Tuesday, June 3, 2014

PLEASE STOP HELPING US: HOW LIBERALS MAKE IT HARDER FOR BLACKS TO SUCCEED

PLEASE STOP HELPING US: HOW LIBERALS MAKE IT HARDER FOR BLACKS TO SUCCEED

As usual, there is a deluge of information supporting the notion that black Americans should be voting for politically conservative candidates. First, here’s the summary of a book by Jason L. Riley:

Why is it that so many efforts by liberals to lift the black underclass not only fail but often harm the intended beneficiaries?

In Please Stop Helping Us, Jason L. Riley examines how well-intentioned welfare programs are in fact holding black Americans back. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they price a disproportionate number of blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education is intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer black college graduates than would otherwise exist. And so it goes with everything from soft-on-crime laws, which make black neighborhoods more dangerous, to policies that limit school choice out of a mistaken belief that charter schools and voucher programs harm the traditional public schools that most low-income students attend.

In theory these efforts are intended to help the poor—and poor minorities in particular. In practice they become massive barriers to moving forward.

Please Stop Helping Us lays bare these counterproductive results. People of good will want to see more black socio-economic advancement, but in too many instances the current methods and approaches aren’t working. Acknowledging that is an important first step.

Next, a few related links supporting the premise…

Liberals Admit to Destruction of African Americans

Government Destines Black Children to Poverty

Black Abortion Key to Reducing Poverty, Says Mayor

‘Intact Family’ Nearly Extinct among Blacks

Image credit: communities.washingtontimes.com



STEM: KIDS, CODE AND A HACKATHON

The future if education hangs in the balance. Forbes explains. 

OracleVoice: Kids, Code, And The Future Of Technology  

http://onforb.es/1iPuPDB 

Rekindling 9/11-type terrorist attacks, Barack Obama style

Rekindling 9/11-type terrorist attacks, Barack Obama style

The Mother of all Psyops

By Judi McLeod  June 2, 2014 | Comments| Print friendly | Subscribe

Brace for it: U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on a speaking tour to equal the kind of money hauled in by Hillary Clinton’s public speaking engagements.

Bergdahl traded by Obama for the release of the Taliban’s five most dangerous members who is “ashamed of America” will grouse his way to fame.

If Michelle had a son, he’d sound just like Bowe.  If Obama had the perfect partner to match his big bad America rants, it would be BB.

The perfect fop, all Sgt. Bergdahl really wanted to be was a ballerina,  or to sign up for the French Foreign Legion, which rejected him before joining the U.S. Army.

“Sgt Bowe Bergdahl studied ballet and attempted to join the French Foreign Legion before joining the US Army.”  (The Telegraph, June 1, 2014)

Some guys get parachuted into dangerous territory.  Thanks to Obama, Sgt. Bergdahl gets to pirouette his way through life.

Festooned with yellow ribbons, the Telegraph-described “little mountain town”  of Hailey “in the rural state of Idaho” from which Bergdahl hails is preparing a hero’s welcome for America’s unlikeliest POW who went AWOL (in this case, Absent Without Loyalty).

Banners ready greet Bergdahl read “Bowe is free at last!” and “Our prayers have been answered!”

For sure, the virulently anti-America Bowe is an answer to Obama’s prayers.

Woodsman Bob Bergdahl, who during the five-year-long campaign for his son’s release, lashed out at Obama, could be the only living Obama lasher who got a televised bear hug from the tongue lashed in the White House Rose Garden.

With frustrations mounting, father Bergdahl reportedly even tried to reach out to the Taliban directly.

He needn’t have bothered as Junior got there first and the first thing he did was to teach the Taliban badminton.

And get this sob sister description of his supposed struggle to speak English after five years in Taliban activity by the sympathetic Telegraph: “Sgt Bergdahl is reportedly struggling to speak English after five years in captivity and his father caught Mr Obama’s aides offguard on Saturday when he began to speak Pashto before the television cameras at the White House.”

English words Sgt. Bergdahl probably hasn’t forgotten: “I hate America”.

With Obama beaming on, “I’m your father, Bowe,” Bergdahl senior said in the language of his son’s captors.

Scores of American troops held captive for years in Viet Nam had no trouble speaking English upon their return home.

This is the tawdry, psyops tale of how Sgt. Bergdahl got to Pakistan.  Lost in the telling of long tales, Bowe Bergdahl was never captured—he merely walked away from his base.

In other words, he merely deserted.

Deploying to Afghanistan in 2009, he walked away from his brothers in arms the very same year:

“These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid,” he wrote in an email to his parents on June 27, 2009.” (The Telegraph)

“Three days later, according to Rolling Stone, the 23-year-old soldier simply walked off his base in Patika province, carrying a knife, his diary and a small camera.

“He was captured almost immediately and - despite a frantic search by US troops, drones and helicopters - smuggled into Pakistan by Taliban fighters.

“A Pakistani militant commander told AFP that Sgt Bergdahl engaged with his captors, teaching them how to play badminton and inviting them to celebrate Easter and Christmas with them.

“He also reportedly grew fond of kawa, an Afghan green tea, helped with the cooking and became fluent in the Afghan languages of Pashto and Dari.”

Was it while Sgt. Bergdahl was enjoying his green tea, that US troops died during the frantic search for him?

“At least six Americans were killed trying to find him.” (Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit, June 1, 2014)

It took the proverbial king’s ransom and a scandal-beleaguered Obama too get Sgt. Bergdahl released.

“The Taliban’s demands were high: they would exchange one low-ranking US soldier for five senior Afghan fighters being held at Guantánamo Bay. (The Telegraph)

“This week, Mr Obama agreed. The Guantánamo detainees were released into the custody of Qatar while Sgt Bergdahl was handed over to American special forces near the Pakistani border.

“The young soldier, who was healthy enough to walk to the helicopter that carried him to safety, is now being treated at a hospital in Germany.

“Chuck Hagel, the US secretary of defence, said the first priority is to restore his health before American intelligence officers begin to debrief him in the hope of extracting valuable information on the Taliban.”

In good health or not, it is far more likely that Sgt. Bergdahl will be debriefing Hagel, who may soon learn that the Taliban force commander in Pakistan has a wicked overhead smash in badminton and likes goat milk in his green tea. 

Now that the horse is out of the barn, Senator John McCain, himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, is raising concerns over whether the tiny state of Qatar could prevent the former prisoners from again threatening the US.

“These are the hardest of the hardcore, these are the highest of the high risk people,” Mr McCain said. “It’s disturbing that these individuals would have the ability to re-enter the fight.” (The Telegraph)

Earth to Sen. McCain: Like all Congress members,  you were bypassed when the Taliban trade deal went down by your own president, who sooner or later will come up with a ridiculous counter that he has imposed a 1-year travel ban on the Taliban.

Remember when zero tolerance meant “We do not negotiate with terrorists?”

Now it applies to two-year-olds eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the shape of a gun and giving the proverbial kitchen sink to the Taliban.

They may be popping champagne corks in Hailey, Idaho, but the five Obama-released “Tally-ban” are laughing and taking care of business in Qatar.



Monday, June 2, 2014

Cook: Calhoun prom assault

Cook: Calhoun prom assault was never about beer | Mobile TFP

This is not about alcohol.

It's not about how much beer the teenagers drank after the prom. It's not about how much liquor or wine they had with them at their resort cabin party in the North Georgia woods.

This is about sexual assault.

And aggravated sexual battery.

It's about three men -- 18 years old, graduating seniors -- who police say committed sexual battery against an 18-year-old woman. A classmate. A graduating senior, just like them.

It's about whatever wicked pleasure they may have found by inserting some foreign object into her, so badly she was hospitalized.

"I've been here for 23 years," Gilmer County Sheriff Stacy Nicholson said. "Her injuries were substantial."

Beer doesn't cause that. Drinking wine on prom night doesn't cause that.

Something far more insidious does.

Something far more evil.

So as the Gilmer County sexual assault story unfolds, as more teenagers are arrested, as the evidence from the rape kit is released to the public, don't let what this tragedy is about become confused with what it's not.

Don't fall for the sleight-of-hand that this is about beer, or drunken kids, or unsupervised prom parties, even though the media may try and sell it to you.

At Wednesday's news conference, the sheriff laid out the facts in a customary way, then took questions from a crowd of reporters.

Fifteen questions went by before anyone asked about the victim.

Reporters asked about beer, and what kind, and how much. Who supplied it. Was there some mystery drug used to intoxicate the victim?

"Can you tell us how much alcohol we're talking about?" one reporter asked.

It was scandalous and tabloid-esque, taking nearly five minutes and 15 questions before anyone asked about the woman who'd been so victimized she wound up in the hospital.

Near the end of the news conference, one reporter asked the sheriff what lessons could be learned from this.

"Teenagers and alcohol just do not mix," he said.

Sheriff, you are right, so right. But this case is about something else entirely, and emphasizing the beer details only diminishes the real violence present in sexual assault.

When there's a murder, or homicide, or robbery, no one talks about whether the shooters were drunk or how much beer they drank.

It is only within rape where such distortions occur, even though research shows that alcohol is present in about half of all sexual assaults ... and half of all violent crimes, as well.

So when we liquify sexual assault, we feed into the dangerous and favorite narrative of misogynists everywhere: that drunken women are consenting, no-really-means-yes women, or that drunken women who cry rape are really just dealing with morning-after regret.

"One reason this ... is so infuriating is that rapists tend to target drunk women specifically because they know that people who are too drunk to remember what's going on make really bad witnesses in court," writes Slate's Amanda Marcotte. "We don't have an epidemic of women exploiting men's drunkenness to get them thrown in in jail, but we do have an epidemic of rapists exploiting women's drunkenness to get away with their crimes."

Know what causes rape?

Rape mentality causes rape.

And while alcohol can be a preferred weapon used by rapists, the foremost question we need to be asking ourselves as a society: What causes rape mentality, especially at a time when one in five college women is sexually assaulted?

"Most often, it's by someone she knows," reads a recent White House study.

This is not about alcohol; it's about something wedged into the male mind, something premeditated that says it's OK to sexually assault women. It is the pornographication of relationships: In 2013, a U.N. international study showed that 70 percent of men who admitted to raping women did so because they felt entitled.

As if they owned her body.

Such power ownership is not some gee-whiz feeling that appears from nowhere, a rape urge that falls out of the sky as five beers turn to six.

"What can you tell us about the victim?" a reporter, finally, asked the sheriff.

I'll answer: she wasn't a victim of too-much beer.

She was a victim of sexual assault.

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.



POOR BY CHOICE TO HELP THE POOR



10 THINGS SOME POOR PEOPLE DO EVERY DAY

So apparently rich people are all nutrition experts and fitness gurus . . . while the poor, God bless ‘em, are lazy couch potatoes who spend their days munching salty chips in front of reality TV shows.

I got home from work a few days ago and discovered Dave Ramsey’s article 20 Things the Rich do that the Poor Don’t, reposted from Tom Corley. I also noticed a little bit of backlash going on around the web about poor. Good summary here, a great response by Rachel Held Evans and a heartwarming article by Caryn Rivadeneria  called Things Broke People Do.

Poor people can make fun of themselves (thank you Jeff Foxworthy), or insult themselves, but rich people can get into serious trouble for trying.

“People are poor for a lot of reasons, and choice is certainly a factor, but categorically blaming poverty on lack of faith or lack of initiative is not only uninformed, it’s unbiblical”. Rachel Held Evans, What Dave Ramsey Gets Wrong About Poverty

Rachel is right. And there is a growing number of people, including myself and my family, who have become downwardly mobile to the point of voluntary poverty in order to make a difference among the global poor from the inside out. We live mostly in the first world but we live in solidarity with the one billion people on the planet who struggle like we do to make a living. We could go back anytime to our middle class existence – me as a Christian pastor and my wife as a Registered Nurse, but we would rather be missionaries who live incarnationally among the poor and are part of the solution for one of our world’s greatest challenges. There is a wonderful blessing that we have the privilege of taking from “Brother Poverty” and a theology that arises from it. But more about that another time.

Back to Dave Ramsey’s posting. Actually, we read it out aloud and our kids thought it was funny also. We are still chuckling over it.

Some thoughts:

1. Aerobic Exercise.

When I discovered Ramsey’s article, I had just completed a typical day working in the vineyard for minimum wage. I had I spent the whole day lifting taunt wires which I believe, and my aching back agrees, is serious aerobic exercise. And not only this but my pedometer told me I had walked a total of 17.5 kilometres, or 11 miles that day. My body was aching and even if I could afford to go to a gym to walk on a treadmill, I would rather sit on my ass and rest. Now my rich friends exercise at the gym but they get to do it every second day, giving their body time to recuperate. Me? I am back into it the next day and every day.

2. Junk Food.

Ok I do like a packet of potato chips but I usually only do this on Sunday afternoons with a beer and some sour cream to dip it into. Junk food is a bit too expensive for our budget so we limit it and celebrate it when those times come around. Coke or other fizzy soft drink is something we have only on Fridays with our movie. We call it “Fizzy Friday’s”. Although since our daughters brewed their own ginger beer a few weeks ago, we have not actually bought any. I do eat chocolate and like the occasion cookie/biscuit at work because it gives me energy for my labor intensive work. However, since we cannot afford to go to restaurants, our food is home-cooked and preservative-free. I bet it’s healthier than what my rich friends eat.

3. Gambling.

Apparently, the poor gamble and the rich speculate. One impoverishes families and the other crashes economies. I don’t do either. My pay check last week, due to 2 days of rain, was about US$200. I cannot afford to buy lottery tickets but I also choose not to because gambling creates a false mental future, which in turn generates an element of dissatisfaction with the present. And the Bible tells us that “contentment with godliness is great gain.” Contentment rules, and this is also why I avoid books by Christian financial advisors from the USA.

95% of Christian financial advisors who get paid large amounts to speak at megachurches do NOT mention that tithing has often been considered a heresy. The other 5% mentioned it once and were never invited back. Tallskinnykiwi

4. Rising early.

Ramsey’s list says that the wealthy get up 3 hours before work. I start work at 7:30am. Should I really get up at 4:30am? What will I gain? I am no genius but I think it is possible that the rich get up earlier because they live in exclusive gated communities which are far away from where they work and they have a long commute, giving them time to listen to audio books in their BMW’s. I walk to work because I live in a van down by the river, or more accuratey, a truck parked by the river, next to my vinegard. Yes, we SQUAT. Which is pretty common practise for other migrant workers in the orchards and vineyards around the world.

As it stands, I get up at 6am. Call me lazy if you like.

5. Audiobooks.

Unlike my comrades working retail, I am allowed to wear earphones so both my wife and I have listened to audio books while we work. We are very lucky. In the last month, she has listened to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Hugo’s Les Miserables, and The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. In the last month, I took audio courses in Spanish, German, French, Czech and Chinese. I also listened to Anna Karinina which, btw, is a very LOOOOONG book; something that you don’t realize when you cannot see the physical version. Interestingly, both Anna Karinina and Les Miserables are about people who discover that happiness is not to be found in riches and actually adopt, as in the case of Tolstoys character Constanine Dmitrich Levin, a downwardly mobile lifestyle that embraces the joy of poverty and manual labor in the fields. Hmmmmm.

6. To do lists

Actually, I just deleted this. If it works for you, keep doing it.

7. Reality TV

I have no idea about reality TV shows. We have many episodes of Dr Who on our computer and a lot of movies, but we have not had a TV for 5 years.  Our awesome flat screen TV was purchased for our kids with a Christmas gift from their grandmother in Portland, Oregon. But one day someone in church told us about a need for a flat screen TV in Burundi at a micro-credit bank called the HOPE FUND. At our children’s request, our dear TV was shipped to Africa. We do not miss it.

27% pull statistics out of their ass” Rucky, Democratic Underground

8. Speaking our Minds

Ramsay’s numbers say that 69% of the poor speak their minds and only 6% of the wealthy. Well . . . . it depends on HOW they speak their mind. Bloggers are generally wealthier than non-bloggers. But Christian book writers and publishers? I tend to think they are wealthy rather than poor. I might be wrong. But when you go to the next Christian booksellers convention, see many old trucks with gun racks are parked outside. I bet there are not many.

63% of rich people who recommend poor people read audio books are getting rich by selling audio books to poor people. Tallskinnykiwi

9. Networking

“79% of wealthy network five hours or more each month vs. 16% of poor.” Number 12, 20 Things the Rich do Every Day

This is ludicrous. Poor people don’t live in gated communities. Poor people don’t have security systems installed to keep people away. Poor people don’t join exclusive clubs. And if you study mission history you will notice that most people group movements towards God happen among the poor,  precisely because they network. Except the poor never use that word. For them, socialising and being friends is just part of their struggle and their joy.

10. Teaching our Kids

Apparently, “only 1% of the poor teach success habits to their children”. I don’t know about that but we poor teach survival skills to our children: how to defend themselves, how to live on less money, how to cook, how to hunt, how to speak in other languages, how to make and mend their clothes. Essentially, how to be independent, resilient, and able to thrive in any culture that God calls them into. We don’t use the ‘success’ language. Jesus is the model. We want our kids to fulfil their calling, to walk their path, to carry their cross, to find what God has for them and to lean into it.

“Train a child in the way he should go.” (Prov. 22.6) Who knows what way they should go? It might be the way of a yuppie but then, it might just NOT!

My concern is not that Dave Ramsey does not understand the plight of the poor, but that Dave Ramsey does not understand the call to the poor.

What do you think?

————————————————————

Previous posts on poverty:

5 things I am learning about social justice.

Poor and Poorer

Choosing to be homeless and poorE

BETRAYED BY GOVERNMENT: LIES FROM THE PRESIDENT WHO PROMISED TRANSPARENCY

In this video, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, faces the American Medical Association and the American people and promises them  in no uncertain terms that the Afordable Healthcare Act will allow them to "keep their doctor. Period...keep their insurance. Period." And we believed him. 






Sunday, June 1, 2014

SOLAR ROADWAYS: SCOTT AND JULIBRUSAW

So where innthenworkd and at what cost will this lead is. Jet sons anyone?


 Jun 2, 2010**The creators of YERT have recently announced that they are now working on a DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM about SOLAR ROADWAYS. Check out their website athttp://www.solarroadwaysfilm.com/ for more details! You can also like the film athttps://www.facebook.com/SolarRoadwaysFilm .**


** Solar Roadways has launched an Indiegogo campaign to gear up for manufacturing and they need your help! Check out their brand new prototype (April 2014) and contribute to the project's evolution here: http://j.mp/solarroadwaysigogo **

The Solar Roadways project is working to pave roads with solar panels that you can drive on. Co-founder Scott Brusaw has made some major steps forward since our first visit back in 2007, so we visited him again for an exclusive update on the project, including the first ever video recorded of the Solar Roadways prototype! For more information visit http://www.solarroadways.com . This Solar Roadway project is highlighted as one of many planet-friendly solutions in the feature film by YERT - Your Environmental Road Trip. To learn more about YERT, visithttp://yert.com . 

Flattr this video here:https://flattr.com/thing/407726/YERT-video-about-Solar-Roadways-The-Prototype

You can watch the whole YERT feature film online (including a brief section about Solar Roadways) here:http://www.yert.com/film.php .

And you can become a fan of YERT on Facebook here:http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/YERT-Your-Environmental-Road-Trip/122638781129397