at all.  Writing is as much a craft as, say, golf.  To put this in perspective, imagine if a friend played a few rounds in the high 90s and then a few years later, without further practice, made the PGA Tour.  It doesn't happen.”

Cashill admits that no one has ever before questioned Obama’s authorship.  He ascribes this, however, to “the biases of the literary establishment,” which Cashill now aims to correct.

His evidence, first, is that Obama had not written anything of note before, discounting Obama's education at Columbia University and Harvard Law School. 

Second, Cashill alleges that Obama took a long time to turn in a draft of his memoir to his publisher:

“With advance in hand, Obama repaired to Chicago where he dithered.  At one point, in order to finish without interruption, he and wife Michelle decamped to Bali.  Obama was supposed to have finished the book within a year. Bali or not, advance or no, he could not. He was surely in way over his head.

“According to a surprisingly harsh 2006 article by liberal publisher Peter Osnos, which detailed the 'ruthlessness' of Obama's literary ascent, Simon & Schuster canceled the contract.  Dysteldid not give up.  She solicited Times Book, the division of Random House at which Osnos was publisher. He met with Obama, took his word that he could finish the book, and authorized a new advance of $40,000.”

“Then suddenly, somehow, the muse descended on Obama and transformed him from a struggling, unschooled amateur, with no paper trail beyond an unremarkable legal note and a poem about fig-stomping apes, into a literary superstar.”

Next Cashill solves the supposed problem of Obama’s alleged sudden transformation into a literary genius by positing that “that he had major editorial help, up to and including a ghostwriter.”

In order to identify the ghostwriter as Bill Ayers, Cashill observes that “Ayers and Obama have a good deal in common. In the way of background, both grew up in comfortable white households and have struggled to find an identity as righteous black men ever since,” oddly ignoring the fact that Ayers is the son of Thomas G. Ayers, former Chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison while Obama is the son of a struggling single mother who was raised by his middle class grandparents.  And, even more oddly, ignoring the fact that Ayers is white.

Cashill next concludes that “Ayers had the means, the motive, the time, the place and the literary ability to jumpstart Obama's career” and then proceeds to compare the text of Obama’s Dreams to the text of Ayer’s own memoir, Fugitive Days.

Here is an example of Cashill’s literary exegesis:

“I identified two similar "nature" passages in Obama'sand Ayers' respective memoirs, the first from Fugitive Days:

'I picture the street coming alive, awakening from the fury of winter, stirred from the chilly spring night by cold glimmers of sunlight angling through the city.'

The second from Dreams:

'Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds.'

Cashill concludes that “These two sentences are alike in more than their poetic sense, their length and their gracefully layered structure.”

I won’t go further into Cashill’s textual analysis.  Suffice it to say that the passage I’ve quoted is representative. 

Cashill ends his article with a kind of coup, linking Obama not only to Ayers, but also to Saddam Hussein. 

“None of this, of course, proves Ayers' authorship conclusively,” Cashill modestly concedes, “but the evidence makes him a much more likely candidate than Obama to have written the best parts of Dreams. The Obama camp could put all such speculation to rest by producing some intermediary sign of impending greatness -- a school paper, an article, a notebook, his Columbia thesis, his LSAT scores -- but Obama guards these more zealously than Saddam did his nuclear secrets.  And I suspect, at the end of the day, we will pay an equally high price for Obama's concealment as Saddam's.”

Expect Sean Hannity to be asking “Who Wrote Barack Hussein Obama’s book?” sometime this week.

I have no doubt that Farrakhan knows Barack Obama better than anyone reading this post. What are the implications of that?

If voting Americans sincerely witsh to know who Obama really is, there are two things to do.

First, we need to connect the dots we have and resist the temptation to connect dots we can only imagine. What are the dots we have to navigate so far? Obama's voted "present" so often as Senator that all we know is that he was in the room and didn't cast a vote one way or the other on significant issues. We don't know what he was into or who he palled with as a university and law school student. We're beginning to learn that his affiliation with Bill Ayres went deeper than he said at first. And we know that he can speak with some eloquence in vague generalities.

It looks like Barack Obama doesn't want people to know who he really is. His single greatest acomplishment since achieving public prominence has been keeping us all in the dark about his core values and the specific direction he will take this country if elected.

Second, we need to do everything we can to compel the media and others to thoroughly vet Obama's background immediately. They've been asleep at the wheel on this one. Maybe they have vetted him and are afraid to say what they know. Maybe they've neglected their responsibility because they fear what they'll learn. Or maybe they just don't care. But we should care. And if we don't know enough about Barack Obama to vote for him responsibly, then we shouldn't. This is Obama's Achilles' Heel.

* * *

Here are a few other posts related to Farrkahn's enthusiasm for the "Messiah":

• "Obama's Farrakhan Test," by Richard Cohen of the Washington Post

"I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle." —Richard Cohen (January 15, 2008)

• "Obama and the Farrakhan Trap," by Byron York for National Review Online

"It’s a common technique for a politician who doesn’t want to say something to say that he has said it before without actually saying what he says he said." —Byron York (February 27, 2008)

• "Why Obama 'Denounced' Farrakhan," by Mary Mitchell for the SunTimes
  

"No matter how many times Farrakhan explains, defends or refutes anti-Semitic comments that have been attributed to him, his kiss is still the kiss of death." —Mary Mitchell (March 2, 2008)

• The Associated Press: Farrakhan Hails Obama as "Hope of Entire World"

"'This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,' [Farrakhan] said. 'This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.'" —AP (February 25, 2008)

Philippians 3:20-Keep a proper prospective on things.  No political candidate or world government will ever "save" you.  If you profess Jesus as Lord, you've already acknowledged this.

"I'm --insert politician's name here-- and I can paint your future rosier for just a little vote".

Personally, I always think, "You know, the politicians said this before WW II and the Great Depression, yet my elder relatives had to live through both. Think I'd rather vote based on 'plan for the worst, hope for the best'."

(Proverbs 16:33) “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.”

Recently, I was thinking about the ramifications of fraudulent voter registration in the election, when I stumbled across a thought. Persuading people to commit to something by pretense – sounds a lot like some fundamentalists’ idea of evangelism. I realize that it’s not a perfect comparison, but hear me out.

Voting Fraud

• When someone is asked to fraudulently register and vote, more often than not, they do so knowing little to nothing about the political issues at hand. Obviously, a person does not have to know everything about every political issue to make a legitimate decision. But, it is likewise obvious that an uninformed voter makes for a superficial vote.
• Because statistics are the goal, in many cases names are made up, resulting in false numbers.
• Because the fraudulent voter is pushed to cast a vote, the decision is made the way the one doing the coercing wants it to go. The vote is therefore not based on a personal decision but on an obligation to the one who asked the person to vote.
• Votes are intended to demonstrate political support. When the vote is illegitimate, the support is shallow and short lived.

Evangelistic Fraud

• When someone is superficially asked to accept Christ as their Savior, more often than not, they do so knowing little to nothing about the spiritual issues involved. Obviously, a person does not have to know everything about every theological issue to make a legitimate profession. But, it is likewise obvious that an uniformed believer makes for a superficial belief.
• Because statistics are the goal, in many cases names are made up resulting in false numbers.
• Because the fraudulent believer is pushed to pray a prayer, the profession is made the way the one doing the coercing wants it to be made. The prayer is therefore not based on a personal conviction but on an obligation to the one who asked the person to “repeat this prayer after me.”
• Professions of faith are intended to show evidence Christian commitment. When the profession is illegitimate, the commitment is shallow and short lived.

God help us to examine our evangelism and be careful to not commit evangelistic fraud.

"Will you assure us that as President you will take immediate action to investigate, prosecute, and name the names of the people actually responsible?"  Before the woman was even finished asking her question the crowd cheered at her suggestion that those involved would have their names exposed to public scrutiny.  Senator McCain paced a bit as he waited for the noise of the audience to die down a bit, looking somewhat pensive at first.

"I will," he answered.   "And it is already a matter of record that members -- Democrat members of Congress fought against reform, and it's a matter of record and hearings that they said everything was fine," he said, sounding much more partisan than he has for a good portion of the election, actually placing some blame on the opposite party.  He also took a shot at Senator Obama's position on the matter.

"And the fact is that the same people that are claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were the willing co-conspirators in causing this problem that it is."  Surprising crowds, he continued and started throwing out names.  "And you know their names!  And you will know more of their names.  Congressman Barney Frank, and Senator Chris Dodd, are two of them."  Such an announcement could cause a great deal of concern to Democrats, who might fear an investigation into their activities pushed from a Republican white house.  On the other hand, many Republicans have been feeling that Senator McCain and Governor Sarah Palin have not been harsh enough in their attacks, and have been letting the Democrats walk all over them.

One man at that same meeting seemed to bring that point up.  "I'm mad," he said adamantly.  "I'm really mad!  And what's going to surprise you is that it's not the economy.  It's the socialists taking over this country!"  He complained about the lack of partisanship in the message coming from those on the GOP ticket.  "It's time that you two are representing us," he said, referring to Senator McCain and Governor Palin.  "And we're mad!  So go get 'em!"

Senator Obama's economic plan has a tinge of socialism to it in the form of redistribution of wealth.  He has plans on taxing people he determines to be rich across the nation, pointing to the figure of $250,000 as being at the level of rich.  Critics of his plan argue that a tax increase on the wealthy will cause them to spend less money, thereby cutting off income to businesses.  Critics also argue that Senator Obama's plans would tax corporations heavy, thereby causing them to raise prices which will affect people that have not had an increase in taxes.

Senator McCain replied dryly, "Well, I think I got the message," causing laughter to ring throughout the meeting.  He stressed how he would work in a bipartisan manner to fix problems in Washington.

Ben Smith at Politico also does a nice job of differentiating voter fraud and voter registration fraud:

The key distinction here is between voter fraud and voter registration fraud, one of which is truly dangerous, the other a petty crime.

The former would be, say, voting the cemeteries or stuffing the ballot boxes. This has happened occasionally in American history, though I can think of recent instances only in rare local races. Practically speaking, this can most easily be done by whoever is actually administering the election, which is why partisan observers carefully oversee the vote-counting process.

The latter is putting the names of fake voters on the rolls, something that happens primarily when organizations, like Acorn, pay contractors for new voter registrations. That can be a crime, and it messes up the voter files, but there's virtually no evidence these imaginary people then vote in November. The current stories about Acorn don't even allege a plan to affect the November vote.

The distinction is important because conservative McCain supporters are already alleging that the Obama campaign is trying to steal the election. The Obama-ACORN connection has been a favorite meme at FOXNews. If Obama wins, expect the Right to cling to this rationalization to the extent that the Left has nurtured its belief that Bush stole at least one if not both of the last two presidential elections — without, of course, anywhere near the justification

If Obama wins, he will do so despite voter suppression, not because of it.

Tags: elections, presidential politics, ACORN, voter fraud, FOXNews

Why? Bill Ayers is ridiculously unimportant. Bill Ayers is a sell out, a yuppie college professor who served on the board of a charity dedicated to ending poverty along with Sen. Obama. Bill Ayers held a fundraiser for Obama at his house more than a decade ago, 1995 to be exact. And Bill Ayers contributed money to Obama's reelection campaign in 2001 (how suspicious that a democrat would contribute to the campaign of a local democratic representative).

When Bill Ayers was a radical, he helped plant bombs in protest of the Vietnam War, most notably at the Pentagon and in Times Square. Most of the bombs planted were accompanied by announcements to assure that only property was destroyed rather than lives. That didn't always work. Some people were injured by the Weathermen, some killed. This group also broke LSD afficionado Tim Leary out of prison. Bill Ayers is an asshole, that's for damn sure, but he is an irrelevant asshole, and he is a sell out.

If Bill Ayers were anything other than an aging yuppie, he would still be planting bombs, this time in protest of the War in Iraq. But he's not. He's no longer a radical, by all accounts he became a rather upstanding citizen in the 80's. He sold out. He works with conservatives on the very same board that McCain and Palin mention to link him with Obama. It's called the Woods Fund Board and it's part of the Annenberg Foundation.

Maybe he figured out after he was forced to turn himself in in 1980 that he could work from the inside, infiltrate the system and "bring it down." Or maybe he's just like all the other activists from the 60's and 70's who woke up one morning, shaved the beard, took a shower, put on a suit, and became a yuppie.

Either way the link between Obama and Ayers is tangential at best, that's why the announcers in McCain's commercials put so much emphasis on "he held a fundraiser at this domestic terrorist's house," "he launched his political career at the house of Bill Ayers." That's all there is to go on.

The bottom line is that Obama is a liberal democrat. And Ayers is a yuppie liberal. They run in the same circles. That's all.

So why are we discussing Bill Ayers and not Rev. Wright? The connection between Obama and Rev. Wright is far stronger than his connection with Bill Ayers, and the rhetoric from Wright is more inflammatory than anything Ayers has said in the last five years (go back to 2001 for Ayers' quote about not regretting setting bombs and wishing he'd done more).

Well, lots of people are asking that question, and our old buddy Charles Krauthammer has the answer.

"McCain had his chance back in April when the North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included the linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright. John McCain in his infinite wisdom, and with his overflowing sense of personal rectitude, joined the braying mob in denouncing that perfectly legitimate ad, saying it had no place in any campaign. In doing so, McCain unilaterally disarmed himself, rendering off-limits Obama's associations, an issue that even Hillary Clinton addressed more than once."

Also, if John McCain started going after Barack Obama on his relationship with Rev. Wright, the Obama-Biden campaign has a ready-made response ad right here:

Speaking of gone from the business, this has turned out to be a bi-polar market at best.  You couldn't have convinced me of the various pressures made by this market on so many levels.  Being in Sales I rely on credit and I never thought this credit problem would affect me.  Well I received an Email last night from American Express telling me they had reduced my credit limits!  I have never heard of such a thing.  Especially with a mid 700 credit score and no late payments ever.  I am finally getting the hand slap from the creditors for leveraging everything.  My degree is in Finance so I understand how to keep my money and use somebody else's money to get what you want.  Apparently Wall Street doesn't like my technique.  So much for American Express being the company that helps small businesses.

If I were a betting man, and I am, I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that American Express will lose about 30% of it's value over the next year or two.  Maybe more.  The reason is after my phone call to customer support the operator told me they were reducing the credit limits on most of their small business accounts.  Let's wait for after the end of the year and Christmas shopping and then start buying Puts on these companies.  You don't even need to buy in the money options.  You will make money on this.  Just note that any losses are your responsibility and any wins are mine. 

This is just a sign of the times.  Much of this volatility will subside after the election.  Until then hold your hands up high, scream at the top of your lungs, and enjoy the roller coaster.  I know I will!  I also know I will ride it again and again.  Now is the time for big money to be made.  Let's go make it together.

How can Iron Dog Champion Todd Palin continue to exhibit such superior manhood to men who follow Great Leader Obama? How can he appear at a barbecue at the Moosehead Trail Trading Post in Palmyra on Saturday afternoon and then appear at another barbecue at noon on Sunday at Harry’s Motor Sports in Presque Isle. No reactionary counter-revolutionary can do so much and care for his children without the aid of performance enhancing drugs.

Take comfort loyal followers of Great Leader Obama, the party will investigate this superhuman effort even if we have to send an apparatchik to scoop his pee pee out of a urinal to confirm he is juicing!

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Some of the pages are pretty rough, right now I am just trying to get them into the right format and mapped correctly then I will finish working on the content. Thanks to everyone that does read them though I appreciate it!

The real issue and BIG question here: Will there be election to happen at all?

>Michelle Obama, Bernardine Dohrn, and Sidley & Austin

"Michelle Obama joined Sidley & Austin as an associate in the fall of 1988. She had previously been a summer associate at Sidley & Austin—evidently in the summer of 1987.

Did Michelle Obama and Bernardine Dohrn work together? Did they know each other at Sidley? When and how did they come to know each other?"

These anti-worker counter revolutionaries will plumb any depth to tie Great Leader Obama to communist domestic terrorists even if they must attack the terrorist wife of liberational terrorist William Ayers; Great Leader Obama's political mentor! Pathetic punks!

Brooks observes that modern conservatives like Buckley, Kirk and Will shared a disdain for the violent, ignorant masses as articulated in Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and the Federalist Papers, coupled with “a celebration of urbane values, sophistication and the rigorous and constant application of intellect.”

They detested the Mob.

They were anti-populist and anti-egalitarian, in culture as much as in politics. 

In short, they were elitists in the literal sense, and proud of it.

These Edmund Burke-inspired conservative elitists became the intellectual leaders of the mid-20th century Republican Party, critiquing not only the Democratic Party’s foreign and domestic policies, but also its post-Chicago Convention embrace of the youth culture of the 1960s. 

Unlike their counter-parts on the Left, they wore their hair neat and short, they wore ties and jackets not tee-shirts and jeans, they preferred classical music to rock and roll, whiskey to marijuana, and John Milton to Allen Ginsberg.  In George F. Wills’ words, they valued “the sober side of the Enlightenment.”

Now, Brooks notes, the Republican Party has rejected these urbane and elitist values, as well as the class of urban and sophisticated people with whom these values are associated. 

As Brooks acknowledges, “the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts” and has become the party of the uneducated, the rural, the crude and unsophisticated.

In other words, the Party of the Mob.

“Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all -- men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking,” Brooks writes. “Now those attributes bow down before the common touch” and “a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.”

David Brooks is not the only conservative of the Buckley, Kirk, and Will mold who is in mourning because of the current state of the Republican Party, as indicated by the selection of self-described hockey mom and friend of Joe Sixpack, Sarah Palin. 

George F. Will has called Palin “obviously not qualified to be President.”  Similar, or more severe, criticisms of Palin have come from conservatives David Frum, Charles Krauthammer, and Kathleen Parker.  On television, you can see the same despair that Brooks articulates in his Times column on the face of David Gergan and in the stupefied expression of Tucker Carlson.

Brooks attempts to fix the blame for the ugly transformation of the Republican Party and the death of his urbane, sober, and elitist version of conservativism to the Party's tactical decision to engage in “class warfare” against the wealthy and sophisticated. “This expulsion has had many causes,” he writes, “But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare.”

I think Brooks has let the Republican Party  -- as well as his fellow conservatives and himself – off far too easily.

In my view, the end of modern conservatism and the triumph of the mob rule in the Republican Party began with the “Southern Strategy” – which capitalized on white rejection of, and hostility toward, the Democratic Party’s embrace of the civil rights movement.

After a Democratic Congress and Democratic President forced the Southern states to integrate in the early 1960s and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the Republican Party warmly welcomed into its ranks every racist in country, from Strom Thurmond to Jesse Helms to Trent Lott, along with their white popularist resentment and anti-elite rhetoric.

Politically, the result was a Republican stranglehold across the South and a series of Republican electoral victories in national elections.

But the Republican Party paid a steep cultural price to become the political home of the nation’s white racists -– because the culture of white racism and resentment eventually took over the Party and became not only its “base” but its defining core.

And so when George W. Bush’s ratings tanked, the Republican Party had to “energize” this core to overcome its falling popularity with other groups.

Yet as this base was “energized” -– for example, by the selection of Palin as vice president and by Palin’s inflammatory rhetoric –- other groups were driven away.  As Brooks points out, “Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, Northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone. The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1.”

And as the Republican Party ever more desperately relied on the “energy” of its base, it lost control over the racism and resentment that made them become Republicans in the first place.

David Brooks’ mourning for conservatism and the Republican Party is based on his fear of the mob that the Republican Party has become. 

He knows that the controlling emotions at McCain-Palin rallies are now fear and rage.  He knows that people have yelled “Terrorist!” and “Kill Him!”  when Obama’s name is mentioned.

He also knows that McCain cannot control the mob that the Republican Party has become, and that the demagogue Sarah Palin would like to inflame its rage and resentment even further.

As David Gergan said on CNN on Thursday, “This -- I think one of the most striking things we've seen now in the last few day. We've seen it in a Palin rally. We saw it at the McCain rally today. And we saw it to a considerable degree during the rescue package legislation. There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence. I think we're not far from that. … ‘

In the end, what is so profoundly disturbing for Brooks -- as well as for George F. Will, David Frum, Charles Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker and David Gergan -- is that they are now all members of the Party of the Mob -- that they helped to create.

Fire in the Night
The Weathermen tried to kill my family.
30 April 2008

"...Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family’s life, there was never any doubt who was behind it. Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The same cell had bombed my house, writes Ron Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. And in late November that year, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine Dohrn, [William] Ayers’s wife, promised more bombings.

As the association between Obama and Ayers came to light, it would have helped the senator a little if his friend had at least shown some remorse. But listen to Ayers interviewed in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, of all days: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Translation: “We meant to kill that judge and his family, not just damage the porch.” When asked by the Times if he would do it all again, Ayers responded: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”

This capitalist running dog's bitter need for revenge on those who tried to kill his family is no excuse to not fully support Great Leader Obama! As the Great Leader has said, though Comrade Ayers may have been one of Great Leader's first political mentors, they were never really close friends. Thus, you shall be instructed by Great Leader's statement of denial in spite of all contrary evidence!

I know I wrote in December 2007 that I expected a 9,000 DOW and believed that an 8,000 Dow is where I said it should be... but 7,500 is panic and that is what I am seeing around the world... people are afraid... plain and simple.

DO NOT sell you 401K or other funds now... it is far too late for you to do that... your best bet is to hold on and try to read and watch something other than economic news... at least until AFTER the election.

I am working on my economic predictions for the rest of 2008 and 2009... and in some cases even into 2010. I should release that November 5 or 6, AFTER the Elections... there is nothing good in store... except that we will know more about where our Government is taking us... and at least THAT will restore some stability to the financial markets in the USA and give a good indication of the future of the economic health of the Country.

You will see great swings in the market... mostly down for now... but you will get high upswings as well... do not take any of these seriously at this point... we really are at about the right pricing given the full economic data....

Additionally you will see a more bad economic news and then a few good pieces... but overall it is glum out there... so stop reading things like this and others and concentrate on what is important to you.. your life and your family... the rest will settle out soon... just not as soon as you would like.

Craig

NOTE:  This is MY OPINION. I make no assurances of this actually being the way the market will go. You should do your own research and make your own informed decisions!!!

A battle cry has gone forth. Do you hear it?

Stand up, Christians. Stand up and fight. Stand up and fight for the principles upon which the United States was founded. Stand up and fight to re-take for Christ the ground lost as our country has passed more and more laws and stood for more and more values which do not represent Him. We each must do our part now that God may be honored as God in our midst. The closing remarks from John McCain’s 9/5/08 Republican National Convention speech hold the rallying cry for our nation:

“I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you're disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

I'm going to fight for my cause every day as your President. I'm going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank Him: that I'm an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on earth, and with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach. Fight with me. Fight with me.

Fight for what's right for our country.
Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.
Fight for our children's future.
Fight for justice and opportunity for all.
Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.
Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Thank you, and God Bless you.”

It is no coincidence that the Lord had me compose the song, STAND UP, in 2004 with the exact words in the chorus as uttered by McCain in this speech. “Stand up, stand up, stand up & fight. Stand up, stand up, stand up & fight.” This is God’s work. It is His cry to all of us. It marks the current time in history.

If we love our country, if we love our Lord, then we must stand up and fight for our country to be rebuilt on His principles, His values and for control to be voted out of the hands of those who believe their way is superior to God’s.

If God is real, then He will not be mocked. If we want the blessings He desires to provide, we must be under His Lordship. This means doing whatever we can to ensure the laws of our land represent how He would rule. We do not decide arbitrarily what we think God might want. We do not decide how He is. HE IS! We know what honors Him because He has told us – clearly – in His Word, the Bible.

Many of us have been gripped with a bout of what might be called suburban complacency - a passivity which comes from living in a way which attempts to remove us from life’s harsher realities. We seek after leisure and comfort as our ultimate goal. We control the temperature in our homes and cars. We eliminate contact with soil so we won’t get dirty by installing pavement and sidewalks. We are grouchy when inconvenienced by storms or illness.

We have forgotten Who is in control (and it is not us). We have forgotten we were created for work. We have forgotten freedom has never been free and we have forgotten the true purpose of our lives is to be ambassadors who represent our King and His Way not our own.

We can do nothing without God’s power. Nothing. It is God who is in control, God who decides, God who causes, God who effects. It is He who enables, He who breaks open, He who makes the way. Everything is by His power, not our strength; His blessing, not our right; His provision, not our self-sufficiency.

Without God’s blessing upon us, we can expect the opposite of His goodness. Famine, wasteland, wilderness and death are the result.

Now famine may not look the same in this generation as in generations past because most of us are not farmers. Farmers know who ultimately is in control of their crops. They can plow, fertilize, sow, tend, weed and water, but only God determines the harvest’s actual outcome because it is He who controls the weather.

Nothing has changed. God remains in control of our “crops” (our financial well-being). Consider recent turmoil in the financial markets. God is allowing us to experience consequences for our choices. God is shaking things up. He is showing we cannot rely on human wisdom for our provision. We must come back to reliance on Him. He alone is God. Either we are for Him or we are not. We decide. There are tangible consequences for our choice.

We stand at the brink, at the moment of decision. Over the past forty years, our culture (with the support of ungodly legislation) increasingly has affirmed lifestyle choices which reflect a way which is not His. There are many, many believers in the United States. If each of us would rise up, do our part and make our voice heard on God’s behalf, the legislative landscape of our country would change, ground would be re-taken in a way which honors Him and we could expect His blessings in increase.

Yet, so many believers remain silent, undecided or confused. They do not want to get involved, can’t be bothered, or are afraid of backlash from others if they vote God’s heart. Are we so afraid of offending, so focused on our own comfort that we have become too lazy, complacent and risk-adverse for the battle? We can pray and complain all we want, but regardless of God’s supernatural power and favor, if we do not stand up and fight this fight, voting as He would, there will be no victory. Moses, Joshua, Gideon and even Jehoshaphat all were promised success in their battles. Yet God did not grant them a supernatural victory without their active participation. They had to stand up, seek His strategy and fight.

It is a lie that our votes do not count – even in states where the electoral votes never seem to go to the candidate of our choice. Our founding Fathers created this to be a land where every voice can be heard. The opposition has taken advantage of these rights. We must do the same.

It is correct that one vote has little effect on a nationwide election, but 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 equals a group and as more and more individual votes are combined it becomes a movement which can and will have a culture-shifting effect.

Today, we live in a country where several minorities have stood up for almost 40 years fighting for what they believe. Their efforts have swayed the laws of our land in ways which dishonor God. In the meantime, the Christian majority has remained mostly silent, except for murmuring amongst themselves. It is time for this silent majority to be silent no longer. It is time to stand up and fight. It is up to us as the new “minority” to stand up and re-take the land for Him which has been lost.

It is a lie that we are too small of a group to gain the victory. Throughout history God has delighted in giving victory specifically to small groups with seemingly no hope of success, who are faithful to Him and His causes. These miraculous victories serve His greater purpose: to reveal the reality of His existence to a doubting world. He is unchanging. What He has done before, He will do again.

This is not a battle of traditional weapons. It is not a battle where we must physically kill or destroy. It is not even a battle of words. It is a battle of actions walked out according to God’s strategy, in a way which honors who He is (and the laws of His Kingdom). We must put aside our preference for personal comfort and our fear of conflict. We must stand for truth even if it offends. (Certainly the minorities who have made inroads did not concern themselves with whether their positions offended us.) We must step out in faith and stand up in an honorable way, while never stooping to tactics which dishonor God. We must remember either we are servants of the Most High God and members of His restoration army or we are not on His side.

On November 4th we have an obligation to vote God’s heart – not our own. If we will stand up and do this, the majority which has long been silent, finally will have spoken and the sound will echo forth like the voice and trumpets of Joshua’s army. The walls of our country which, in recent years have been built on the wrong foundation, will come tumbling down and restoration will begin.

The battle cry is STAND UP. The place and time to start: our votes on November 4th. The mission: VOTE God’s heart, not our own for His victory, by His power. In the spirit, passion, conviction and tenacity of Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, M.L. King, Jr., Reagan, George W. Bush and so many others who have gone before, it is our turn to stand up and fight.

Elizabeth Burgard Fulgaro is an author, composer, speaker and singer whose passion is to help believers understand God’s purpose and find their purpose in God’s. She has a ministry encouraging and equipping our troops and their families through Eagles Nest Foundation. Her current project is Call To STAND UP, helping Christians understand who they are in Christ and the obligation on November 4th to VOTE God’s heart. For more information and materials to wake up others to understand, stand up and fight visit: http://www.calltostandup.com

I'm not too clear whether the goal of 45 new nuclear power plants will be partially achieved by speeding up the regulatory process for the 24 reactor proposals already in the process. I also don't know if 45 by 2030 is compatible with how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission works and the usual occurrence of long building delays on nuclear-electric facilities. Will the government be footing the bill for these? Or will nuclear power plants somehow become more attractive than relatively easier and in some ways cheaper coal and natural gas electricity generation?

While this post may seem more like a complaint about the skimpiness of the candidates' published energy plans, I really did this to raise questions about the historical and economic obstacles to increased nuclear electricity generation in the United States. The pro side of this debate will have to make the case that nuclear energy is worth putting aside or somehow handicapping American coal and natural gas. I suppose one could just say that nuclear power deserves to be on more equal footing with the country's other sources of electricity, but the many reasons why it is not are obvious and well-documented.

Research links to follow hopefully later today.

As you all know, I'm "TeaCentric" and somehow always manage to tie something back to tea. So, yesterday as I was sipping and sampling our newest blend, I had a thought about the upcoming Presidential election. Yes, Yes, I've been glued to the tube watching the debates just like everyone else, but my thoughts drifted back to tea. I wondered... if either party was a tea, what would they be?

So, I was Tweeting around Twitter and posed 2 questions to my followers:

1. If Obama were a tea, what would he be?
2. If McCain were a tea, what would he be?

We had some interesting replies. And since Twitter only allows you 140 characters, the responses were short, sweet and to the point. Just the way I like it. I suggested that McCain could be a Lapsang souchong - steeped well past 5 minutes.

Lapsang souchong's flavor is strong and smoky, similar to the smell of a campfire or pipe tobacco. To me Lapsang souchong smells like bacon. This tea generally produces a strong reaction - either extremely positive or strongly negative. One man Twittered that he loved Lapsang and therefore could not sanction it as a McCain tea. His suggestion? "McCain would be a cheap brand of black tea, with chemical additives." Ouch. I guess we know how he will vote.

I've no doubt that John McCain is probably a coffee drinker, but if he were a tea I could also see him as a regular English/Irish Breakfast or Keemun, given his roots and background. John was born in Panama and grew up in Northern Virginia. He is of Scot-Irish, Anglo-Irish and English descent. If he were a blend, my vote is for classic Earl Grey.

On the flip side I posed the same question about Obama. I suggested a Green tea or Herbal infusion like a Rooibos given his African roots. The tweets that came back ranged from: "Obama: maybe a Yunnan Gold, or a yummy Puerh" to "I think Obama would be a white tea (ironically) - very smooth and crisp but still with some interesting depth under it."

While I absolutely don't see Obama as Pu'erh, I thought it was interesting to see how others thought.  Barak Obama was born and grew up for a time in both Hawaii and Jakarta which says to me that he has an overall appreciation for tea, especially tea blends with fruit. I can see him sipping our BoraBora (green tea with passionfruit) or Makiki (named after my old neighborhood in Honolulu) which is a green tea, pineapple, papaya blend. When in need of a caffeine boost, a smooth, silky Ceylon blended with currant or blueberry. In any case, the tea would have to be organic.

This isn't a political forum, but I have to think...

Should the next President be some who slams a man for drinking Organic Berry Tea or a man who supports and drinks organic tea?  Would it be that bad for our next President to discuss important economic and global matters with friend or foe over tea?  Remember: Tea is second only to water in worldwide consumption and the majority of the world outside the United States drinks tea.

No matter your political party: Please Vote! (and drink tea!)

(Thank you to all the peeps who tweeted with me on Twitter yesterday!)

** Below are some links to articles:

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/08/01/team-mccain-slams-obama-for-drinking-organic-honest-tea/

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/12/obamas-cup-of-t.html

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/obama-organic-tea-44080108

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/12/30/clinton-responds-experience-goes-beyond-drinking-tea/