My Substitute Reality -You're just jealous cause the little voices only talk to me-

Wednesday August 5, 2009

White House asking you to report your neighbors?

Filed under: Politics — don @ 6:42 pm

That sounds like something you would only see in the movies or in Germany in the 30’s but guess what folks, it’s real and it’s happening in the US. Here’s the link to the White House blog that asks you to report anything that sounds “fishy” but they don’t really define “fishy”. And in case they take it down soon here’s the actual text of the strange part:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Here’s a link to an article from someone else who’s a little upset about this.

Monday August 3, 2009

Is Yahoo Biased?

Filed under: Politics — don @ 5:14 pm

I’ve made a point here before that Yahoo is biased. I think I’ve found another example. Here’s a picture of their front page talking about Lou Dobbs and the Obama Birth Certificate story. The thing that strikes me odd is in the headline they say that even Ann Coulter has criticized him yet when you read the story there is only one line that says basically the same thing. They want you to believe that Ann Coulter is criticizing him for the birther story yet there’s nothing to back that up. Seems odd to me.

Yahoo Story

And the story itself:

NEW YORK – He’s become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and hosted a show that seemed to contradict the network’s “no bias” brand. And on top of all that, his ratings are slipping.

How does Lou Dobbs keep his job?

It’s not a simple answer. CNN insists it is standing behind Dobbs, despite calls for his head from critics of his reporting on “birthers” — those who believe President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States despite convincing evidence to the contrary. The “birthers” believe Obama was born in Kenya, and thus not eligible to be president.

Dobbs’ work has been so unpopular that even Ann Coulter has criticized him.

Dobbs has acknowledged that he believes Obama was born in Hawaii. But he gives airtime to disbelievers, and has said the president should try to put questions fully to rest by releasing a long version of his birth certificate. He’s twice done stories on his show after the public leak of a memo from CNN U.S. President Jon Klein saying that “it seems this story is dead.”

Klein said those stories were OK because they were about the controversy and weren’t actually questioning the facts. But critics suggest Klein is parsing words, that even raising the issue lends it credence.

Joked The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes: it “explains their upcoming documentary: `The World: Flat. We Report — You Decide.'”

Dobbs hasn’t made it any easier by using his radio show to fight back at critics, who he called “limp-minded, lily-livered lefty lemmings.” He considered going on CNN tormentor Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show to thank him (O’Reilly says the birthers are wrong, but he defended Dobbs’ right to talk about it).

“He’s embarrassed himself and he’s embarrassed CNN,” said Brooks Jackson, a former CNN correspondent. “And that’s not a good thing for any network that wants to be seen as a reputable, nonpartisan news organization.”

So who needs the headache?

Klein said Dobbs does a smart newscast that explores issues that get little in-depth attention elsewhere, such as trade with China, health care funding and the stimulus plan. He suggested Dobbs’ CNN work is unfairly lumped in with his unrelated radio show, and that he’s judged on the show he did a couple of years ago, when Dobbs became a political target for his campaigning against illegal immigration.

The two men sat down after last year’s election to make changes, aware that the anti-immigrant Dobbs’ image ran counter to the brand CNN was trying to create. CNN calls itself the network of unbiased reporting compared to conservative commentators on Fox and liberal ones at MSNBC.

Since then, Dobbs has been doing a relatively straight newscast, Klein said.

“He brings more than three decades of experience reporting and broadcasting the news,” Klein said, “and that’s very valuable to a news network.”

Through a spokeswoman, Dobbs said he would not comment for this story. But he is a CNN original. Except for a two-year break a decade ago, he’s been with CNN virtually from the network’s beginning. Much of that time was spent anchoring a business newscast that made him hugely influential in the business community and immensely valuable to CNN. Old-timers say the desire of advertisers to be connected with Dobbs and Larry King essentially funded the network for years.

Dobbs is considered among the smartest people at CNN, and also the most personally intimidating. For whatever reason — the rise of CNBC as a competitor or a sense that opinionated hosts were the future for cable news — Dobbs morphed from a business anchor to a polarizing populist.

That version of Dobbs seemed better suited for HLN, formerly CNN Headline News, which has an opinionated prime-time lineup led by Nancy Grace. But reruns of Dobbs’ show didn’t do well on HLN, which is more female oriented. Klein said he and Dobbs determined Dobbs was more valuable as a reporter than as a commentator.

The 861,000 people who tune into his 7 p.m. ET newscast on a typical night are down 20 percent from last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. He’s still ahead of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in that hour.

“It’s very cutthroat,” said Janet Keefer, a Drake University journalism professor and former CNN producer. “As long as he isn’t doing anything that’s driving viewers away, they’ll keep him.”

Fear could be another factor keeping Dobbs and CNN together.

Dobbs has never been shy about fighting for his point of view. His feud with former CNN chief Rick Kaplan spilled out on the air in 1999 when he objected to having his “Moneyline” show pre-empted for a speech by President Clinton about the Columbine school shootings. “CNN President Rick Kaplan wants us to return to Littleton,” he said. Dobbs soon left CNN and returned after Kaplan left.

With Dobbs hosting his own weekday radio show, the thought of him launching anti-CNN missiles every day has to be disconcerting.

It’s also not hard to imagine Fox News chief Roger Ailes coveting Dobbs as a prize for his struggling business news network, offering reports to the main news channel as well.

Organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and Media Matters for America have called for CNN to take Dobbs off the air; he’s proven a galvanizing and attention-getting force for his critics. At CNN, they’re hoping the controversy dies down with the heat of August.

For that, they’ll need Lou Dobbs’ help.

Wednesday July 29, 2009

Sauce!

Filed under: Food — don @ 6:41 pm

What do you do when you have a plethora of tomatoes? Of course you make salsa(done), salads(done), and soup(done). Well you should also make some tomato sauce, so that’s what I did today. It was a slow simmer sauce and it was yummy. I turned it into a spaghetti sauce.

P7290063P7290064

Of course!

Filed under: Politics — don @ 5:25 pm

What kind of people are we that we would ask our elected officials to actually read a bill before they vote on it? Well John Conyers(D – MI) agrees with me. Why should they read it when it’s so much easier to just sign it?

Does this bother anyone else?

Maybe it’s just me but if the bill is too complicated for a lawyer like Conyers then maybe they shouldn’t sign it.

Tuesday July 28, 2009

How’s that Mr. Obama?

Filed under: Politics — don @ 4:16 pm

Here’s a quote from Barack Obama in 2004.

When you rush these budgets that are a foot high and nobody has any idea what’s in them and nobody has read them…. It gets rushed through without any clear deliberations or debate then these kinds of things happen and I think this is in some ways what happened to the Patriot Act. I mean you remember, there was no real debate about that. It was so quick after 9/11 that it was introduced that people felt very intimidated by the administration.

Now everywhere it says Patriot Act replace it with either Stimulus Bill, or TARP, or Universal Health Care. Hmmmmmmm. Who was he talking about?

Saturday July 25, 2009

A Note From Pamela Geller

Filed under: Life,Personal,Politics — don @ 10:51 am

I saw this on a friend’s Facebook wall. It says pretty much what I’ve been trying to say.

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 – 15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demanded and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we knew could never pay back? Why? We learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has “loaned” two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.

Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of “We the People,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x 10. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)

Mr.. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change…radical change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning.

I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker.. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown shirts” would bully them into submission.

And then he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world.

He did it with a compliant media – Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and…change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.

Don’t forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years – a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency – it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.

Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both.. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe – and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think I am.

About the author via Google….

Pamela “Atlas” Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child, but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School.

After 9/11, Atlas had the veil of oblivion violently lifted from her consciousness and immersed herself in the education and understanding of geopolitics, Islam, terror, foreign affairs and imminent threats the mainstream media and the government wouldn’t cover or discuss.

Friday July 24, 2009

Fresh Tomato Soup

Filed under: Food — don @ 2:15 pm

Our tomato plants are producing quite prolifically now so I decided it was time to try a homemade tomato soup. Here’s the pictures of my efforts. It tasted excellent when I was done.

TomatoesIn the potBoil it downThe food millIn the food millMake a rouxTomato base before adding to rouxBring to boil for thickeningYum
I didn’t think the soup was quite thick enough so I added a little corn starch dissolved in water to help it out.

Here’s the recipe I used.

Wednesday July 22, 2009

Fundamentally Transforming America

Filed under: Life,Personal — don @ 4:01 pm

Five days before the election Barack Obama made a speech. In that speech he made a statement that many of us didn’t really listen to. Here it is.

If what he has done in the last 6 months doesn’t chill you to your bones you are either not paying attention or you advocate making this country something that it has never been and was never intended to be. The framers of our constitution are rolling over in their graves from what this man is doing.

If you are in agreement with what he’s doing I can’t help you but if you don’t want the kind of “Change” that you’re seeing I ask that you start watching The Glenn Beck Show on Fox at 5 pm Eastern. You might just get your eyes opened.

Notice I tagged this as personal and life and not politics. This goes beyond politics. This goes to the core of what America will become if we do nothing.

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