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Happy Friday all!

Bailey's house in Matchbook

Starving Students? 
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************

I recall a fellow (when was a lad) who had made a deal with the local schools to pick up the school cafeteria food dumped by the students every day.  Back then, at least, the food from a school cafeteria REALLY sucked!  I mean, it was beyond bad.

But I digress. 

The man I referred to above had a trailer behind his pickup truck and on that trailer he had multiple 55 gallon oil drums that he would practically fill to over-flowing every single school day.  This was food the students threw away, wouldn't eat, didn't want, and couldn't stand.  This, uh, "refuse" he fed to his hogs.  He had some of the most well-fed hogs in the county, quite likely the state!

Please note:  This was a few decades before the Obamas and their "healthy food" experiments in our public schools.  If that old fellow was still alive to date, I'd suggest to him that he might want to look into some sort of contract with his local schools to pick their food refuse today.  Problem is, as the food has been described to me -- I have serious doubts his hogs would eat it!

Of course, we can expect the enterprising student who will see an opportunity in all this and put himself through college bootlegging candy, chips, soft drinks, and other treats from his backpack, or locker, or the trunk of his car in the school parking lot.  (I am intimately acquainted with a fellow who did exactly that way back in the 1950's.)

If I had children in school today, I would prepare their lunches and send them to school with food they would be sure to eat so their minds and bodies would be working at top efficiency during those critical hours they are supposed to be acquiring knowledge.

What we have here, in my humble estimation, is our "Progressive Overlords" training our kids to accept strong governmental power over them while they are yet young and their minds are malleable to such machinations. (Get 'em while they are young and you've got 'em forever!)

Come ON, folks!   This is not about food.  This is not about health.  This is about control of the masses.

The paternalistic ruling elite in America have so twisted our public schools -- and the mission of our public schools -- that they are now nothing more than indoctrination centers and training centers turning out good little Marxists much as some giant cookie cutter machine.  

See, the government figured out long ago that there were at least two institutions upon which they could heap social experiments. One was the US military and the other was -- you got it! --  our public schools.  The kids have been at their mercy ever since.

This is just another reason to get you kids out of the pubic school system -- any way you can.

Look, I don't think our kids are "fat" so much as a result of what they eat as lack of exercise.  Sitting on one's backside playing video games is not conducive to a healthy body. That is inarguable.  It just IS.

I am so old I remember when kids actually "played" -- OUTSIDE!  They would be running, and jumping, and screaming for pure joy -- and not because they were running from perverts or someone was shooting at them.

I can understand how some parents feel their children are safer sitting in their rooms playing games on the computer, texting, or whatever the latest electronic "thingy" is especially in urban areas.  Playgrounds are hunting ground for perverts.  And we have recently seen just how safe our schools are.


Taking all this into consideration, SURELY there is way to serve descent food to our kids in school that they will actually eat and be able to accomplish the goal of learning during those long hours when an agile mind is required.

I must tell you, as an adult, I wouldn't eat much of the food the kids describe as being among the choices they have. 

If I had a hog farm, I'd certainly make an effort to secure some sort of contract to pick up the refuse food from the public schools because there will certainly be overflowing garbage cans. 

Oh, and yes, we DID have a word for it back in my day.  It was called "slop."

© J. D. Longstreet

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs-Tyranny



I have long wished the penny would disappear. It has very little, if any practical purpose in today's marketplace and they only take up space in your pocket or pocketbook. Finally we have a President registering his agreement.

Los Angeles Times - President Obama on Thursday said he supports eliminating pennies, but that it’s unlikely to happen because it’s so low on the list of congressional priorities.

In a Google Plus “Hangout,” Obama was asked why the U.S. Treasury continues to mint pennies even though the cost to mint them is more than they’re worth.

“I got to tell you, I don’t know,” Obama said. “It’s one of those things where people get attached emotionally to the way things have been.”

The president said the penny was a good metaphor for other inefficiencies in Washington that become institutionalized.

“Any time we’re spending money on something people aren’t going to use, that’s something that should change,” Obama added.

He argued he has asked Congress for the authority to reorganize inefficient agencies to perpetuate a more modern federal infrastructure, but said until Congress grants him that authority, it was up to them to act on eliminating the penny.

“The penny is something I need legislation for, and frankly given all the big issues, we’re not able to get to it,” he said.

Indeed! A simple legislative initiative that makes ultimate sense, saves dollars, and Congress won't find time to "get to the simple." So typical.

Via: Memeorandum

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

Something to think about rEpublicans and Tea Party enthusiasts...



Indeed. h/t to Robert Draper of The New York Times.

Via: Memeorandum

Click to enlarge.

February 13, 2013
Econbrowser: Prices of gasoline and crude oil

$100 oil, less consumption, and a surplus? Bernanke's a miracle worker! That's why we pay him the big bucks!

I appear to have opened the sarcasm gates yet again. Why stop now? The Onion wrote the following 12 years ago.

January 17, 2001
Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'


Mission accomplished!

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Brent / WTI

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny


Is it just me or is anyone else tiring of the seemingly never ending drone of guys like LaPierre and Nugent? Mostly they are just blowing smoke and trying their damnedest to spread fear with all their hyperbolic, please forgive me, bullshit. We all understand you guys despise the President, but at least try and use some intelligence, commonsense, and cut the BS about how the sky is falling on our second amendment rights all because Obama is a commie and has no greater desire than to strip us of our liberties. The dude might me a lot of things but just in case you've failed to notice in many ways he's not all that different than any other mainstream politician and leader. I suppose I have most likely wasted the keystrokes, but at least I got it off my chest.

By Wayne LaPierre - Before I tell you how the NRA and our members are going to Stand And Fight politically and in the courts, let’s acknowledge that all over this country, tens of millions of Americans are already preparing to Stand And Fight to protect their families and homes.

These good Americans are prudently getting ready to protect themselves.

It has always been sensible for good citizens to own and carry firearms for lawful protection against violent criminals who prey on decent people.

During the second Obama term, however, additional threats are growing. Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States. Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, and though the states on the U.S./Mexico border may be the first places in the nation to suffer from cartel violence, by no means are they the last.

The president flagrantly defies the 2006 federal law ordering the construction of a secure border fence along the entire Mexican border. So the border today remains porous not only to people seeking jobs in the U.S., but to criminals whose jobs are murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping. Ominously, the border also remains open to agents of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Numerous intelligence sources have confirmed that foreign terrorists have identified the southern U.S. border as their path of entry into the country.

When the next terrorist attack comes, the Obama administration won’t accept responsibility. Instead, it will do what it does every time: blame a scapegoat and count on Obama’s “mainstream” media enablers to go along.

A heinous act of mass murder—either by terrorists or by some psychotic who should have been locked up long ago—will be the pretext to unleash a tsunami of Gun Control.

No wonder Americans are buying guns in record numbers right now, while they still can and before their choice about which firearm is right for their family is taken away forever.

After Hurricane Sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.

Anti-gun New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had already done everything he could to prevent law-abiding New Yorkers from owning guns, and he has made sure that no ordinary citizen will ever be allowed to carry a gun... {There's More Right Here}

Just shaking my head.

Via: Memeorandum

The Living, Breathing -- DEAD Constitution
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
***************

The US Constitution is NOT flexible.  It was never intended to be flexible.  That's why there are provisions for amending the constitution when sufficient numbers of citizens agree an amendment is needed.

 At RenewAmerica.com, Edward Daly writes:  "Many judges these days like to refer to the Constitution of the United States as a "living, breathing document," implying that its text is designed to be flexible. It is not. The Constitution is a set of rules, and like any other set of rules, it is meant to be strict and uncompromising. Of course, the Constitution can be modified through the amendment process, but once ratified, any amendment becomes like the rest of the Constitution; rigid.

And while any amendment may be repealed, as was the case with the 18th Amendment (The Prohibition Act), until that happens, it is just as concrete as any other part of the Constitution, and not subject to interpretation beyond the literal meaning of its text. The Constitution does not live, breath, or do the cha-cha, for that matter. It is in many ways an instructional manual for the way our country was designed to run, and amending it is very serious business."  SOURCE:  http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/daley/050324

Either the constitution means what it says, or it is of no account -- totally useless -- and the US is adrift in a sea of utter confusion, ripe for take over by tyrannical forces already tethered deep inside our government.

It is a common expression of the Progressives (read: Marxists) that the constitution is a living, breathing, document.  I know it is not.  YOU know it is not,  and THEY know it is not.  BUT -- our children don't.  And they won't -- unless parents teach them the truth.

More and more our public schools (read: indoctrination centers) are dropping Civics/government/social studies from the curriculum of their schools. Our young scholars are graduating and entering adult life without a clue as to how the US government works. They are ignorant of our founding documents.  They don't know squat about the constitution.  That makes them vulnerable to the protestations from the leftist Marxists that the constitution is a living, breathing, document and open to interpretation -- or even change -- on a whim of the government.

But, Hey!  This is how the progressives/Marxists have been making inroads into the political thinking of American society over the past decades.  "Get 'em when their young and you'll have 'em forever."

The constitution is writ in stone!  If you want to change it, you must carve another stone, as an amendment, and stand it alongside the original. The original constitution is simply not open to interpretation. 

Look at it.  Read it.  A grammar school kid can understand it.  The founders took great pains to make the constitution eminently readable and understandable.   

In a letter to Henry Lee in 1824, James Madison, considered the “father” of the Constitution, wrote:

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation.  In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.  And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers.”   SOURCE:  http://www.truenorthquest.com/constitution-living-breathing-document/    

Please note the line in Madison's letter in which he says:  "In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution."  In other words, change the original "sense"(The meaning) of it  -- and it is NO LONGER THE US CONSTITUTION!

Now. Look at what is happening today, right this moment, in our national government.  Bills have been introduced in the Congress that would simply ignore the constitution.

All those gun control bills and gun banning bills simply ignore the original sense, the original wording,  of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.  The Second Amendment clearly states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be "infringed." 

Infringed means to commit a breach or infraction of; to violate or transgress. 

Simply put, the very words of the Second Amendment say -- and mean -- that the right to keep and bear arms is absolute, sacrosanct, cannot be changed, cannot be denied  -- in other words, there is not a damned thing the government can do to take the guns of American citizens.

Yet, they are trying their dead-level best to do just that. And they are counting on the support of those adults who passed through our government schools in which they were indoctrinated that the constitution is a living, breathing, document.  Those American have, most likely, never heard of Madison's letter to Henry Lee way back in 1824.  (Some, no doubt, have never even heard of James Madison.)  I would warrant most have never, ever, read the constitution, either.

Allow me to inquire -- why are we allowing this farce to continue?   If they get away with it, it means they can simply ignore more of the constitution at will.  It means they can change the "sense" of the constitution from the sense/meaning in which it was ORIGINALLY accepted and ratified.  If they get their way, the constitution will not be worth the paper it is written on.

The support by the Mainstream Media of the Marxist efforts to reinterpret the Second Amendment would be funny were it not so serious.  ("Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools ..." -- Romans 1:22 -- New Testament )  They do not seem to grasp that if the sense/meaning of the Second Amendment can be changed -- and allowed by the courts to stand -- then the sense/meaning of the First Amendment can, likewise, be changed.

Look.  The very on-going efforts to re-interpret, or change the sense/meaning of the Second Amendment, is an act of tyranny.  The constitution, itself,  forbids exactly what they are trying to do.

The 2014 elections are a couple of years away (at this writing) and it will be our first chance at removing the proponents of a living, breathing, constitution from office.  In the meantime, we ought to be  demanding the resignation of every Senator and every Congressperson supporting the effort to  "infringe" upon the Second Amendment and we ought to demand the President resign, as well.
This is quickly becoming more than just a fight to keep our guns.  This is a fight to maintain our rights under the US Constitution, our freedom and our liberty.
This is a fight for freedom.

© J. D. Longstreet

Click to enlarge.




Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Corporate Profits / Wages

We are in week 2 of the ORC (check out week 1 here) and to be honest I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Plenty of projects have been started, but nothing entirely finished.

The plan was to work on some of the bigger monsters and get them out of the way, leaving the fun stuff for the end. Enter the monster.


This chair was a freebie from my parents. Score. They bought it at an auction 25 years ago and it has sat in the basement ever since. It was sold with another chair, which was the one they were after, so this chair was a castoff from the beginning. Untouched for 25 years.

But my little time capsule chair was actually in excellent condition. The fabric was beyond nasty, but the frame, cushion etc. were in great shape. And I've tackled reupholstery projects before so I thought this one would be a piece of cake. I am nieve.

I got her stripped with no problem but the sanding was a challenge with all of those curves and dips and grooves. Then I went against everything I was ever taught as a child. I painted antique furniture. I probably won't be allowed over for Thanksgiving this year. But (cover your ears Mom and Dad) I'm glad I did it.

She looks so much better.


Killer finish. You always come thru for me RustOleum.


Now if I was Restoration Hardware, I'd call this chair complete. $1800 please, thank you.

But I have other plans. I've always loved the fabric on this bed (thank you Jamie Drake) and was able to find a Sunbrella version that is almost a perfect match.

Jamie Drake via Pinterest

Outdoor fabric on an indoor chair might sound a bit loony, but remember this chair is going in a room with two very busy girls. This fabric will need all the armor it can get.

Now I'd love to show you how beautiful the chair looks but she is not ready for her closeup. She's covered in some spots, naked in others. Staples showing and even a few scratches. Think My Fair Lady, before Audrey gets her makeover.

So back to work I go. It's a marathon, not a sprint...right? Let's see how the other ladies are doing.

Simple Details 

To be clear -- I have NO IDEA what will happen, or, for that matter, what will NOT happen. The Vatican is a country unto itself and the Roman Catholic Church has more secrets than the CIA ever dreamed of having. Add to that the fact that this is the first time in, oh, about 600 years that a Pope has actually resigned (1415) this is, for all intents and purposes, new territory we are ALL exploring.

This will be a learning experience for all of us.  The intricacies of electing a new pope is fascinating. 

I have seen rather a large number of popes come and go in my lifetime and it never fails to grab my interest even though I claim membership in the church that bears the name of the Great Reformer -- and a royal pain in the derriere of the Roman Catholic Church -- Martin Luther.

Between now and Easter morning, the High Holy Day of the Christian Church, the eyes of the world will be turned to Rome, to the Vatican to be precise, and eventually, we will all be watching that well recognized chimney for the black smoke -- or the white smoke -- as we watch and wait for the new Pope to be elected.  Who will deliver the Easter message?  Peter?

If his name, indeed, IS Peter,  then, as my ole pappy used to say, "Son, it's too wet to plow now!"

Just so we are clear ... I offer these few comments only for your consideration as this is sure to be a topic of discussion between now and the selection of a new Pope. We strongly suggest one should place one's faith only in the prophecies mentioned in the Holy Bible –  and not in the word of man.  

© J. D. Longstreet

Excerpt from Huff Post Politics, Ted Nugent's response to President Obama's state of the union address tonight promises to be very interesting. My money is with those who suspect Nugent will do more harm than good to advocates of firearm rights, which obviously includes the NRA.

... "We know that the president will have the State of the Union stacked and jammed with props, children and victims of violent crime," Nugent said. "And my friends wanted me to attend to counter that the way that I do: with facts, statistics and common sense and logic and a celebration of self-evident truths. So I will be taking on the media orgy following the State of the Union Address."

Nugent went on to promise to "remain respectful to the office of the presidency and the event itself," but suggested that he wouldn't tone down his rhetoric.

While Nugent laughed off critics whom he said doubted his ability to form "cognitive thoughts," a number of members in the gun control community are predicting that the flame-throwing conservative's highly anticipated presence will be a public relations disaster for pro-gun advocates.

The decision by Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) to invite Nugent certainly draws a stark contrast. A number of family members of victims of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school will also be in attendance Tuesday night, as guests of members of Congress and first lady Michelle Obama.

Nugent has argued that there is no reason to look at guns as part of the problem in the wake of the massacre. Shortly after the mass shooting, he instead blamed the nation's "spiritual bankruptcy" and its "politically correct" mentality for allowing such atrocities to happen. He's since depicted gun control efforts as preliminary steps in a broader plan to confiscate firearms from law-abiding owners. {Read The Rest Here}

Via: Memorandum