One of my favorite actors — from the movies he did with Doris Day to the still watchable Rockford Files — James Garner has passed away. Few actors could register disbelief, exasperation or annoyance with more comic subtlety. James Garner had a way of widening his eyes while the corner of his mouth sagged ever so slightly. Maybe he would swallow once to further make his point. This portrait of
July 2014
July 19, 2014
“The more people are exposed to socialism, the worse they behave” [Darleen Click]
Leftist dogma holds that individuals are not responsible for their failures and any successes are just “luck” (“You didn’t build that”) so why is it surprising that higher numbers of them would cheat? “UNDER capitalism”, ran the old Soviet-era joke, “man exploits man. Under communism it is just the opposite.” In fact new research suggests that the Soviet system inspired not just sarcasm but cheating too: in East Germany, at
July 19, 2014
Christian extremists found to have ‘taken over’ 13 schools in Britain … [Darleen Click]
The report found that the extremism went unchecked because the council “disastrously” prioritised community cohesion over “doing what is right”. It concluded that there was a “determined effort” by “manipulative” governors to introduce “unacceptable” practices, “undermine” head teachers and deny students a broad and balanced education. Sir Albert Bore, Birmingham’s leader, apologised for the council’s handling of the scandal. He said: “The actions of a few, including some within the
July 19, 2014
Russian-backed separatists tampering with MH17 crash site [Darleen Click]
Muddying up an already contentious situation. Almost two days after Flight 17 was downed by a missile over rebel-held territory in the east of Ukraine, representatives from the Kiev government had still not been allowed access to the mammoth crash site, and rebels were preventing local emergency services personnel from gathering evidence, Ukrainian officials said. “They’re playing a game with the state. They behave as an independent country. The reason
July 19, 2014
American Fascism [Darleen Click]
Process as punishment. The Food and Drug Administration is putting the squeeze on J.C. Newman Cigar Co. — a 119-year-old family owned company — with the rules and regulations in Florida, which could lead the company to close down. “Founded in 1895 by Julius Caesar Newman, a Hungarian immigrant, the Tampa-based family business is the last of what was once 150 ‘Cigar City’ factories,” Watchdog.org reports. Food for thought: the
July 18, 2014
“Mr. President, when did the Democratic Party declare war on the Catholic Church?” [Darleen Click]
Rhetorical question, eh?
July 18, 2014
Nudge Nation [Darleen Click]
Michelle Obama has done so spectacularly well with school lunches, it is only natural and right for the USDA to look at ways to regulate grocery stores … For our own good, of course. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is suggesting major changes to grocery stores to “nudge” Americans to purchase healthier foods when they shop. The agency commissioned an “expert panel” to make recommendations on how to guide
July 18, 2014
Is MH17 Putin’s Lusitania? [Darleen Click]
Smoking guns Intercepted phone calls purportedly between Russian military intelligence officers and members of a pro-Russian separatist group that appear to capture the moment the rebels realized the plane they shot down was a civilian passenger plane could be the smoking gun that helps prove Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed Ukraine by the insurgents. The tapes were released by SBU, Ukraine’s security agency, and transcript was published in the
July 17, 2014
on the horizon
Just a quick note here to let you know that, thanks to “unpredictably good weather,” we are being asked to close on the house we’ve been building two and a half months prior to the date we thought we’d be closing. And because the builder contract contains language that requires us to close upon completion, regardless of what dates we were quoted and had negotiated up front (and even had
July 17, 2014
End game: the left, illegal immigration, and the ongoing coup
Progressives have always detested the founding and have long embraced the self-serving assumption (insofar as it gives them the rationale for counter-revolutionary impulses) that the US is an illegitimate, colonialist nation built on stolen land and stolen labor. And Obama, steeped in this doctrinaire academic leftist cant, was nurtured and molded and in many ways created — as the moderate “pragmatist” and “post-racial” President — to be the left’s trojan