Let us pray:

~Friends~  *     *     *     *     *Let us pray for our dear Hikergal, her daughter, and dear Kaniah. The baby was burned badly and needs our healing thoughts, as she needs God's healing touch. Hg's family has had more than their share of adversity lately--let us pray for our dear friend and make her know she is not alone.

Happy Saturday!!!

Here's your Daily Catzes!

This is about all I can manage today!

Yeah, yeah...Puffin gets one, too....

The weekend is here! I wish somebody would tell me how Magdalene and Jen are getting along. Phooey I hope you continue to enjoy feeling better...

I don't know what we're going to do Saturday proper, but tomorrow, maintenance is doing one of it's ubiquitous 'inspections' here... so I'll be up all day waiting for the knock that'll probably come around 5 p.m.... ;-)

Nice to have you here!

I'm going to bed!

His 'malaise' moment...

Speak for Yourself, Mr. President

 By Carol Platt Liebau

Even in the midst of a cross-country move, I can't resist commenting on President Obama's newest mind-meld with Jimmy Carter, President Malaise.

At a San Francisco fundraiser yesterday, the President had this to say:

"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate bridge."

Speak for yourself, Mr. President.  Our ambition, imagination and will is completely intact -- it's just that we're saddled with a leader who neither understands nor respects the American character, and then projects his inadequacies onto us.

President Obama's attitude is reminiscent of the apocryphal story of a soldier's mother who, watching troops march in formation, commented, "Oh, look, everyone's out of step but my Johnny."

The American people aren't the ones who are "out of step" here.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/carolplattliebau/2011/10/26/speak_for_yourself,_mr_president

We pay for our own destruction. (Go to the website to view the video.)

New Street Lights To Have “Homeland Security” Applications

By Paul Joseph Watson

UPDATE: Presumably in response to this article being linked on the Drudge Report, the company behind ‘Intellistreets’, Illuminating Concepts, has now pulled the video from You Tube entirely, presumably nervous about the negative publicity that could be generated from concerns about street lights being used for “Homeland Security” purposes – their words, not ours. We have added an alternative version of the clip below, but it may be subject to removal at any time. The video is still available on the company’s website.

(snip)

The Intellistreets system comprises of a wireless digital infrastructure that allows street lights to be controlled remotely by means of a ubiquitous wi-fi link and a miniature computer housed inside each street light, allowing for “security, energy management, data harvesting and digital media,” according to the Illuminating Concepts website.

According to the company’s You Tube video of the concept, the primary capabilities of the devices include “energy conservation, homeland security, public safety, traffic control, advertising, video surveillance.”

In terms of Homeland Security applications, each of the light poles contains a speaker system that can be used to broadcast emergency alerts, as well as a display that transmits “security levels” (presumably a similar system to the DHS’ much maligned color-coded terror alert designation), in addition to showing instructions by way of its LED video screen.

The lights also include proximity sensors that can record both pedestrian and road traffic. The video display and speaker system will also be used to transmit Minority Report-style advertising, as well as Amber Alerts and other “civic announcements”.

With the aid of grant money from the federal government, the company is about to launch the first concept installation of the system in the city of Farmington Hills, Michigan. Using street lights as surveillance tools has already been advanced by several European countries. In 2007, leaked documents out of the UK Home Office revealed that British authorities were working on proposals to fit lamp posts with CCTV cameras that would X-ray scan passers-by and “undress them” in order to “trap terror suspects”. Dutch police also announced last year that they are developing a mobile scanner that will “see through people’s clothing and look for concealed weapons".

So-called ‘talking surveillance cameras’ that use a speaker system similar to the Intellistreets model are already being used in UK cities like Middlesborough to bark orders and reprimand people for dropping litter and other minor offenses. According to reports, one of the most common phrases used to shame people into obeying instructions is to broadcast the message, “We are watching you.”

The transformation of street lights into surveillance tools for Homeland Security purposes will only serve to heighten concerns that the United States is fast on the way to becoming a high-tech police state, with TSA agents being empowered to oversee that control grid, most recently with the announcement that TSA screeners would be manning highway checkpoints, a further indication that security measures we currently see in airports are rapidly spilling out onto the streets.

The ability of the government to use street lights to transmit “emergency alerts” also dovetails with the ongoing efforts to hijack radio and television broadcasts for the same purpose, via FEMA’s Emergency Alert System.

The federal government is keen to implement a centralized system of control over all communications, with the recent announcement that all new cell phones will be required to comply with the PLAN program (Personal Localized Alerting Network), which will broadcast emergency alert messages directly to Americans’ cell phones using a special chip embedded in the receiver. The system will be operational by the end of the year in New York and Washington, with the rest of the country set to follow in 2012.

The notion of using the street lights as communication tools to broadcast “alerts” directly from the federal government is also consistent with Homeland Security’s program to install Orwellian ‘telescreens’ that play messages by Janet Napolitano and other DHS officials in Wal-Mart stores across the country.

The fact that the federal government is funding the implementation of ‘Intellistreets’ comes as no surprise given that the nation’s expanding networks of surveillance cameras are also being paid for with Department of Homeland Security grants.

http://www.infowars.com/new-street-lights-to-have-homeland-security-applications/ 

(Ribbet!)

And our highways will have 'checkpoints', our state I.D.'s will have a 'chip' in them to 'track' us, our voter records will be held by the same people who will be portioning out our health care--and Zippy's going to shut down our communications networks as a 'test' on Nov. 9th?

Scared yet?

Here's your Daily Catz!

Now, I'M stuck to the damn furniture!! Wha' happen?

I'll say goodnite with your Daily Cat!

The real face of evil is the man with the poisoned apples. I didn't know there were so many 'useful idiot' costumes out there...

I guess they'd better get their own leaders to do it first...

The Top 1% Of OWS Has All The Money

By Bob Parks

 

The Occupy movement has been almost a parody of hypocrisy. The very thing they’re protesting against, they’re doing… to themselves!

 

Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in — but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protesters is fraying tempers.

 

 “##### Finance. I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement’s books. We need to know how much money we really have and where it’s going,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45, who joined OWS in Lower Manhattan nearly three weeks ago from Los Angeles, where he works in TV production.

 

Van Jones says “America is not broke” and the Occupiers blindly believe it. Maybe it’ll enter their little brains that, while they’re outside freezing their asses off, the real organizers are inside where it’s nice and warm, while admiring just how much they can get suckers to do for free.

 

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/41606

They spend the money on themselves.

CCF in the News: HSUS Called to Account

Center for Consumer Freedom

Our Humanewatch project is creating quite a stir with its findings that less than two-fifths of one percent of Humane Society of the United States donations supports the operations of local pet shelters. This is despite the fact that in a national poll 70 percent of respondents said that they thought HSUS was an umbrella organization of local animal shelter groups.

From West Virginia to Texas, local media outlets are taking notice, telling their viewers and readers what CCF has known for some time: the vast majority of HSUS donations aren’t going to shelters that help find homes for the nation’s homeless puppies and kittens. So if donations aren’t going to local humane societies, where is the HSUS putting its cash?

From what we can determine from tax records, fundraising (so inefficient in HSUS’s case that it warranted a D grade from the American Institute of Philanthropy), lobbying, and executive compensation and pensions are certainly up there as priorities for the so-called “Humane Society” of the United States.

Del Nesmith, a representative of the Humane Society of Odessa, Texas, reported in an interview on KWES NBC Newswest 9 how helpful the Humane Society of the United States was to his shelter animals’ needs:

I contacted the national humane society and I asked them for help to help us find some or donate some food for the animals and they wouldn’t even give me the time of day, hardly. In fact, they were rude about it in the office.

Perhaps if Mr. Nesmith had been asking for help with a ballot initiative that would raise the price of eggs, looking to rehabilitate his public image, or soliciting work for a fundraising firm, the national office would have been less rude.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/41655

SMOOCHES!

Where's  Phooey?

I can't do...without my Phoo!

Who thought THIS was a good idea? Who's got their hands on the switch? And to whom is Obama selling it?

Did You Know Feds Will Temporarily Cut Off All TV and Radio Broadcasts on Nov. 9?

By Buck Sexton

If you have ever wondered about the government’s ability to control the civilian airwaves, you will have your answer on November 9th.

On that day, federal authorities are going to shut off all television and radio communications simultaneously at 2:00PM EST to complete the first ever test of the national Emergency Alert System (EAS). This isn’t a wild conspiracy theory. The upcoming test is posted on the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau website.

Only the President has the authority to activate EAS at the national level, and he has delegated that authority to the Director of FEMA.  The test will be conducted jointly by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through  FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS). In essence, the authority to seize control of all television and civilian communication has been asserted by the executive branch and handed to a government agency.

The EAS has been around since 1994. Its precursor, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), started back in 1963.  Television and radio broadcasters, satellite radio and satellite television providers,  cable television and wireline video providers are all involved in the system. So this begs the question: is the first ever national EAS test really a big deal? Probably not. At least, not yet.

But there are some troubling factors all coming together right now that could conceivably trigger a real usage of the EAS system in the not too distant future.  A European financial collapse could bring down U.S. markets. What is now the “Occupy” movement could lead to widespread civil unrest. And there are ominous signs that radical groups such as Anonymous will attempt something major on November 5th- Guy Fawke’s day.

Now we know in the event of a major crisis, the American people will be told with one voice, at the same time, about an emergency. All that's left to determine is who will have control of the EAS when that day comes, and what their message will be.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/did-you-know-feds-will-temporarily-cut-off-all-tv-and-radio-broadcasts-on-nov-9/

(Ribbet!)

Thank you, Gloria, for sending me to The Blaze for this article--I wouldn't have known about it otherwise (the Seattle P.I. is hardly going to have it on their front page...) Remind me... when did we all vote on this???

AND SPEAKING OF VOTING--Isn't this the day after we  vote? Why was that day chosen? And will it also be chosen next year ??? I think we're being set up.

Here's your Daily Cat: with standard rate, business class--and overnight express slots!

MUST READ: Their agenda has never been about everyone paying a 'fair share' at all!

What the 'Taxing the Rich' Rhetoric Really Means

By Michael Bargo Jr.

When I was in college, I took a course in clinical psychology.  One day, the professor shared an experience he had with a paranoid schizophrenic patient.  In one of his first months working at a mental hospital (as they were then called), he met with the patient in his office.  The patient said, "Well, I don't feel comfortable talking to you because there is a hidden microphone in this office."  "Where is it?" my professor asked.  The patient responded: "It's hidden in the doorknob."  The professor then took apart the door knob, laid all the parts out on his desk, and said to the paranoid patient, "See, there's no microphone hidden here."  The patient looked at the parts, looked up at the ceiling, and insisted, "It's up in the light bulb!"

The point of this story is that there's nothing you can do to allay the paranoid thoughts of a paranoid schizophrenic.  Those analysts who address the "tax the rich" and "the rich must pay their fair share" rhetoric are facing the same issue: those who use this rhetoric will never acknowledge the tax rates paid by the rich, accept the facts, and respond with the words, "oh, I didn't realize that the top 15 percent pay seventy percent of the income taxes.  Never mind!"

They will persist with their rhetoric forever.  The reason is that the rhetoric is driven not by the numbers of who pays how much in taxes, but by a desire to build a public relations foundation, an image.  Those who don't respond to real facts don't care what the real facts are.  The "tax the rich" slogan was not begun after a careful analysis of IRS data in the first place.

Here are some of the clues: those who say "tax the rich" almost never say "tax only the rich."  Or "let's increase taxes on the rich and lower the taxes on everyone else."  The real goal of this strategy is to raise everybody's taxes.  The United States already has the highest corporate tax rate in the Western world.  If the president and his supporters really believe that corporations are greedy and will do anything to avoid paying taxes, then they would expect corporations to respond to higher tax rates by leaving the U.S. and opening up businesses in other countries.  And in fact, that's what has already occurred; it's one of the reasons why the U.S. has lost jobs. 

If President Obama were really convinced that corporations are greedy, he would use their greed against them and lower their tax rate, bringing them here to open up plants and employ more Americans.  That the Obama supporters' rhetoric is not consistent with their caricature of corporations as driven by greed is not hypocritical; indeed, it's very revealing.

The real function of the "tax the rich" mantra, then, is not to tax the rich and create jobs, but to break the resistance working voters have against tax increases.  By enabling the federal government to appear to "tax the rich," voters are fooled into thinking that Democrats will tax only the rich, whereas in reality they are raising taxes on everyone, particularly those who accept the "tax the rich" rhetoric. 

Democrats have escaped criticism for this strategy for several reasons.  One is that most in the news media have fallen for the rhetoric.  They know very little about economics, and they probably don't do their own income taxes.  They studied "communication" and speech in college, not to mention makeup and hair.  They don't have the background or knowledge to understand the big financial or economic issues.  Another reason is that they don't think through the consequences of the progressive tax policy.

Additionally, the largest cities in the U.S., and therefore the largest news markets, are controlled by Democrats.  Anyone hoping to work for a newspaper or TV news station in these cities cannot attack Democrats in a substantive way.  They will be labeled as conservative and extremist.  Consequently, these local news outlets attack corruption only on the edges, seeking out someone whose brother-in-law received a small contract with a city department, for example.  The big macro-level corruption issues and enabling rhetoric are carefully avoided.

The real reason why city governments need so much tax revenue is because their exorbitant pensions and benefit programs have skyrocketed, as many baby boom-age government employees have retired, and the retired are living longer.  There is not enough money in the bank accounts or investments of the "rich" to pay for it all.  And the progressives know it.  They must collect from every citizen, regardless of whether they are rich or not.  And to keep this ruse functioning, they must constantly convince voters that they are on the side of the "working people" and against the rich -- that they are wearing Robin Hood's feathered cap, taxing the rich to give to the poor. 

In reality they are taxing the rich and the poor, and keeping the money themselves.  Public-sector unions give campaign contributions to get pensions the average "corporate" worker has never received.The remarkable thing is not that progressives continue this rhetoric, but that the electorate continues to buy it.  That's why progressives continue it, after all.

If the tax rate placed upon the wealthiest 1% of income earners were increased, the wealthy would act to shelter their incomes and send the money offshore.  Again, though, trying to clarify this point to a progressive is akin to trying to explain things to the paranoid.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/what_the_taxing_the_rich_rhetoric_really_means.html

I miss him, too!

World Series Fans Yell "We Miss You George"

By Katie Pavlich

Last night, former President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch for game 4 of the Texas Rangers vs. St. Louis Cardinals World Series. Not only did Bush throw a perfect strike, but fans in the crowd were yelling, "We miss you George!" as he walked to the mound.

Former President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Rangers president Nolan Ryan before Game 4 of the World Series on Sunday for the second year in a row.

This time, though, it was sans his father, President George H.W. Bush, who had accompanied his son to the mound before Game 4 here in 2010:

The younger Bush, who on Sunday zipped in a fastball from the front edge of the mound, was making his third such appearance on the mound at Rangers Ballpark. He also threw out the first pitch on Opening Day 2009, shortly after leaving the White House.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/10/24/world_series_fans_yell_we_miss_you_george

Happy Monday!

See you tomorrow--check out the new stuff!

I'm a 'Nite Hog!

And it doesn't depend on what the definition of "Is (lam)" Is!

Bad schools? I guess the buildings aren't applying themselves...!

Yet One More Doomed Education Reform

By Robert Weissberg

That education reform is back in the national news once more sadly illustrates our fascination with trying to square circles while wasting hundreds of millions, if not billions.  The latest incarnation is President Obama's altering of President Bush's failed 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.  

In a nutshell, the Department of Education will now grant states greater autonomy (plus up to $1 billion) if they agree to overhaul low-performing schools and impose more rigorous teacher evaluations.  Gone will be the unfeasible mandates to make all students proficient in math and reading by 2014.  Moreover, unlike the dumbing-down-friendly NCLB, the latest rhetoric speaks of promoting academic excellence, especially prodding schools to have "college and career ready" standards.

Escaping the dysfunctional NCLB is certainly good news for many professional educators and parents, but like every other recent alleged panacea, Obama's fix will fail it since it ignores the one feature of American education that dares not speak its name in public: the intellectual quality of students.  

If reformers insisted on transforming all ordinary kids into world-class athletes, this would be a joke, since everybody would know the truth.  But when it comes to upping academic performance, nothing is said about individual ability or motivation; the culprit is always something else, and this avoidance of reality applies across the entire ideological spectrum.  Better to waste billions and fail than speak frankly. More...

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/yet_one_more_doomed_education_reform.html

Hello, Pond People!