TH Magazine: Persecution of Christians ... in America

Verne Strickland Blogmaster / August 17, 2013

Elisabeth Meinecke | Aug 16, 2013

From the military to the classroom, Christianity is under assault in the US. Todd Starnes reports for Townhall Magazine.

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Prepare for persecution.
That’s the message Frank Page has for evangelical Christians living in the United States. Page is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee—the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” Page said. ‘But I do believe the day is coming when churches will see outright persecution—as well as harassment and marginalization in this culture.”
Page has earned a reputation as an even-keel religious leader not prone to hyperbole. But in recent days he’s begun sounding a clarion call to his fellow Christians in the U.S.—persecution is on the horizon.
“There will be active and open persecution because of the biblical worldview of churches,” Page said. “Our culture is with increased rapidity moving towards an intolerance towards anyone who has a biblical worldview. Churches better gear up and realize the days are coming.”
And there is mounting evidence to suggest Page may be correct. In 2009, a Department of Homeland Security memorandum identified future threats to national security coming from Evangelicals and pro-life groups.
A recent Army briefing listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism. Another military officer sent a letter to subordinates warning them to be on the lookout for soldiers who support the Family Research Council and the American Family Association. The officer labeled both organizations as hate groups.
“When you have national leaders who say Baptists and other evangelicals are guilty of hate speech because of our recitation of simple scripture, then you are going to see the alienation and active persecution of churches in the United States,” Page said.
Under the Obama administration, the Pentagon launched a crackdown on Christian activity in the military. And in some cases, chaplains and Christian service members have been punished for expressing their faith.
“As one general so aptly put it—they expect us to check our religion in at the door—don’t bring that here,” Lee said. “Your armed forces, the sons and daughters of the men and women like you—are being told to hide that light under a basket.”
Among some of the high-profile attacks on religious liberty within the military were the following:
• Christian prayers were banned at graveside services at National Cemetery in Houston, unless family members signed off on the prayers in advance.
• Bibles and other religious materials were at one point banned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
• A chaplain was relieved of his command over a military chapel because he would not allow same-sex weddings to take place in the chapel.
• The Air Force censored a video created by a chaplain because it included the word “God.” The Air Force feared the word might offend Muslims and atheists. ...
...continue reading in Townhall's September issue.

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Is the cost of keeping you alive too high for obama's "death panels"?

Verne Strickland Blogmaster August 16, 2013 ObamaCare – When the cost of keeping your life is too high, the government will decide if it’s your turn to die. America’s mature citizens are at high risk of falling prey to ObamaCare’s most extreme measures. If you are 50 or older, you must take a stand NOW to protect your healthcare rights before it is too late.   Who would you choose to decide what medical care you will or will not receive? Most people defer their medical decisions to a licensed, experienced physician.   Under ObamaCare, that decision made by you may not be an option any longer. Soon, a new system will ensure that government bureaucrats will be making those decisions for you AND your doctor – the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The Independent Payment Advisory Board is a fifteen-member board, which has been placed in authority to make decisions over the care services made available to Medicare and Medicaid users. The IPAB, referred to as the death panel, may be most accurately portrayed in President Obama’s attempted sugar coating of the harsh reality in his response to Jane Sturm after she questioned him regarding a pacemaker for her 100-year-old mother. President Barack Obama said…   “End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that WE’RE going to have to make... But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers... At least we can let doctors know – and your mom know – that you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” [emphasis added] Now the feds are responsible for “End-of-life care.”  And government bureaucrats who have never received medical training are letting doctors know what procedures are or are not worth it.   These Death Panel appointees are then instead offering painkillers… to do what exactly? Ease your journey to a more rapid death. You have this assurance with ObamaCare… you are no longer in control of making decisions determining your health and life, and neither are your doctors. The government will be handing out death sentences at the judgment of a few non-medically trained bureaucrats. So… the value of your life has been reduced to the value of the almighty dollar. Unbridled authority given to bureaucrats with no required medical training is an absolute immoral abuse of power allotted to a federal agency.   Because end-of-life care decisions hold the gravest implications of all medical decisions, America’s seniors are in the most immediate danger and stand to loose more than any other group at the hand of the IPAB. If you are over 50, your must take a stand NOW to protect your healthcare rights before it is too late. September 30th is the last date for Congress to decide whether or not they will fund ObamaCare for the October 1st beginning enrollment date. Your congressmen need to hear your voice while it still matters! Verne, Grassfire has joined with Conservative 50 Plus, the nation’s premier conservative alternative to AARP, to take on Washington in the battle to protect our nation’s seniors against the assault son our God-given and constitutionally protected rights. Defend your right to choose your own healthcare options by adding your name to our petition to stop ObamaCare today. www.grassrootsaction.com/901/petition.asp If you are 50 or older, join us in our efforts to protect you and your doctor’s ability to make informed medical decisions about your health and the health of those you love. www.grassrootsaction.com/901/petition.asp Perhaps you are struggling with diabetes, a loved one is facing heart disease, or a mother or father is waiting in line for a kidney transplant. Do not leave health care in the government’s hands! Say, “NO,” to government bureaucrats making your life’s most private decisions. www.grassrootsaction.com/901/petition.asp These death panels are real, and together with Conservative 50 Plus, we are waging war on Washington to prevent them from gaining the power of life and death over you and every other senior citizen. Thank you for taking this important step to stop government intrusion into our most private of life’s decisions. Your friends at Grassfire and Conservative 50 Plus P.S. Grassfire Nation and Conservative 50 Plus are dedicated to preventing this egregious overstep of government authority to protect you and your loved ones. Join with us today! www.grassrootsaction.com/901/petition.asp

From the French Revolution to Obamacare, the left has stubbornly touted central planning. It's time for a change.

Verne Strickland / August 4, 2013

Thomas Sowell has shelf life. This is why -- when I spotted this post in the dusty archives of conservatism (30 days old) -- I knew I had to go with it. Sowell is a master at making sense of the nonsensical. And nothing requires that facility more than the skewed, failed policies of the left through many of the formative years of Western Civilization. But still those who practice the fantasy world of socialism and communism, and continue to live in it, are drawing back ever so slightly from the false premise that all can be created equal, and that competition and the free market have been put on the trash heap of world economies never to be seen again. History has proven this patently wrong. The future needs the presence of competition, not central planning. Barack Obama, though, foolishly moves the other way, and America sees clearly the error of his ways. This is a good read from Thomas Sowell. It's a keeper.

July 5, 2013 12:00 AM

The Left’s Central Delusion
Its devotion to central planning has endured from the French Revolution to Obamacare.

By Thomas Sowell

Soviet Five-Year Plan propaganda poster.

Thomas Sowell

 

 The fundamental problem of the political Left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions. Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong.

A never-ending source of grievances for the Left is the fact that some groups are “over-represented” in desirable occupations, institutions, and income brackets, while other groups are “under-represented.”

From all the indignation and outrage about this expressed on the left, you might think that it was impossible that different groups are simply better at different things. 

Yet runners from Kenya continue to win a disproportionate share of marathons in the United States, and children whose parents or grandparents came from India have won most of the American spelling bees in the past 15 years. And has anyone failed to notice that the leading professional basketball players have for years been black, in a country where most of the population is white?

Most of the leading photographic lenses in the world have — for generations — been designed by people who were either Japanese or German. Most of the leading diamond-cutters in the world have been either India’s Jains or Jews from Israel or elsewhere.                                                                                                                     
Not only people but things have been grossly unequal. More than two-thirds of all the tornadoes in the entire world occur in the middle of the United States. Asia has more than 70 mountain peaks that are higher than 20,000 feet and Africa has none. Is it news that a disproportionate share of all the oil in the world is in the Middle East?

Whole books could be filled with the unequal behavior or performances of people, or the unequal geographic settings in which whole races, nations, and civilizations have developed. Yet the preconceptions of the political Left march on undaunted, loudly proclaiming sinister reasons why outcomes are not equal within nations or between nations.

All this moral melodrama has served as a background for the political agenda of the Left, which has claimed to be able to lift the poor out of poverty, and in general make the world a better place. This claim has been made for centuries and in countries around the world. And it has failed for centuries in countries around the world.

Some of the most sweeping and spectacular rhetoric of the Left occurred in 18th-century France, where the very concept of the Left originated in the fact that people with certain views sat on the left side of the National Assembly.

The French Revolution was their chance to show what they could do when they got the power they sought. In contrast to what they promised — “liberty, equality, fraternity” — what they actually produced were food shortages, mob violence, and dictatorial powers that included arbitrary executions, extending even to their own leaders, such as Robespierre, who died under the guillotine.

In the 20th century, the most sweeping vision of the Left — Communism — spread over vast regions of the world and encompassed well over a billion human beings. Of these, millions died of starvation in the Soviet Union under Stalin and tens of millions in China under Mao.
Milder versions of socialism, with central planning of national economies, took root in India and in various European democracies.

If the preconceptions of the Left were correct, central planning by educated elites who had vast amounts of statistical data at their fingertips and expertise readily available, and were backed by the power of government, should have been more successful than market economies where millions of individuals pursued their own individual interests willy-nilly.

But, by the end of the 20th century, even socialist and communist governments began abandoning central planning and allowing more market competition. Yet this quiet capitulation to inescapable realities did not end the noisy claims of the Left.

In the United States, those claims and policies have reached new heights, epitomized by government takeovers of whole sectors of the economy and unprecedented intrusions into the lives of Americans, of which Obamacare has been only the most obvious example.

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2013 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are 'livid' at comparisons to Weiner’s sexcapades and Huma’s forgiveness

VERNE STRICKLAND: This is a bunch of trash, which I am using mostly to see if, after a quadruple by-pass on my crapped-out hard drive, I can still produce a post that can be read, if not understood or appreciated. Looking good so far, thanks to my  computer guru bud Billy Fulcher of Silicon Savor Computer Repair in Wilmington. Thanks, Big Bill! You da man!

 

Fredric U. Dicker  Last Updated: 9:30 AM, July 29, 2013

EXCLUSIVE   NEW YORK POST

Bill and Hillary Clinton are angry with efforts by mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner and his campaign to compare his Internet sexcapades — and his wife Huma Abedin’s incredible forgiveness — to the Clintons’ notorious White House saga, The Post has learned.
“The Clintons are upset with the comparisons that the Weiners seem to be encouraging — that Huma is ‘standing by her man’ the way Hillary did with Bill, which is not what she in fact did,’’ said a top state Democrat.

REUTERS

Huma Abedin with Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State at a House Appropriations Committee hearing in 2011.

Weiner and his campaign aides have explicitly referred to the Clintons as they privately seek to convince skeptical Democrats that voters can back Weiner despite his online sexual antics — just as they supported then-President Bill Clinton in the face of repeated allegations of marital betrayals.

“The Clintons are pissed off that Weiner’s campaign is saying that Huma is just like Hillary,’’ said the source. “How dare they compare Huma with Hillary? Hillary was the first lady. Hillary was a senator. She was secretary of state.”

A longtime Hillary aide and Clinton friend, Abedin’s surprisingly unequivocal support of her husband after his bombshell admission Tuesday that he engaged in salacious online sexting well after he resigned in disgrace from Congress in 2011 left the Clintons stunned, continued the source.

“Hillary didn’t know Huma would do this whole stand-by-your-man routine, and that’s one of the reasons the Clintons are distancing themselves from all this nonsense,’’ the source said.

REUTERS

Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton in 2008.

In the view of many Democrats, the Weiners have also alluded more subtly to the Clintons.
For instance, Abedin, with her husband at her side, declared last week, “Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs.’’

“Who didn’t think Huma was referring to the Clintons when she said that?’’ asked another prominent Democrat.

Worried about the potential impact on Hillary’s likely run for president in 2016, the political power couple has begun aggressively distancing itself from the crippled mayoral contender, according to sources.

Meanwhile, at least one prominent Hillary Rodham Clinton political operative was described as close to “going public’’ with a sharp criticism of Weiner — in order to send the message that the Clintons, fearing longtime damage to Hillary, want him out of the mayor’s race. (That would be someone other than former Clinton White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, who said yesterday that she was sure the Clintons wanted Weiner out of the race.)

With all the explosive ammunition Republicans have to fire at Weiner and a handful of other disgraced Democrats, GOP activists expected Senate co-leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb to unload at least a few critical comments.


Instead, there’s been total silence from the state’s two top elected Republicans — in yet another example of the collapse of the state’s two-party system.
Skelos “couldn’t care less about what’s going on with the Democrats. He’s just focused on . . . sending out meaningless tweets,’’ said a Republican strategist.

AP

Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner on their wedding day. Bill Clinton officiated the nups in the gardens of the Long Island castle.

fdicker@nypost.com

Top 10 Unhealthiest Countries in the World: Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Etc.

VERNE STRICKLAND / BLOGMASTER / JULY 26, 2013

What shall I say about this list? For one thing, I couldn't track any really impressive stats about who the producers are. Not good. For another, I did not discern any really aggravating tendencies regarding politically incorrect approaches. That's good. So what I went with was the raw data, which does not shrink from citing some of the scariest factors contributing to disease, malnutrition, uncleanliness, and the like. I tend to think that the facts as presented are accurate.

I am somewhat surprised that, in this day and age, when subjects African are often given a wide berth -- and do avoid at all costs any claims which might embarrass the people, the governments, or the tyrants which run the countries -- that such a list as this would even be published.

So the information has obviously not been sanitized, and for that reason can be given some credence. In most of these countries, which teeter on the edge of wanton self-destruction, no reference is made regarding a given government being communist, socialist, totalitarian, or radically sharia-oriented Islamist. To be sure, the nature of the government can contribute as much to a country's standard of health and well-being as climate, disease, dietary needs and poverty.

One additional point -- most of the national flags are pretty. One -- Mozambique's -- is scary, featuring an automatic rifle with fixed bayonet, and a implement which could be used for agriculture or caving in a man's head. You'll just have to guess the rest.

Posted on 26 July 2013. Tags: countries, Top 10 List, top ten list, unhealthiest

 

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In the present time when the countries are developing and people are advancing in terms of health and medicines, no country can afford to be left behind in these fields. But in some countries because the economic development is very poor they cannot make the environment that clean and are not able to provide good food. Even they get some funds by international organizations and other big countries they are not able to provide healthy living conditions to their subjects. 

Health does not only means physical fitness, but the social and environmental health and to some extent mental health too is also considered. In some big countries the rural areas are very unhealthy. If not in rural than there are slums in urban area which are environmentally very unhealthy.

In some countries people are full of diseases which can be treated but there are no such medicines like flues. And diseases which cannot be treated like HIV. Some of the places may seem unhygienic but the people are in good condition like in villages. So here are the unhealthiest countries, some of them you may not have heard of because they are too small and all are present in Africa and are not that popular.

1. Malawi

This country was known as Nyasa land. In this country infant mortality rates are very high. And as usual in Africa HIV infected people are in abundance. Life expectancy is 50 years. There are about 70000 deaths in a year due to HIV. And the main subject to think upon is this that about 250. people are getting infected every day. Which means that there is very less awareness among the people. It is sad to know that government spends 100000$ to do funeral of the civil servants who dies of this disease. Except this there are diseases like typhoid, malaria and diarrhea in the country. Madonna also started a program raising Malawi to give financial help to the sufferers. They are trying o counter HIV but have failed to decrease the maternal mortality rate. They have made many free hospitals for the sufferers.

2. Zimbabwe
At first Zimbabwe was very successful in giving good sanitation facilities, medicines and providing health care. But in 2000 there was an economic crisis. Then at that time only the HIV endemic was caused worsting the situation in Zimbabwe. When all the factors were against the country the downfall started. That is why now Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expediencies in the world that is 43. The infant mortality rate is now 12%. The economic downfall resulted in the closing of many hospitals and dispensaries and those hospitals were major ones. Those which were opened were not able to supply the medicines. Then there was political instability worsening the situation. Cholera is also spread which makes all the factors against Zimbabwe. Not even pure water was available to people what to ask about the food. There was then an emergency situation and international aid was provided.

3. Mozambique


In this country of Africa the infant mortality rate is 100 per 1000 infants and the fertility rate is 5 births per woman. As proper medical facilities rate not applied the maternal mortality rate became 550 per 100000 births. So the Mozambique government is trying to control the maternal deaths. 12% of the population has AIDS which is lower as compared to the neighboring countries. The fertility rate is 5.4 births per women. The government is taking good steps to improve the health of the people as they spend 42$ per ca pita in a year which is more as compared to other African countries. Over 88% of the population was given vaccination. About 11% budget is targeted here. Many NGOs are also helping Mozambique.

4. Swaziland


This is another country which is critically affected by HIV. It is having the highest rate of HIV in the world. 25% of the people are suffering from HIV. It has 4th lowest life expectancy. About 60% of all the deaths are caused by HIV only. Cancer and heart diseases cause very few deaths as compared to HIV. Tuberculosis is also a big problem. In 2004 39% pregnant women had HIV and this ensured that their children could also be having HIV. The country is doing lots of efforts to improve their conditions. The public expenditure was 4% of GDP and 2.3% was private. Infant mortality rate was 70 per 1000 kids with giving 16 doctors per 100000 persons.

5. Lesotho


The infant mortality rate is very high that is 8.1%. There are less number of doctors that is 5 physicians for 10000 people. But the main problem is not the disease but the HIV/AIDS here. Many people here are affected by AIDS. The prevalence of HIV is one of the highest in the world that is about 24% which is a very high rate. It is little low in rural areas but in urban area every 1 of 2 ladies is infected by HIV. The life expectancy was 42 years. The country is working on this issue and is doing every possible thing to save the subjects. They have started many programs which tell the people how to prevent it. The transmission of HIV from mother to child has been stopped partially. It is a very good achievement by the country. Bill Clinton and Bill Gates went to Lesotho so that they could assess their fight against this disease. This epidemic is declining in the country. Many international organizations are also lending Lesotho a helping hand.

6. Central African Republic


This country is present in Central Africa and is small. The male birth expectancy is 45 years. The fertility rate on an average is 5 births per women which is high. About 4.8% is the percentage of HIV in the adult population which is way too higher that other African countries. Female birth expectancy is 48 years. The availability of doctors is very much low in this country. About 0.8 doctors per 100000 people. The government is doing considerate efforts to control the diseases and provide proper treatment and to make medicines available in the country as they are spending about 11% of the total spent money in health care and about 20$ per person. But even after the considerate efforts f the government not much improvement is seen.

7. Haiti


The main problem in this country is of vaccination. About 50% of the children are not vaccinated. The health care hospitals and dispensaries are not accessible. Only 40% have access to them. There are high rates of HIV and many deaths are caused by it only. The water they drink is not pure and there are water borne diseases. They suffer from meningitis and respiratory diseases and diarrhea. Malaria and TB is suffered by many. The living conditions are just terrible. there are no sanitary facilities which is great problem. The earthquakes are a big problem and there is shortage of medicines also.

8. Burkina Faso


In this country the unhygienic environmental conditions leads to many diseases. The avg. life expectancy is just 51. The medical facilities are little better as compared to the above countries. But there are only 10 physicians to 100000 people and 40 wives for the same. The HIV is declining in the country because of the clinics. 73% of the girls of this country have suffered through female genital mutilation. They are cut by razors as it is thought in that country that through it the chastity of the women remains.

9. Chad


The medical facilities are limited. The medicines remain unavailable or out of stock. Membership is required in good clinics. There is widespread malaria in the country and may prove fatal. If anyone has caught a flu he becomes easy attack for malaria. Like other countries in Africa, diarrhea and respiratory problems are prominent. Diseases like chicken pox, typhoid and HIV are also prominent because of the living conditions. Now there are many programs started by international organizations for giving vaccines and providing medicines.

10. Liberia


In this country of Africa the diseases are the main reasons for its unhealthiness. There are hospitals but are less in number and are not accessible. And the life expectancy in this poor nation is 57.4 in 2012. It shows a little improvement from the past. Lots and lots of communicable diseases are widespread in this area. Malaria, TB and diarrhea are some of them. The fertility rate is 5.9 births per women. You can very well imagine that the TB is affected to 420 people per 100000 people in this country. 21 percent children are malnourished. In 2003 about 95% of the health care facilities were destroyed. It has 1 doctor per 100000 people which is very bad indicator. Maternal mortality rate is 990 per 100000 people.

VS: Pity is almost automatic. Prayer is imperative. 

 

The Downfall of Detroit -- How "Progressive" Policies Killed a Great City.

Verne Strickland / Blogmaster / July 23, 2013
 

The Downfall of Detroit
It took only six decades of “progressive” policies to bring a great city to its knees.

By Mark Steyn

 

One of the thousands of blighted homes in Detroit.

   

Mark Steyn

By the time Detroit declared bankruptcy, Americans were so inured to the throbbing dirge of Motown’s Greatest Hits — 40 percent of its streetlamps don’t work; 210 of its 317 public parks have been permanently closed; it takes an hour for police to respond to a 9-1-1 call; only a third of its ambulances are driveable; one-third of the city has been abandoned; the local realtor offers houses on sale for a buck and still finds no takers; etc., etc. — Americans were so inured that the formal confirmation of a great city’s downfall was greeted with little more than a fatalistic shrug.

But it shouldn’t be. To achieve this level of devastation, you usually have to be invaded by a foreign power. In the War of 1812, when Detroit was taken by a remarkably small number of British troops without a shot being fired, Michigan’s Governor Hull was said to have been panicked into surrender after drinking heavily.

Two centuries later, after an almighty 50-year bender, the city surrendered to itself. The tunnel from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan, is now a border between the First World and the Third World — or, if you prefer, the developed world and the post-developed world.

To any American time-transported from the mid 20th century, the city’s implosion would be literally incredible: Were he to compare photographs of today’s Hiroshima with today’s Detroit, he would assume Japan won the Second World War after nuking Michigan.

Detroit was the industrial powerhouse of America, the “arsenal of democracy,” and in 1960 the city with the highest per capita income in the land. Half a century on, Detroit’s population has fallen by two-thirds, and in terms of “per capita income,” many of the shrunken pool of capita have no income at all beyond EBT cards.

The recent HBO series Hung recorded the adventures of a financially struggling Detroit school basketball coach forced to moonlight as a gigolo. It would be heartening to think the rest of the bloated public-sector work force, whose unsustainable pensions and benefits have brought Detroit to its present sorry state (and account for $9 billion of its $11 billion in unsecured loans), could be persuaded to follow its protagonist and branch out into the private sector, but this would probably be more gigolos than the market could bear, even allowing for an uptick in tourism from Windsor.

So, late on Friday, some genius jurist struck down the bankruptcy filing. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina declared Detroit’s bankruptcy “unconstitutional” because, according to the Detroit Free Press, “the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees.” Which means that, in Michigan, reality is unconstitutional.

So a bankrupt ruin unable to declare bankruptcy is now back to selling off its few remaining valuables, as I learned from a Detroit News story headlined “Howdy Doody May Test Limits of Protecting Detroit Assets.” For those of you under 40 — okay, under 80 — Howdy Doody is the beloved American children’s puppet, in western garb with a beaming smile and 48 freckles, one for every state, which gives you some idea of when his heyday was.  

The Howdy Doody Show ended its run on September 24, 1960, which would have made sense for Detroit, too. The city’s Institute of Arts paid $300,000 for the original Howdy Doody puppet — or about the cost of 300,000 three-bedroom homes. Don’t get too excited — you can’t go to Detroit and see him on display; he’s in storage. He’s in some warehouse lying down doing nothing all day long, like so many other $300,000 city employees. Instead of selling him off, maybe they should get him moonlighting as a gigolo and sell it to HBO as Hungy Doody (“When you’re looking for the real wood”).

What else is left to sell? The City of Windsor has already offered to buy the Detroit half of the Detroit/Windsor tunnel, perhaps to wall it up.

With bankruptcy temporarily struck down, we’re told that “innovation hubs” and “enterprise zones” are the answer. Seriously? In my book After America, I observe that the physical decay of Detroit — the vacant and derelict lots for block after block after block — is as nothing compared to the decay of the city’s human capital.

Forty-seven percent of adults are functionally illiterate, which is about the same rate as the Central African Republic, which at least has the excuse that it was ruled throughout the Seventies by a cannibal emperor. Why would any genuine innovator open a business in a Detroit “innovation hub”? Whom would you employ? The illiterates include a recent president of the school board, Otis Mathis, which doesn’t bode well for the potential work force a decade hence.

Given their respective starting points, one has to conclude that Detroit’s Democratic party makes a far more comprehensive wrecking crew than Emperor Bokassa ever did. No bombs, no invasions, no civil war, just “liberal” “progressive” politics day in, day out. Americans sigh and say, “Oh, well, Detroit’s an ‘outlier.’” It’s an outlier only in the sense that it happened here first.

 The same malign alliance between a corrupt political class, rapacious public-sector unions, and an ever more swollen army of welfare dependents has been adopted in the formally Golden State of California, and in large part by the Obama administration, whose priorities — “health” “care” “reform,” “immigration” “reform” — are determined by the same elite/union/dependency axis. As one droll tweeter put it, “If Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit.”

Will Sacrifice of Some White People Satisfy The Blood Lust of Black Rioters?

WILL SACRIFICE OF SOME WHITE PEOPLE SATISFY THEIR BLOOD LUST?


By Verne Strickland / July 23, 2013

We can all see which way this is headed, can't we?

The rhetoric from black "demonstrators" gets ever more heated and shrill day by day. Every taunt -- no matter what the actual words may be -- translates to "get whitey". 

Cars are torched, innocent white citizens are terrorized and beaten, businesses are burned, and the angry chorus of revenge grows to a fever pitch.

Blacks are seeking revenge. Sooner or later, the tribal drumbeat will get too seductive to be ignored, and rampaging blacks will step over the line. The misdirected anger will find a vulnerable target -- or even several white sacrificial "lambs" -- and blood will flow. Then blood will beget blood. 

To say that "the torch will be passed" would be to abuse the intent of the famous JFK speech of the chaotic days of the 1960s, when great cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Newark and others suffered massive damage at the hand of black rioters. 

Some may be justified in saying that all of these out-of-control American population centers are not "great" anymore. But they were. They have been ruined by all the ills of liberal society -- absence of God in everyday life, the seduction of welfare and giveaway programs, moral depravity, loss of human initiative, "families" without fathers or even mothers, rampant drug problems, and unemployment of people who don't wish to work anyway.

But the point may be made that arson, looting, and mass murder and general lawlessness have been sparked by black racial mobs, often driven into a frenzy by so-called black "leaders", aided and abetted by irresponsible liberal media which fan the flames of discontent. 

It almost seems inevitable now. How many times have we seen this before? Trying to tally up the scorecard will do no good. There have been too many instances where mob rule has taken over, blacks have taken to the streets, and murder by marauding masses has been committed.

And, through it all, it seems that we have learned nothing. Justice? Is that what we want? Justice in the Trayvon Martin death has been achieved. Like it or not, this is America, and, while there are at least two sides to every story, this case has been settled by a hard-working, well-intentioned jury of peers drawn together in a Florida courtroom. 

Case closed? Well, many of us had hoped so. But it was not to be. Each day, the flames of racial unrest spread like forest fires -- encouraged by the likes of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other professional haters. It is a sad sight to see.

But -- when the precise tinder-box situation emerges -- the "sacrifice" we mentioned earlier will take the lives of some white citizens caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then the devil will have his due.

Indeed, it has already happened, although the senseless killings in black-on-white violence seem to be not directly related to the Florida tinder box -- the white girl raped by black predators and thrown from a rooftop, the beautiful white child shot in the face by black gunmen as the mother watched -- what else? How many other brutal slayings must we catalog to bring this into perspective?

But I think the mob has yet to be satisfied, and we will not see the racial frenzy assuaged until the "honor killings" have been properly initiated.

Even President Obama, by his inaction, has left the door open to violence which might "settle the score". He should be ashamed.

How did it all come to this? When will it end? Another long, hot summer -- reminiscent of many that we've experienced before -- seems to loom before us.

I ran across this news story today as I tried to get a handle on the crescendo of events. It was published this week in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and refers to the riots that decimated the Twin Cities in July of 1967. And it is not encouraging by any means:

 

Thirty years ago this weekend, Minneapolis woke to the realization that it had not escaped the racial fury that was overtaking U.S. cities in the mid-1960s, that it, too, had suffered the firebombs, looting and shooting and the frightful sight of riot police marching shoulder-to-shoulder as storefronts went up in flames.

The Plymouth Avenue disturbances of July 19-21, 1967, were a small footnote to the full-scale riots that enveloped the Watts section of Los Angeles and the vast black neighborhoods of Detroit and Newark, N.J., during those incendiary days. 

God help us all.