Monthly Archives: May 2012

Goalkeeper is lucky sometimes (Soccer Saturday)

Vegalta Sendai were up 1-0 in the first half of their J-League match against defending champions Nagoya Grampus Eight when the losing home side’s keeper, Yoshinari Takagi, came out of his area to collect the ball. He took too long to clear it., allowing Atsushi Yanagisawa to take the ball off him for a seemingly easy chance at a wide-open net. But, Yanagisawa decided to shoot from outside the box instead of going in a bit closer and ended up putting his shot wide of the far post.

Yanagisawa fell over in shock, while Takagi quickly resumed play in the hopes that no one would remember his goof-up to start the series of goof-ups. In the end, the combination of flubs didn’t matter, though, and Vegalta held on to win 1-0.

People in the Johnny Cash video “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”

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Johnny Cash – God’s Gonna Cut You Down

Johnny Cash’s version of the traditional God’s Gonna Cut You Down, from the album “American V: A Hundred Highways”, was released as a music video on November 9 2006, just over three years after Cash died. Producer Rick Rubin opens the music video, saying, “You know, Johnny always wore black. He wore black because he identified with the poor and the downtrodden…”. What follows is a collection of black and white clips of well known pop artists wearing black, each interacting with the song in their own way. Some use religious imagery. Howard sits in his limo reading from Ezekiel 34, a Biblical passage warning about impending judgment for false shepherd. Bono leaning on a graffiti-filled wall between angel’s wings and a halo, pointing to the words, “Sinners Make The Best Saints. J.C. R.I.P.” A number of artists wear or hold crosses.

Faces in Johnny Cash God's Gonna Cut You Down music video

Artists appear in this order: Rick Rubin, Iggy Pop, Kanye West, Chris Martin, Kris Kristofferson, Patti Smith, Terence Howard, Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Q-Tip, Adam Levine (Maroon 5), Chris Rock, Justin Timberlake, Kate Moss, Sir Peter Blake (Sgt Peppers Artist), Sheryl Crow, Denis Hopper, Woody Harrelson, Amy Lee of Evanescence, Tommy Lee, Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Martie Maguire (Dixie Chicks), Mick Jones, Sharon Stone, Bono, Shelby Lynne, Anthony Kiedis, Travis Barker, Lisa Marie Presley, Kid Rock, Jay Z, Keith Richards, Billy Gibbons, Corinne Bailey Rae, Johnny Depp, Graham Nash, Brian Wilson, Rick Rubin and Owen Wilson. The video finishes with Rick Rubin traveling to a seaside cliff with friend Owen Wilson to throw a bouquet of flowers up in the air.

Wikipedia noted:

Johnny Cash recorded a version of “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” on American V: A Hundred Highways in 2003, with an arrangement quite different from most known gospel versions of the song.

A music video, directed by Tony Kaye,[1] was made for this version in late 2006. It featured a number of celebrities, including:

In order of appearance; Iggy Pop, Kanye West, Chris Martin, Kris Kristofferson, Patti Smith, Terrence Howard, Flea, Q-Tip, Adam Levine, Chris Rock, Justin Timberlake, Kate Moss, Sir Peter Blake, Sheryl Crow, Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson, Amy Lee, Tommy Lee, the Dixie Chicks, Mick Jones, Sharon Stone, Bono, Shelby Lynne, Anthony Kiedis, Travis Barker, Lisa Marie Presley, Kid Rock, Jay-Z, Keith Richards, Billy Gibbons, Corinne Bailey Rae, Johnny Depp, Graham Nash (holding photos of Johnny Cash), Brian Wilson.

It also briefly features archive footage of Cash himself. The video was shot entirely in black and white. Since its release, both the song and video have seen moderate airplay.

The video won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.

The video was also covered by Rebel Son, Adding a little bit more upbeat sound to the song, Released on the “All my Demons” album.

  • God’s Gonna Cut You Down

  • The video also briefly features archive footage of Cash himself. Since its release, both the song and video have seen moderate airplay. The video won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.The Johnny Cash version can also be heard in the following:

    Other artists[edit]

    American singer and civil rights activist Odetta recorded a traditional version of the song. Musician Sean Michel covered the song during his audition on Season 6 of American Idol. Matchbox Twenty also used the song before playing “How Far We’ve Come” on their “Exile in America” tour.

  • The New Jersey rock band The Gaslight Anthem have also covered the song.[citation needed] Canadian rock band Three Days Grace has used the song in the opening of their live shows, as well as the rock band Staind . Bobbie Gentry recorded a version as “Sermon” on her album The Delta Sweete. Guitarist Bill Leverty recorded a version for his third solo project Deep South, a tribute album of traditional songs. Tom Jones recorded an up-tempo version which appears on his 2010 album Praise & BlamePow woW recorded a version with the Golden Gate Quartet for their 1992 album Regagner les Plaines and performed a live version with the quartet in 2008. A cover of the song by Blues Saraceno was used for the Season 8 trailer of the TV series DexterPedro Costarecorded a neo-blues version for the Discovery channel TV show Weed Country (2013). Virginia based folk rock band Carbon Leaf covered the song many times during their live shows.
  • Chart positions[edit]

    Moby version: “Run On”[edit]

    Chart (1999) Peak
    position
    UK Singles Chart 33

    Johnny Cash version[edit]

    Chart (2006) Peak
    position
    UK Singles Chart 77

  • American Idol contestant ministers in Chile

  • SANTIAGO, Chile (BP)–Sean Michel smiled through his distinctive, foot-long beard as he slid the guitar strap over his shoulder and greeted the crowd at El Huevo nightclub with what little Spanish he knows. The former American Idol contestant and his band then erupted into the sounds of Mississippi Delta blues-rock.But unlike other musicians who played that night, the Sean Michel band sang about every person’s need for God and the salvation that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.”We came down [to Chile] to open doors that other ministries couldn’t,” said Jay Newman, Michel’s manager. “To get in places that only a rock band could — to create a vision for new church-planting movements among the underground, disenfranchised subcultures of Chile.”The Sean Michel band recently traveled through central Chile playing more than 15 shows in bars, churches, schools and parks. The group consists of Southern Baptists Sean Michel, lead singer; Alvin Rapien, lead guitarist; Seth Atchley, bass guitarist; and Tyler Groves, drummer.”Although we’re a blues rock ‘n’ roll band, we’re an extension of the church,” Michel said. “We’re kind of like ‘musicianaries,’ if you will.”MISSIONS-MINDED MUSICIANSThe band formed after Michel and Newman met as students at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark. While there, the two began recording and selling Michel’s music as a way to raise money for mission trips to Africa and Asia.

    “We were just trying to raise money for a mission trip, but we’d also seen God speaking to people through the music,” Michel said. “So we were like, ‘Well, maybe we need to do something with this,’ and we became a music ministry. But it’s always been rooted in missions and … in the Great Commission.”

    Michel graduated from Ouachita in 2001, Newman in 2004. In 2007, Newman talked Michel into auditioning for American Idol. The exposure Michel received through the television show gained a wider audience for their ministry.

    “The whole American Idol thing was so weird,” Michel said. “We just kind of went on a whim. But the Lord used it in a big way.”

    During his tryout, Michel belted out a soulful rendition of Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” The video of the audition went viral on the Internet.

    Soon he was doing radio interviews in which he identified himself as a Christian and directed listeners to the band’s Gospel-laden MySpace page. On their next mission trip to Asia, Michel and Newman found that being recognizable gave them access to venues they couldn’t have entered before.

    The band is now an official extension of First Southern Baptist Church of Bryant, Ark., where the musicians have long been active members serving in the music and youth ministries. Every mission trip they have taken has involved working with International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries.

    “We’re Southern Baptist,” Michel said. “That’s who we roll with.”

    TOUR DE FAITH

    “With short-term mission trips, you can plan, but you just got to be willing for your plans to change,” said Michel. When the band arrived in Chile, they were surprised to find that their schedule wasn’t nearly as full as expected. Almost no public venues had booked shows, and many rock-wary churches had declined to host the band.

    “The biggest barrier we had was the pastors,” said Cliff Case, an IMB missionary in Santiago, Chile, and a 1984 graduate of Ouachita Baptist. “The older pastors on two or three different occasions gave excuses for not doing it. It was a real frustration in that sense.”

    Disappointed by the lack of interest, the band prayed for God’s help. They met Jose Campos — or Pépe, as the band came to know him. Campos works with music and youth for the Ministry of the Down and Out, an independent Christian ministry that seeks to reach the often-overlooked demographics of Santiago.

    Campos was able to use his connections to book shows for the band in venues they wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

    “Had we met Pépe (Campos) two or three weeks before the group came, there’s no telling how many shows we might have done,” said Case, who met Newman at Ouachita when Case and his wife, Cinthy, were missionaries-in-residence there.

    Campos booked the show at El Huevo, possibly Chile’s most popular club. Playing there has given the band musical credibility among Chilean rockers. And, one Chilean church reported that a youth accepted Christ after hearing Newman talk before a show. The band already is contemplating a return tour next year.

    OPENING NEW DOORS

    Sharing the Gospel through their songs is only the beginning for the Sean Michel band. Their vision is to be a catalyst to help churches — and missionaries — connect with the lost people of their communities.

    “God is not saving the world through rock bands,” Michel said. “He’s saving the world through the church. And it will always be through the local body.”

    The band wants to see churches take ministry beyond the church doors.

    “If you’re going to want to legitimately reach lost people, you’re going to have to get out,” Michel said. “Go out into the dark places. Those are the places we need to be to reach out.”

    The band’s ministry in Chile opened new doors for IMB missionaries to reach the young, musical subculture of Chilean society.

    “They laid the groundwork for more opportunities,” Case said. “Now we have a network of who to talk to and how to get organized. We can focus on how to use the work they’re doing so we can win people to the Lord and plant some churches.”


    Tristan Taylor is an International Mission Board writer living in the Americas.

  • TIMBERLAKE’S BRAINSTORM: JOHNNY CASH VIDEO WITH KANYE, JIGGA, DEPP, OTHERS

    CLIP ALSO STARS BONO, CHRIS MARTIN, TERRENCE HOWARD, CHRIS ROCK, ADAM LEVINE, AMY LEE, TOMMY LEE.

    If Justin Timberlake adds any more titles to his résumé, we’re not going to be able to fit them all onto a single line. The singer/actor/dancer/producer/clothing designer has tacked video-treatment writer onto his long list of recent endeavors, courtesy of the moody new clip for the Johnny Cash song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.”The concept for the all-star video came to Timberlake while he was taking a break from recording with producer Rick Rubin, who helmed Cash’s award-winning Americanalbum series and Timberlake’s “(Another Song) All Over Again.”

    “We were in the studio and we took a break to listen to the new Johnny Cash album [American V: A Hundred Highways], which was not yet released at that point,” Rubin said. “And when we got to that song, [Justin] said, ‘Stop!’ ”

    Timberlake then laid out a plan for a video to accompany the spare, moody song, which would feature a series of stars dressed in Cash’s signature black. “And he said, ‘I’m signing up to be the first one,’ ” Rubin said.

    Timberlake tops a list of 36 stars who appear in the clip, including Iggy Pop, Kanye West, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, actor Terrence Howard, Anthony Kiedis and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chris Rock, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, Kate Moss, Sheryl Crow, Woody Harrelson, Amy Lee of Evanescence, Tommy Lee, the Dixie Chicks, Keith Richards, Bono, (+44)’s Travis Barker, Kid Rock, Jay-Z and Johnny Depp.

    “I had no idea yet how to market the album, which I’d just finished, since Johnny [Cash, who passed away in 2003] was not there and I wasn’t thinking about doing a video,” Rubin said (see “Johnny Cash Dead At 71”).

    Inspired by Timberlake’s brainstorm, Rubin called up acclaimed video director Mark Romanek, who helmed the award-winning clip for Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” (see “Johnny Cash Says Unlike Most Videos, ‘Hurt’ Wasn’t Too Painful”). Though Romanek loved the concept and added some ideas to it, he couldn’t sign on due to scheduling conflicts, so he suggested controversial director Tony Kaye (“American History X”). Kaye, who directed the time-tripping clip for the Chili Peppers’ “Dani California” (which is from an album also produced by Rubin), hasn’t directed many rock videos, but like many of the celebs in the shoot, he’s among the luminaries in Rubin’s thick address book of friends and professional acquaintances.

    “I got together with Tony — he loved Johnny and he’s really interested in the idea of music driving images,” Rubin said. Once they agreed on the concept, Rubin asked a few friends to make a list of the 10 coolest people on the planet. “At least five of the people in the video were on everyone’s list,” he said, “and Iggy was on a lot of lists, so it just felt right to open with him. I don’t know what that message is, but it just feels right.”

    Like the other stars, punk icon Pop is filmed wearing all black. The film’s lightning-fast, blink-and-you-might-miss-it series of quick-edit shots (many of which are close-ups of the stars’ faces) contrast with the slow tempo of the song.

    The video progresses through a series of quick mini-dramas, most of which were improvised, including Howard in a limo reading a Bible, Rock singing along with the lyrics, Timberlake staring at the camera, Depp standing on a balcony playing guitar, and Bono leaning on a graffiti-filled wall between angel’s wings and a halo while wearing a paper hat. The segments were filmed in Los Angeles, New York, London and (in Richards’ case) Amsterdam.

    Rubin said that for many of the artists in the clip — who also include Kris Kristofferson, Patti Smith, Q-Tip, Dennis Hopper, the Clash’s Mick Jones, Sharon Stone, Shelby Lynne, Lisa Marie Presley, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Corinne Bailey Rae, Graham Nash and the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson — their reactions capture reflective moments spurred by hearing the song for the first time. Lynne sheds tears in an intense closeup, and a serious-looking Kid Rock stomps and claps his hands along to the funereal beat. “Each person got to design their own moment,” Rubin said. “But Tony was looking more for the instant emotional impact than a pre-planned skit. Nobody was asked to lip-sync, so pretty much everything was spontaneous.”

    After a slide-show-like recap of all the famous faces, the clip ends with Rubin and actor Owen Wilson sitting somberly in the back of a limousine.

    We get Iggy and Bono, but what’s Wilson’s connection to the whole thing? “It just made sense that if I was honoring Johnny, I’d have a friend there with me,” Rubin said.

    He also said Kaye has directed a clip for the Cash tune “Help Me” that is not celebrity-driven, but is equally gripping and slated for release in the coming months.

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  • Johnny Cash (Part 4)

    I got to hear Johnny Cash sing in person back in 1978.  Here is a portion of an article about his Christian Testimony. The Man Came Around   “Being a Christian isn’t for sissies,” Cash said once. “It takes a real man to live for God—a lot more man than to live for the devil, […]

  • Johnny Cash a Christian?

    I got to see Johnny Cash perform in Memphis in 1978 and I actually knew his nephew very well. He was an outspoken Christian and evangelical. Here is an article that discusses this. Johnny Cash’s Complicated Faith Dave Urbanski <!– var fbShare = { google_analytics: ‘true’, } tweetmeme_source = ‘RELEVANTMag’; –> Unwrapping the enigma of […]

    Johnny Cash (Part 3)

    I got to hear Johnny Cash sing in person back in 1978.  Here is a portion of an article about his Christian Testimony. The Man Came Around   A Walking Contradiction Cash’s daughter, singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, once pointed out that “my father was raised a Baptist, but he has the soul of a mystic. He’s […]

    Johnny Cash (Part 2)

    I got to hear Johnny Cash sing in person back in 1978 at a Billy Graham Crusade in Memphis. Here is a portion of an article about his Christian Testimony. The Man Came Around Cash also made major headlines when he shared his faith on The Johnny Cash Show, a popular variety program on ABC […]

    Johnny Cash (Part 1)

    I got to hear Johnny Cash sing in person back in 1978. Here is a portion of an article about his Christian Testimony. The Man Came Around Johnny Cash was not ashamed of his Christian faith—though it was sometimes a messy faith—and even got some encouragement from Billy Graham along the way. Dave Urbanski | […]

  • People in the Johnny Cash video “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”

    Wikipedia noted: Johnny Cash recorded a version of “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” on American V: A Hundred Highways in 2003, with an arrangement quite different from most known gospel versions of the song. A music video, directed by Tony Kaye,[1] was made for this version in late 2006. It featured a number of celebrities, […]

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response (on spending and national debt) May 9, 2012 (part 6)

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet.  (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on May 9, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have linked several of the letters I sent to him below with the email that I received. However, this letter below may have been the one that did it:

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

The government can not spend themselves out of a recession. It doesn’t work. Japan did 8 stimulus packages in the last 20 years but it has never worked. The best approach to get out of a recession was done by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980’s when he cut taxes then we experienced 7% economic growth. However, somehow Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times claims today that the stimulus did work and that we should have done more!!!

Steve Chapman  rightly noted in his article “Stimulus to Nowhere” noted:

Mired in excruciating negotiations over the budget and the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama might reflect that things didn’t have to turn out this way. The impasse grows mainly out of one major decision he made early on: pushing through a giant stimulus.

When he took office in January 2009, this was his first priority. The following month, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with a price tag eventually put at $862 billion.

It was, he said at the time, the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history,” and would “create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years.”

The president was right about the first claim. As a share of gross domestic output, it was the largest fiscal stimulus program ever tried in this country. But the second claim doesn’t stand up so well. Today, total nonfarm employment is down by more than a million jobs.

What Obama didn’t foresee is that his program would spark a populist backlash and give rise to the tea party. Where would Michele Bachmann be if the stimulus had never been enacted — or if it had been a brilliant success?

To say it has not been is to understate the obvious. The administration says the results look meager because the economy was weaker than anyone realized. Maybe so, but fiscal policy is a clumsy and uncertain tool for stimulating growth, which the past two years have not vindicated.

The package had three main components: tax cuts, aid to state governments and spending on infrastructure projects. Tax cuts would induce consumers to buy stuff. State aid would prop up spending by keeping government workers employed. Infrastructure outlay would generate hiring to build roads, bridges and other public works.

That was the alluring theory, which vaporized on contact with reality. The evidence amassed so far by economists indicates that the stimulus has come up empty in every possible way.

Consider the tax cuts. Wage-earners saw their take-home pay rise as the IRS reduced withholding. But as with past rebates and one-time tax cuts, consumers proved reluctant to perform their assigned role.

Claudia Sahm of the Federal Reserve Board and Joel Slemrod and Matthew Shapiro of the University of Michigan found that only 13 percent of households indicated they would spend most of the windfall. The rest said they preferred to put it in the bank or pay off debts — neither of which boosts the sale of goods and services.

This puny yield was even worse than that of the 2008 tax rebate devised by President George W. Bush. Neither attempt, the study reported, “was very effective in stimulating spending in the near term.”

The idea behind channeling money to state governments is that it would reduce the paring of government payrolls, thus preserving the spending power of public employees. But the plan went awry, according to a paper by Dartmouth College economists James Feyrer and Bruce Sacerdote published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Transfers to the states to support education and law enforcement appear to have little effect,” they concluded. Most likely, they said, states used the money to avoid raising taxes or borrowing money.

That’s right: The federal government took out loans that it will have to cover with future tax increases … so states don’t have to. It’s like paying your Visa bill with your MasterCard.

The public works component could have been called public non-works. It sounds easy for Washington to pay contractors to embark on “shovel-ready projects” that needed only money to get started. The administration somehow forgot that even when the need is urgent, the government moves at the speed of a glacier.

John Cogan and John Taylor, affiliated with Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, reported earlier this year that out of that $862 billion, a microscopic $4 billion has been used to finance infrastructure. Even Obama has been chagrined.

“There’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects,” he complained last year.

Even if jobs were somehow created or saved by this ambitious effort, they came at a prohibitive price. Feyrer and Sacerdote say the costs may have been as high as $400,000 perjob.

Based on all this evidence, we don’t really know whether the federal government can use fiscal policy to engineer a recovery. We do know it can go broke trying.

__________________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

 
 
The White House, Washington
 

 

May 9, 2012

Dear Everette:

Thank you for writing.  I have heard from many Americans about Government spending and our national debt.  I appreciate your perspective.

I am committed to working in a bipartisan way to solve the financial challenges before us and to construct an economy where every hard-working American gets a fair shot, does their fair share, and plays by the same rules.  By focusing on job creation, security for working families, and fiscal responsibility, we can get people the help they need, prepare for the future, and reduce the Federal deficit.

This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class and those trying to reach it.  After decades of eroding middle-class security and after a recession that plunged our economy into a crisis from which we are still fighting to recover, it is time to construct an economy built to last.  To put our Nation back on a path of living within our means, we must cut wasteful spending, ask all Americans to shoulder their fair share, and make tough choices on some things we cannot afford.  The Federal Government, like families across America, is going to have to cut spending while protecting investments that are vital to growing our economy and creating jobs.  My proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2013 targets scarce Federal resources to the areas critical to growing our economy and restoring middle-class security:  education and skills for American workers, innovation and manufacturing, clean energy, and infrastructure.  This proposal will reduce our deficit by $4 trillion by 2022 and will help put our country back on a more sustainable fiscal path.    

An economy built to last also demands we renew the American values of fair play and shared responsibility—principles that must guide our approach to solving our Nation’s deficit problem.  As we extend middle-class tax cuts to help working families, I am pursuing the end of costly tax breaks and special deductions for the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations.  I have repeatedly called on Congress to stop giving away $4 billion a year in oil subsidies to an industry that has never been more profitable, and instead, to pass clean energy tax credits to cultivate a market for innovation in clean energy technology.  I also proposed a fee on big banks and other major financial institutions to recoup taxpayer assistance that was crucial to saving the economy.

To prevent Congress from worsening our deficit outlook, I pushed for and signed into law pay-as-you-go rules for Congress—rules critical to creating the surpluses of the 1990s.  Additionally, I established the Campaign to Cut Waste, which is aggressively rooting out misspent tax dollars, and sent Congress the Consolidating and Reforming Government Act to reinstate the authority past presidents have had to streamline the Executive Branch and create a leaner, more efficient Federal Government.  Through these and other efforts, we can reduce the deficit and ensure a more stable future for our children. 

To learn more about our budget, please visit www.Budget.gov.  Thank you, again, for writing.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Visit WhiteHouse.gov

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Leader Cantor On CNN Responding To President Obama’s State of the Union Address Uploaded by EricCantor on Jan 25, 2012 ______________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I […]

An open letter to President Obama (Part 64)

Sen. Paul Delivers State of the Union Response – Jan. 24, 2012 Uploaded by SenatorRandPaul on Jan 24, 2012 Sen. Rand Paul delivered the following Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address this evening. _________________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, […]

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response March 7, 2011 (part 3)

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet.  (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on March 7, 2011. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response Jan 27, 2011 (part 2)

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet.  (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on January 27, 2011. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response Jan 25, 2011 (part 1)

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet.  (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on January 25, 2011. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]

 

David Barton: Was John Adams really an enemy of Christians? (Part 3)

3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American

Heritage Series / David Barton

Evangelical leader Ken Ham rightly has noted, “Most of the founding fathers of this nation … built the worldview of this nation on the authority of the Word of God.” I strongly agree with this statement by Ham.

Dr. Michael Davis of California has asserted that he has no doubts that our President is a professing Christian, but his policies are those of a secular humanist. I share these same views. However, our founding fathers were anything but secular humanists in their views. John Adams actually wrote in a letter, “There is no authority, civil or religious – there can be no legitimate government – but that which is administered by this Holy Ghost.”

In June of 2011 David Barton of Wallbuilders wrote the article, “John Adams: Was He Really an Enemy of Christians?Addressing Modern Academic Shallowness,” and I wanted to share portions of that article with you.


 At WallBuilders, we are truly blessed by God, owning tens of thousands of original documents from the American Founding – documents clearly demonstrating the Christian and Biblical foundations both of America and of so many of her Founding Fathers and early statesmen. We frequently postoriginal documents on our website so that others may enjoy them and learn more about many important aspects of America’s rich moral, religious, and constitutional heritage that are widely unknown or misportrayed today.

_______________________________

Minimalism is an unreasonable insistence on over-simplicity – on using simplistic platitudes to reduce everything to monolithic causes and linear effects. As an example, citizens today are regularly taught that America separated from Great Britain because of “taxation without representation,” yet that issue was only one of twenty-seven grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence – and it was actually one of the lesser complaints. While only one grievance in the Declaration addressed taxation without representation, eleven addressed the abuse of representative powers; seven the abuse of military powers; four the abuse of judicial powers; and two the stirring up of domestic insurrection. Taxation without representation was only grievance number seventeen out of the twenty-seven, listed alongside Great Britain’s suppression of immigration and her interference with our foreign trade. While the taxation issue was given little emphasis in the Declaration, Minimalism causes it to virtually be the only issue covered today, thus giving citizens a skewed view of the American Revolution and what caused it.

Minimalism is what Pinto practices in his analysis of Adams’ letter. Rather than delving into the complex areas of church history that Adams directly references several times in the letter, Pinto just dismisses them out of hand, rashly claiming that Adams was being irreverent.

Six key phrases Adams used in the letter unequivocally prove that he was not mocking the Holy Spirit or Christianity:

  • “monarch to monarch”
  • “the holy oil in the vial at Rheims”
  • “brought down from Heaven by a dove”
  • “that other phial which I have seen in the Tower of London”
  • “king craft”
  • “priest craft”

Each of these phrases is a direct reference to a particular period and a definite incident in church history – a history early set forth and ably expounded by the Rev. John Wise (1652-1725) of Massachusetts, considered by prominent historians as one of the six greatest intellectual leaders responsible for shaping American thinking. 14 Wise’s works and sermons were read and widely studied across early America, including by the leading patriots and Founding Fathers. Wise divided the general history of Christianity into three epochs, and all six of Adams’ phrases refer to specific occurrences in one of those periods.

Pinto’s preposterous analysis of Adams’ letter is based on the flawed practices of Modernism and Minimalism. Unfortunately, he repeats these same practices throughout his other videos, frequently taking deep multi-faceted issues, failing to recognize or acknowledge crucial references to historical events or practices, and presenting an especially negative view of history. It is for this reason that Pinto is also a Deconstructionist.

Deconstructionism (another of the five malpractices in the modern study of history) is an approach that “tends to deemphasize or even efface the subject” – that is, to malign or smear the subject by posing “a continuous critique” to “lay low what was once high.” 58 It is a steady flow of belittling and malicious portrayals of traditional heroes, beliefs, values, and institutions. Deconstructionists happily point out everything that can possibly be portrayed as a flaw, even if they have to distort information to do it; yet they remain ominously silent about the multitude of reasons to be proud of America, her many heroes, and her many successes. As a result of the work of Deconstructionists, most Americans today can recite more of what’s wrong with America and the Founding Fathers than what’s right.

It is time for Americans, and especially Christians, to become better informed about America’s remarkable moral, religious, and constitutional foundations and to reject the efforts of Deconstructionists who attempt to undermine so many positive aspects of America’s extraordinary heritage – a heritage that has provided unprecedented blessings, and a heritage for which we should be humbly grateful to Almighty God.

14. Clinton Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic: Origin of the American Tradition of Political Liberty (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1953), p. 2.(Return)

58. Jack M. Balkin, “Tradition, Betrayal, and the Politics of Deconstruction – Part II,” Yale University, 1998 (at:http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/trad2.htm). (Return)

What does created equal mean according to Milton Friedman? “Friedman Friday”

What does created equal mean according to Milton Friedman?

In his article “A test for first among equals,” Arkansas News Bureau, September 30, 2011, Matthew Pate asserted:

Among the most familiar passages in the Declaration of Independence is the section reading, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Who am I to dispute one of the key sentiments contained in the great foundational document of our republic?

 

Even so, I’m disputin’ it.

Namely, I have a problem with the idea that we are all created equal. Perhaps in some abstract sense of tabula rasa, we all emerge from the womb with approximately equal potential, but I am dubious of even that.

This said, I readily, wholly and unequivocally believe we should all be treated as though we were equal, but facts being what they are, we are not all equal.

As someone whose job requires the issuance of class grades, I can fully attest that not all snowflakes are special. They all may be unique and valuable, but some are bright white and some appear to have been visited by sled dogs. Like it or not, we are a people of standards, rankings and competitions.

_______-

The answer to this question of what equality is can be found in the first part of the episode “Created Equal” in the film series FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan

Liberals like President Obama (and John Brummett) want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present.  This is a seven part series.

Created Equal [1/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

Uploaded by on May 30, 2010

In this program, Milton Friedman visits India, the U.S., and Britain, examining the question of equality. He points out that our society traditionally has embraced two kinds of equality: equality before God and equality of opportunity. The first of these implies that human beings enjoy a certain dignity simply because they are members of the human community. The second suggests societies should allow the talents and inclinations of individuals to unfold, free from arbitrary barriers. Both of these concepts of equality are consistent with the goal of personal freedom.

In recent years, there has been growing support for a third type of equality, which Dr. Friedman calls “equality of outcome.” This concept of equality assumes that justice demands a more equal distribution of the economic fruits of society. While admitting the good intentions of those supporting the idea of equality of outcome, Dr. Friedman points out that government policies undertaken in support of this objective are inconsistent with the ideal of personal freedom. Advocates of equality of outcome typically argue that consumers must be protected by government from the insensitivities of the free market place.

Dr. Friedman demonstrates that in countries where governments have pursued the goal of equality of outcome, the differences in wealth and well being between the top and the bottom are actually much greater than in countries that have relied on free markets to coordinate economic activity. Indeed, says Dr. Friedman, it is the ordinary citizen who benefits most from the free market system. Dr. Friedman concludes that any society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither. But the society that puts freedom before equality will end up with both greater freedom and great equality.

___________________________

FREE TO CHOOSE 5: “Created Equal” (Milton Friedman)
Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman

Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 3:58:44 PM by Choose Ye This Day

FREE TO CHOOSE: Created Equal

Friedman: From the Victorian novelists to modern reformers, a favorite device to stir our emotions is to contrast extremes of wealth and of poverty. We are expected to conclude that the rich are responsible for the deprivations of the poor __ that they are rich at the expense of the poor.

Whether it is in the slums of New Delhi or in the affluence of Las Vegas, it simply isn’t fair that there should be any losers. Life is unfair __ there is nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being born with sight. There is nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one of an indigenous parent. There is nothing fair about Mohammed Ali having been born with a skill that enables him to make millions of dollars one night. There is nothing fair about Marleena Detrich having great legs that we all want to watch. There is nothing fair about any of that. But on the other hand, don’t you think a lot of people who like to look at Marleena Detrich’s legs benefited from nature’s unfairness in producing a Marleena Detrich. What kind of a world would it be if everybody was an absolute identical duplicate of anybody else. You might as well destroy the whole world and just keep one specimen left for a museum. In the same way, it’s unfair that Muhammed Ali should be a great fighter and should be able to earn millions. But would it not be even more unfair to the people who like to watch him if you said that in the pursuit of some abstract idea of equality we’re not going to let Muhammed Ali get more for one nights fight than the lowest man on the totem pole can get for a days unskilled work on the docks. You can do that but the result of that would be to deny people the opportunity to watch Mohammad Ali. I doubt very much he would be willing to subject himself to the kind of fights he’s gone through if he were to get the pay of an unskilled docker.

This beautiful estate, its manicured lawns, its trees, its shrubs, was built by men and women who were taken by force in Africa and sold as slaves in America. These kitchen gardens were planted and tended by them to furnish food for themselves and their master, Thomas Jefferson, the Squire of Monticello. It was Jefferson who wrote these words: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These words penned by Thomas Jefferson at the age of 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, have served to define a basic ideal of the United States throughout its history.

Much of our history has revolved about the definition and redefinition of the concept of equality, about the intent to translate it into practice. What did Thomas Jefferson mean by the words all men are created equal? He surely did not mean that they were equal and/or identical in what they could do and what they believed. After all, he was himself a most remarkable person. At the age of 26, he designed this beautiful house of Monticello, supervised its construction and indeed is said to have worked on it with his own hands. He was an inventor, a scholar, an author, a statesman, governor of Virginia, President of the United States, minister to France, he helped shape and create the United States. What he meant by the word “equal” can be seen in the phrase “endowed by their creator”. To Thomas Jefferson, all men are equal in the eyes of God. They all must be treated as individuals who have each separately a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Of course, practice did not conform to the ideals. In Jefferson’s life or in ours as a nation, he agonized repeatedly during his lifetime about the conflict between the institution of slavery and the fine words of the declaration. Yet, during his whole life, he was a slave owner.

This is the City Palace in Jaipur, the capitol of the Indian state of Rajasthan, is just one of the elegant houses that were built here 150 years ago by the prince who ruled this land. There are no more princes, no more Maharajas in India today. All titles were swept away by the government of India in its quest for equality. But as you can see, there are still some people here who live a very privileged life. The descendants of the Maharajas financed this kind of life partly by using other palaces as hotels for tourists __ tourists who come to India to see how the other half lives. This side of India, the exotic glamorous side, is still very real. Everywhere in the world there are gross inequalities of income and wealth. They offend most of us.

A myth has grown up that free market capitalism increases such inequalities, that the rich benefit at the expense of the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor. Nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate, whether they be feudal societies where status determines position, or modern, centrally-planned economies where access to government determines position.

Central planning was introduced in India in considerable part in the name of equality. The tragedy is that after 30 years, it is hard to see any significant improvement in the lot of the ordinary person.

Related posts:

Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video)

Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other […]

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of transcript and video)

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are […]

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 1 of transcript and video)

 Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan Liberals like President Obama (and John Brummett) want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present.  This is a seven part series. […]

 

Margaret Thatcher exposed the real liberal agenda

Uploaded by on Jan 18, 2009

Margaret Thatcher’s last House of Commons Speech on November 22, 1990.

________________

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher:

People on all levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That way one will never create the wealth for better social services, as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy.

__________

No wonder Ronald Wilson Reagan (who I named my son Wilson after) and Prime Minister Thatcher were good friends. They both saw through the motives of the liberals.

I shared an amazing video last year featuring Margaret Thatcher exposing the left for wanting to keep the poor destitute if that was the price of hurting the so-called rich.

Deroy Murdock makes similar points in a great column for National Review.

For too many liberals like Obama, “fairness” is not about enriching the modest; it’s about impoverishing the moneyed. Multibillionaire Warren Buffett has energized liberals with his still-unverified claim that his tax rate lags his secretary’s. …Somehow, reducing the secretary’s taxes never came up. Instead liberals demand the so-called Buffett Rule, an instrument for bludgeoning the successful rather than boosting the downtrodden. …Here’s how the Right should challenge the Left: “If you dislike income inequality, lift those with the least. Let’s adopt universal school choice, allow personal Social Security retirement accounts (to democratize long-term capital accumulation), radically reduce or eliminate America’s anti-competitive 35 percent corporate tax (to supercharge businesses), and pass right-to-work laws (so the jobless won’t fester outside closed shops). Let’s build the Keystone Pipeline (to create 20,000 blue-collar positions right now and lower everyone’s energy costs), frack for natural gas, and tame the EPA, OSHA, SEC, and other power-mad bureaucracies, so U.S. companies will stay here, and foreign firms will move in.”

Needless to say, the left will not accept Deroy’s challenge.

Too many of them care about enriching teacher unions, for instance, more than they care about educational opportunity for poor children.

And most leftist leaders would like to impose higher tax rates on success, even if the government collects less revenue.

__________

Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 5)

Saturday 14 July 2012

Switchfoot

Venue

Magic Springs Theme Park 1701 E. Grand Ave. 71901 Hot Springs, AR, US

Venue info and map

Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 5)

One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot. Tim Foreman is the front man and this band has always been very vocal about their Christian faith. I am really enjoying this series on their band.

Switchfoot: Oh! Gravity. The Meaning Behind

 Posted: Friday, December 22, 2006, 12:24 (GMT)

Oh! Gravity.
The Songs by Jon Foreman

grav•i•ty (grv-t) n.
– The natural force of attraction between any two massive bodies, which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
– Grave consequence; seriousness or importance
– Solemnity or dignity of manner.

Meaning Behind Songs

Oh! Gravity is a conversation with a well-known law of physics. The question is this: If in the physical world things naturally move closer together, why are we falling apart? War and rumors of war, divorce, hatred, violence, and everything else on the evening news seems to contradict gravity. This song is a fun happy-clappy tune about a grave matter: “Sons of my enemies, why can’t we seem to keep it together?”

American Dream. I am proud to be an American. Proud of my grandfather who was shot down in world war two. Proud of some of my best friends who are in the Marines. I believe in a nation that is serving a higher calling than a TV. I have nothing against the material world. I have nothing against consumerism as a social structure. Certainly we are consumers with physical bodies, but if that’s all we are we’ve lost what it means to be human. When success is equated with excess the ambition for excess wrecks us. As the top of the mind becomes the bottom line when success is equated with excess.

Dirty Second Hands. the machine. the clock. our own hands. The dirty second hand of time is always ticking- bringing us and all that we have worked so hard to achieve closer to the grave and the second hand store. In my fight with depression, lust, pride, and boredom I have found that the biggest challenger is often within me. The very machinery that I loathe and have fought so hard to defeat stares back at me from the mirror. This mechanism is always ticking. And in my spiritual life I have found that this is a part of me that has to die everyday if I am to be truly alive.

Awakening. How quickly I am lulled back to sleep! How quickly I forget. In one of my favorite Wilco songs Jeff Tweedy sings, “You know I would die if I could come back new.” Perhaps to be truly reborn death is not optional. Here’s a firsthand story about new life, it always starts at the bottom.

Circles. Here’s a tune that had its roots in the past. We actually played a version of this song a few tours ago while we were gearing up for the recording of “nothing is sound.” It’s an ecclesiastical song about the modern machine. We tracked a previous version of this song while we were tracking stars. But something about the song was never quite right. When Sean and Sarah Watkins (our friends from Nickel Creek) came in, the song took on a new life and became something truly special. The end of the song represents one of my favorite moments we’ve ever had on a CD.


Amateur Lovers. Oh that we knew how to love each other well! Here’s a song that elaborates on the title track with another set of social-physics questions. We all need love so badly- it’s how we were made. And yet we’re so bad at loving one another. It’s our attempt to put another matter of grave consequence in the skin of a pop tune.

Faust, Midas, and Myself. Two mythologies and the truth. Or more specifically, a man who makes a deal with the devil, a man who has a touch of gold, and my own personal struggles. CS Lewis had a lot to say about mythology. On one occasion he said that he writes fantasy to get past the watchful dragons of religion. That’s why I write music, because our minds are often so closed that even the truth can’t fit in to set us free. This is a story about following the fantasy and seeing where it leads. Sometimes the dreams turn into nightmares… In a million ways, I know firsthand that the taste turns sour very quickly.

Head Over Heals. This is an honest love song. Love is not a silk flower- always bright, with artificially whitened teeth and a fake tan. No, love is a fight. Love is what happens when you’ve been hurt and you want to quit. Love is what happens when you decide not to. Love is not the beginning of the story but the ending. Perhaps the thirty-minute sitcom has done a disservice to the sheer magnitude of what love is.

Yesterdays. I wrote this with my brother. The song is very straightforward. I have hope in this life and beyond the grave.

Burn Out Bright. One of two tracks on the record that is a command. Seems like every story I can relate to starts off with a broken heart, broken dreams and bleeding parts. There’s a story I know about a man named Israel who wrestled with God. From that day on he walked with a limp. I guess in a lot of ways I don’t trust a man who doesn’t have a limp. The future is yet unwritten. Write it well.

4:12. Another musical thesis on the subject of materialism. I’ve heard it said that we are souls and we have bodies. And yet our physical world is always hungry, always thirsty, always watching, always listening. It gets to the point where I begin to believe that all we are and that all of our dreams are nothing more than material. That love and fear and pain and justice are material? It’s nonsensical.

Let Your Love Be Strong. My wife’s favorite song. This one means a lot to me. “Maybe I’m just idealistic to assume that truth could be fact and form, that love could be a verb, maybe I’m just a little misinformed.” I wrote this one after a long walk in the early morning before the sun came up. I was sitting out by the train tracks halfway between the ocean and the freeway. When everything in your life falls apart you begin to realize what’s worth holding on to and who’s got a hold on you. Let the world fall apart … all of my life rests upon the love that created every breath I have been given.

*a footnote:
I have a hard time explaining what I do for a living. I sometimes wish I played the role of inventor: purposefully creative, a wizard with notes and words. But in fact my occupation is much more like an archeologist. Always digging. Always sorting. And occasionally I feel that I stumble across something truly remarkable. Like a hidden city buried in the ground, the notes and words seem to have been there long before me- as though the song would exist without my involvement. Or maybe it’s more like farming. Preparing the soil, planting, watering, pruning and caring for these ideas hoping to see a bumper crop yet knowing that the outcome is almost entirely out of my hands.

With that in mind, this collection of songs then is something that I can only partly take credit for. Most of my favorite moments on the record represent the times when my fingerprints are the lightest, where my own self-conscious second-guessing is absent and the buried city can speak for itself. I suppose to some extent I’m talking about honesty- allowing a song to be itself rather than forcing your own will upon it. This was a goal not only in the writing process but in the studio as well. Many times on this record we deliberately went back to the first take and the rough draft to find our direction simply because the first response to the song is often the most honest. Your first instincts might be poorly played or incomplete but they were honest.

I am so proud of these songs, like I am proud of my friends or as I imagine a father would be proud of his son. I truly feel like there is only so much credit that be given to the songwriter, for the buried city was waiting there all along.

John Calipari target of Lexington paper carton

I have to admit that I always pull for the SEC teams to win but I made an exception when Kentucky made it to the final four this year. Maybe the point of this carton below had something to do with it. I am not a Tennessee fan but I pull for them to beat Kentucky everytime they play.

The Herald-Leader continues to dig its own grave, almost to six-feet

by Drew Franklin @ 10:40 am. Filed under Blue Blooded Opinions

This political cartoon making fun of John Calipari ran in the Lexington Herald-Leader today and I have a very good feeling it isn’t going to go over well.

I feel sorry for whoever is working the newspaper’s cancellation desk because it’s going to be a busy day on the phones. I hope they packed a lunch.

The Herald-Leader

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276 Responses to “The Herald-Leader continues to dig its own grave, almost to six-feet”

  1. Jatt Mones Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:41 am I honestly can’t believe people still subscribe to that crap paper.
  2. Whysoserious Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:42 am Wtf?

    How could you be so dumb to run something like this?

    I don’t have a HL subscription, but I’m going to call and cancel anyways.

  3. I know this Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:42 am Joel Pett, the cartoonist, was a longtime political cartoonist at the Bloomington Herald Telephone (aka the Horrible-Terrible) during the Knight years.
  4. Jarrod Polson is the new Zack Morris Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:43 am Who knew Jerry Tipton could draw?
  5. Keith R. Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:43 am I think it’s time that KSR stops mentioning them in daily news. But you have to have something to put in here, right?
  6. James K Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:43 am That’s the most insulting thing I’ve seen from the LHL. I never read their paper, and they are just trying to get people to come to the site. Unbelievable. If Cal threatened to shut them out before, what is it going to be like now?
  7. GrumpyOldDude Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:44 am They even have John Clay jumping on the bashing bandwagon today…….idiots.
  8. RCS Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:47 am I generally think fans overreact to the local media, but I must say the HL has taken a pretty negative stance on UK. Tipton really is a caricature this point, coming up with new and creative ways to spin stores to the negative. That said, it has lost almost all of its relevance so I don’t think it really matters.
  9. Allen Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:47 am 5- If you don’t like it, go to a different website and stop coming to this one.
  10. Used to be a HL reader Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:49 am Ever since I found KSR, I stopped checking the HL website. Thank you KSR, and R.I.P. HL.
  11. ltothaj1 Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:50 am WOW, are they trying to put the Herald under? unbelievable
  12. Num1CatFan Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:50 am The Herald Mis-Leader
  13. JMF Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:50 am Just dumb business move on HL’s part. They wonder why subscription #’s continue to decline.
  14. G Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:50 am Joel Pett is lucky that he doesn’t have a Twitter
  15. Wow Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:50 am The LHL has been irrelevant to me for a long time. I don’t read it, link to it, or think about it.
  16. MKG Fan Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:50 am Time to short sell LHL stock.
  17. catcard202 Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:51 am IMO, UK should just disassociate themselves from the LHL / any LHL employee & be done w/ it. Revoke all access, deny any request made & be VERY PUBLIC as to WHY the LHL has been banished (via other media avenues).
  18. El Stumperino Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:51 am Dollar signs on the trophy, that’s uncalled for and totally offensive.
  19. mateotemprano Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:51 am was this drawn by joel pett or “not joel pett”?

    never mind– the LHL is incapable of self-deprecating satire…

  20. Jezz Says:
    May 8th, 2012 at 10:52 am This newspaper needs to die slowly and painfully.

    This is the LEXINGTON Herald Leader. Go away if you want to hate on the University of Kentucky or just accept the bankruptcy that’s coming your way.

  21. Post national championship interviews with John Calipari

    Kentucky’s John Calipari on being a National Champion Uploaded by CBSSports on Apr 3, 2012 Kentucky Wildcats coach John Calipari talks to Tim Brando about what it feels like to finally win a national title ________ John Calipari and Darius Miller speak at UK championship celebration ____________ _____________ Related posts: If Calipari had stayed at […]

    PBS: Post Kentucky, Assessing NBA’s One-And-Done Rule

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    If Calipari had stayed at Memphis he could have won a national championship earlier!!!

    John Calipari’s Kentucky program isn’t just No. 1 in the country. It’s the hottest program since UCLA used to win it all every year. (Getty Images) The conventional thinking is that John Calipari won a national title because he went to Kentucky.  However, when he left Memphis he had the best recruiting class in the […]

    Calipari’s super recruiting success all started after Derrick Rose’s #1 draft pick in NBA

    One Shining Moment 2012 HD Everything you will read below by Dan Wetzel is true, but it all started when Derrick Rose was taken first in the NBA draft after spending one year under Calipari at Memphis. John Calipari stuggled to recruit top players to Memphis the first 4 years he was there because the […]

    Prediction:Calipari’s Wildcats will win with comeback in last 2 minutes over Kansas

    Kansas will build a good lead going inside of two minutes and then Kentucky will hit some big shots and Kansas will miss some key free throws as Calipari’s Wildcats squeeze out a victory. I do think it will be dramatic and it will be totally opposite of what happened to Calipari’s team in 2008. […]

    John Calipari’s best recruiting class of all time fell apart

     Enlarge   John Calipari address the press on his first day as Kentucky basketball coach. John Calipari stuggled to recruit top players to Memphis the first 4 years he was there because the “one and done” rule had not been put into place yet and many of the talented recruits of his skipped college and […]

    John Calipari versus Bill Self for National Title Act 2 (part 8)

    #1 Kansas vs #1 Memphis National Championship 2008 (Part 3) The paths of Self and Calipari cross for championship By Kory Carpenter Sunday, April 1, 2012 More New Orleans, La. — Bill Self’s start in coaching is probably well known by now. A guard on the Oklahoma State basketball team, he worked at a Kansas […]

    John Calipari versus Bill Self for National Title Act 2 (part 7)

    Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Kentucky vs. Kansas: Bill Self a Fitting Final Obstacle to John Calipari’s Title By Josh Martin (Featured Columnist) on April 2, 2012   Stacy Revere/Getty Images The long and winding road to an NCAA Tournament title has led John Calipari back to Bill Self‘s door. […]

    John Calipari versus Bill Self for National Title Act 2 (part 6)

    Memphis Tigers John Calipari Interview 2008 Basketball Final FOX Sports Exclusive Calipari, Self more than just recruiters   NEW ORLEANS There is an inherent silliness to a profession like the one that has made rich men of John Calipari and Bill Self. They spend months, even years, burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel and […]

    John Calipari versus Bill Self for National Title Act 2 (part 5)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 77)

Sen. Toomey responds to State of the Union address 2012

Leader Cantor On CNN Responding To President Obama’s State of the Union Address

Uploaded by on Jan 25, 2012

Sen. Paul Delivers State of the Union Response – Jan. 24, 2012

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

It is popular to talk about a “War on Women” and we hear it all the time now in the press (just today, 3-5-12, the Arkansas Times Blog went on and on about it)We need to put things in perspective.

The ‘War on Women’ — a Rhetorical Distraction

Posted by Roger Pilon

Today POLITICO Arena asks:

Now that Rush Limbaugh has apologized, will voters see the Democrats’ “war on women” language as overkill?

My response:

We’re in the season of rhetorical overkill. Rush Limbaugh’s vile attack last week on Sandra Fluke was reprehensible. So too is the Democratic campaign to paint a Republican “war on women” — not least because it treats women as a monolithic class, ignoring the many women who grasp what’s at issue here — liberty.

ObamaCare is a major step toward socialized health care. You can pretend otherwise — the “war on women” rhetoric aims at that — but the coercive elements inherent in any socialized scheme come to the surface when conflicts like the one before us arise.

And it’s only the beginning. Soon enough, as costs to “the public” mount (the only costs that matter in socialized arrangements), Republicans will be talking about a “war on the elderly,” and they’ll be right. After all, “We’re all in this together.” We have that on high authority. Welcome to the world of all against all.

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (“Thirsty Thursday”, Open letter to Senator Pryor)

Dear Senator Pryor,

Why not pass the Balanced  Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).

On my blog www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend.

Hultgren Statement On Opposition To Budget Control Act

Monday August 01, 2011

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) released the following statement after voting against the Budget Control Act.

“Tonight, I voted against a flawed bill that doesn’t go far enough,” said Hultgren. “I’ve been clear from the very beginning I would not support any effort to increase our nation’s debt ceiling if the proposal does not hold true to the values of Cut, Cap, and Balance, as well as enact serious structural changes.

“It is my opinion that the proposal approved by the House tonight falls short of what we need to do to put our country back on the right track. By failing to require Congress to approve a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) prior to any further increases in the debt ceiling, this bill does not provide the structural changes that I stated were necessary to earn my support.

“When leadership changed the bill on Thursday night to strengthen the BBA provision, that change earned my support; in failing to keep that strong language, I could not, in good conscience, support this bill.”