“Prosecutors and former employees of Kermit Gosnell say his abortion house of horrors was a place of real-life nightmares: Babies screaming and moving after abortion procedures, living infants beheaded and babies’ feet severed and kept as trophies. A woman testified that starting at age 15, she assisted with abortions and saw two newborns move after being pried from their mothers’ wombs.

But according to the national media, this is just a “local crime” story, not worthy of their attention.
{…}
President Obama quickly condemned the killing of late-term abortionist George Tiller, but has nothing to say about these horrific accusations of baby murder. The complicit media won’t even feign interest in covering this story. As actress Patricia Heaton noted, “There was more coverage of Manti Teo’s imaginary girlfriend.” ”

Obama voted against protection of babies being born alive from botched abortions [Born Alive Infant Protection Act] when he was in the Illinois state Senate, why would he have changed his mind now? He hasn’t “evolved” on this issue like he did on gay marriage!

Bottom line is, this outrageous HORROR STORY of grisly infanticide does not fit the Leftist narrative that abortion is a sacrosanct “woman’s right”, so WE don’t have the right to know about it. “All the news that’s fit to…” and all that jazz.

However, the conservative side of the blogosphere is putting the screws to them: “PJ Media Sets Up Tip Line for Reporters to Anonymously Name Editors Who Have Spiked any Gosnell Coverage” :

Adoption / Abortion — they both start with “A”… One’s noble, one’s a heinous abominiation! Don’t KILL your unborn child, let someone else love it like it is their own.

It’s the “noble” thing to do.

A blessed Easter to you and yours,

Okie

Bob Woodward, the Bob Woodward of Woodward & Bernstein that took down Richard Nixon over Watergate, has had the temerity to criticize our thin-skinned POTUS on the Sequester.
“Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, ‘Oh, by the way, I can’t do this because of some budget document?’” Woodward said.

“Or George W. Bush saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to invade Iraq because I can’t get the aircraft carriers I need?’” Or even Bill Clinton saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters,’ … because of some budget document?”

The Defense Department said in early February that it would not deploy the U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing budget concerns relating to the looming cuts known as the sequester.

“Under the Constitution, the President is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the President going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement. ‘I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country,’” Woodward said.

“That’s a kind of madness that I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said.

Not long after that Woodward charged that a Very Senior White House staffer “threatened” him over those remarks. Over at Twitchy you can see the Lefties piling on. How dare their darling Nixon Killer cast dispersions on the Mighty O?

Ace of Spades HQ’s Ace writes, “Obama hatchet man David Pflouffe works energetically to spread the word that Woodward is an old horse who should be put down for glue.”

Even former Clinton White House aide Lanny Davis is now acknowleding threats for criticizing Obama:

A day after Woodward’s claim that a senior White House official had told him he would “regret” writing a column criticizing President Obama’s stance on the sequester, Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall Thursday he had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about Obama in the Washington Times.

Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, “received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn’t like some of my columns, even though I’m a supporter of Obama. I couldn’t imagine why this call was made.” Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, “that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials.”

Now, Democratic spokesman Chuck Dodd is saying that Woodward is now a spokesman for the Republicans.

We certainly live in a Mad, Mad World — and our leader is “mad as a hatter”!!!

The president, down in Florida for vacation without his family, will spend the day golfing. The press, meanwhile, is on a “party bus,” according to the pool report:
{…}
“Today, the President will be playing golf at the Floridian. We will release a list of those in the President’s foursome this afternoon. At this time, there are no public events scheduled or plans for the President to leave the grounds of the golf club. If those plans change, we’ll let you know promptly.”

Toadies all of ‘em!!!

Meanwhile, Obama works on his slice with one, maybe two, $1,000 per hour golf pros.

“I wonder what the peasants are doing tonight?” — Camelot

Merry Christmas to all…

More than 2,000 people are gathering at Pearl Harbor on Friday to mark the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack that killed thousands of people and launched the United States into World War II.

Ceremonies get under way with a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the exact time the bombing began in 1941.

We came together as a nation after the attack on Pearl, and after our own generation suffered the attack on 9/11. Here in 2012, we find the United States about as divided in ideology as it was just before the Civil War. We must never forget what happened 71 years ago, as well as only 11 years ago. There are still tens of millions of radical Islamists out there that want ALL of us dead. Like the Talking Heads song says, “Same as it ever was . . . same as it ever was.”

– Okie, 12/7/2012

This post is one that I wrote in 2005 to commemorate this tragic, special day. Instead of just linking to it I decided to post it anew, as the stories of those that worked valiantly to save as many lives as possible deserve to be told again. The comments that I made about our brave men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are even more true today. Our fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts — The Greatest Generation — stepped up, took on the mantle of terrible responsibility and did their duty — history awaits whether we will stay the course and complete the tasks that destiny has assigned to our own.

[From 'Okie' -- 2005:]

It’s Pearl Harbor day, and most veterans, especially those that saw battle, never talk to non-veterans about their military service. In my own family, I know that all of my uncles served, many in WWII, but only much later, most after their passings, did I find out only a little of what they had done in the war.

My wife’s and my father were Navy guys, mine a pharmacists mate on a troop/supply transport ship named the “Mighty A”. The most dangerous thing that he ever told me about was his ship being hit with a dud torpedo. If it hadn’t been a dud, the story would have been more exciting, but he would not have been the one to tell me about it! I know nothing about my wife’s father’s Navy experiences, I just have a picture of him in his dress blues, dashing in appearance, with a small earring worn in a defiant manner, along with a scan of his honorable discharge that I worked into a pictorial tribute that accompanied his funeral almost a decade ago. Several of his brothers were also in the Navy, a couple were in the BUDs area of service that later became the Navy SEALS, and were covert operatives in Naval Intelligence and served in later branches of the intelligence services during Korea and Vietnam.

Which brings me to today, Pearl Harbor Day. I don’t know if any of my uncles were at Pearl Harbor. If they were, they never talked about it with me. In reading the LA Times this AM, I learned that the USS Oklahoma, a 27,500-ton Nevada class battleship, and the men who served and died aboard her, have finally been given their own special acknowledgment.

Tribute to Pearl Harbor Battleship Is Unveiled

From Times Wire Reports

Sixty-three years after the surprise attack that plunged the United States into World War II, hundreds of men who died aboard the battleship Oklahoma are finally getting their own special tribute.

A new exhibit of photos, artifacts and oral histories was unveiled in Honolulu to honor the 429 men from the Oklahoma who died in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by the Japanese.

That is the second-highest number of Pearl Harbor casualties behind the battleship Arizona, where most of its 1,177 killed crew members remain entombed after the ship sank in the attack.

I guess King Neptune had plans for this mighty ship, other than allowing her to be scrapped. The Kansas City Star adds more information to the above.

The Oklahoma was refloated in 1943 and sold for scrap after the war, but it sank in the Pacific Ocean while being towed to California.

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and other military bases on Oahu lasted two hours. Twenty-one ships were heavily damaged, and 320 aircraft were damaged or destroyed. In all, about 2,390 persons were killed and about 1,178 were wounded, according to the National Park Service, which maintains the Arizona site.

Powerline has a wonderful tribute that includes President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech asking Congress for a declaration of war and Churchill’s reaction.

As we remember those lost and those who fought so bravely on this day, 63 years ago, let us reflect on the fact that Japan is now one of our strongest allies and important trading partners. It took a long time to help them overcome the damage to their country and society caused by their leaders’ wartime ambitions, but with our guidance and financial help, Japan was brought into the modern world and became an important part of the world’s economy. They are a part of the “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq.

We must look to our past and not be too impatient in our present. The same fighting spirit of our fathers and forefathers exits within the warriors that are helping the Iraqi people even at this very minute. Many will come back, and not tell their stories for years to come, if at all, but they will be valiant stories, none the less! . . . db

[Update] LGF provides this link to the Navy’s archive of images and information, with some of the pics taken from Japanese warplanes.

According to the Navy site the following is what was going on here, as taken from a Japanese fighter:

Torpedo planes attack “Battleship Row” at about 0800 on 7 December, seen from a Japanese aircraft. Ships are, from lower left to right: Nevada (BB-36) with flag raised at stern; Arizona (BB-39) with Vestal (AR-4) outboard; Tennessee (BB-43) with West Virginia (BB-48) outboard; Maryland (BB-46) with Oklahoma (BB-37) outboard; Neosho (AO-23) and California (BB-44).
West Virginia, Oklahoma and California have been torpedoed, as marked by ripples and spreading oil, and the first two are listing to port. Torpedo drop splashes and running tracks are visible at left and center.
White smoke in the distance is from Hickam Field. Grey smoke in the center middle distance is from the torpedoed USS Helena (CL-50), at the Navy Yard’s 1010 dock.
Japanese writing in lower right states that the image was reproduced by authorization of the Navy Ministry.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Vertical aerial view of “Battleship Row”, beside Ford Island, during the early part of the horizontal bombing attack on the ships moored there. Photographed from a Japanese aircraft.
Ships seen are (from left to right): USS Tennessee with USS West Virginia moored outboard; USS Maryland with USS Oklahoma moored outboard; and USS Neosho, only partially visible at the extreme right. West Virginia and Oklahoma are gushing oil from their many torpedo hits and are listing to port. Oklahoma’s port deck edge is already under water. Nevada has also been torpedoed.

Rescue teams at work on the capsized hull of USS Oklahoma (BB-37), seeking crew members trapped inside, 7 December 1941. The starboard bilge keel is visible at the top of the upturned hull.
Officers’ Motor Boats from Oklahoma and USS Argonne (AG-31) are in the foreground.
USS Maryland (BB-46) is in the background.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

I hope that the Navy won’t mind that I’ve “borrowed” these three images and descriptions to help make this a better presentation and memorial for this day. I urge anyone interested in Pearl Harbor to follow the links to the Navy Archives site to better comprehend the full extent of the tragedy and valiant courage that defines this “day that lives in infamy”!

(Okie)

The bad news is, we have Barack Hussein Obama to kick around for the next four years… there is no good news.

Having started  yesterday out with a sense of calm apprehension, I went to bed in a state of being not “comfortably numb”. All of the talking heads and number crunchers on the conservative side of our body politic had proven to be dead wrong. The hard-core Lefties over at DailyKos were evidently calling it correctly a week ago.

How can one be looking at the same polls and come up with two such widely disparate predictions? With so much Democratic malaise, a weak President overseeing a flailing economy and with the Damaclean Benghazi hanging over his head, all the while facing a surging GOP candidate with sterling business credentials and the political expertise to navigate the current turgid partisan Congressional waters — HOW DID WE LOSE?

In her post, “It’s All About The U.S. Supreme Court“, Sonja Eddings Brown, founder and President of The Kitchen Cabinet women’s political organization, has this clue:

But we know for a certainty that the GOP spent a billion dollars waging a 20th century campaign in the 21st century.

We spent the bulk of our hundreds of millions on TV, when no one was watching TV.  The remainder was spent on Direct Mail which most Americans toss before it arrives on our kitchen counters.  That left in the bank, was spent on robo calls when Americans were unplugging their phones.

{…}

[All] was neutralized IN ONE DAY, by the Obama campaign’s smart, state-of-the-art online social networking campaign.  Obama’s strategists developed 30 million followers online and then simply e-mailed polling places to them and told them Romney would steal their lifestyle choices.

We lost this one on the Internet folks. While WE were spending our time online waging a war of ideas with words and images to fire up our base and expose the uninitiated to our ideas, the Obama team was building a sophisticated mechanism to do only one thing: Scare the living bejesus out of a massive amount of voters at just the right time and be right there in their smart phones with all the info they needed to go and save them from that great peril by voting for the Mighty “O”.

It’s so brilliant a strategy that you’d have thought it came from a James Bond super-villain… not the President of ALL the people of the United States — uh, all — yeah right… my bad?

So, what’s next? Have to lick the wounds a little, but then there is much work to do. WE still have the majority in the House and we must make sure our representatives man up and grow a spine if they don’t have one already, else they’ve got to go in ’14! Andy over at Ace of Spades HQ is reacting in his own special way:

You like your big government, assholes? Pay for it. But I’ll have a chair when the music stops.

I encourage all similarly-situated Americans to do the same.

You idiots that reelected Obama, and elected Warren and the like, can’t vote yourselves an infinite slice of my wallet. I’ll always be one step ahead of you.

A large amount of money will be moved to offshore tax havens between now and 12/31. Also, watch dividend-paying stocks. A ton of money’s about to be distributed in advance of the return-to-Boooosh!!11! tax rates plus the new Obamacare tax on investment income.

Oh, and it’s my birthday. Instead of spending it happily effing off, I’ll spend it moving money. Point. Click. Done. So, happy.

Oh, and be careful if you choose that kind of route and be sure you have a great accountant, and probably a really good tax attorney!!!

Before I end this piece I’d like to express how much I appreciate Mitt and Ann Romney and the upstanding and uplifting campaign that they ran. Mitt raised a lot of money, but he also spent many ten’s of millions of his own personal wealth pursuing what he hoped was his destiny. God must have something great in store for this good man as he would have made a great POTUS — and we would ALL have been better off with the next four years being under his stewardship. Over at his blog, Hugh Hewitt has some parting words on this same topic that I’ll end with as well:

Pray for the president and the Congress and yes, with special zeal, for the health of the Supreme Court.  We are in uncharted waters, but the Framers were geniuses, and we will see if that wisdom surpassed even what we had previously appreciated.

I voted for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan today and am damn proud to have done so!!! In just a few hours we’ll know whether this great country of ours will be headed on the road to restoration or hurled down the dark path of perdition. For the sake of my son, his wife  and their precious sons and daughter, I have been praying for the former. Time will tell…

It’s been a long time now since your ol’ Okie has had any enthusiasm for writing on this blog. The more overdosing of Obama that we’ve had to endure, the more bitter and negative I became… to the point that I no longer could see a point to it. Opining just wasn’t going to get anything done about the nightmare.

Three years ago I began working with Sonja Eddings Brown on a project called “The Kitchen Cabinet” – a political website oriented towards conservative women. I had worked for her briefly in ’06 on the California Constitutional Amendment, Prop 8, and had built a blog, Article6Blog.com, for her husband Lowell and his blogging partner John, who both had been part of a Southern California Christian Bloggers Association formed in the Spring of 2005 of which John and I were two of the founding members. Sonja art directed me on their major redesign a couple of years after we had originally put together their blog.

The first Photoshop sketches for TKC were done in the Fall of ’09 and the initial launch was in the Spring of 2010. The site was extensively revised that August to get it ready for the 2010 election cycle where it played an important roll in coordinating conservative women’s groups across the country in their efforts that helped lead to the largest pickup of GOP House seats in decades as well as many Governorships.

This election cycle it has been all about electing Mitt Romney as the 45th President of the United States. Tonight we’ll see if we have been able to help get that done. I’m but a small cog in a big machine, but it sure is nice to be DOING something rather than just constantly complaining… However, I do feel some major inner-irritation coming on — and I don’t know a better way to get that out of my system than to come here and vent!

Is Okie back? Guess like tonight’s results… we’ll just have to wait and see.

Oh — If you even wondered just how the Golden State of California has gotten itself into such a sad state, check out my friend Laer Pearce’s new book, “Crazifornia”. It’s a nightmare of a cautionary tale to all those that still believe in the Progressive Way.

On the dog walk this AM I composed in my head a most wordy, commemorative post to both honor those who were lost in the al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and those first responders that risked, and for some, gave all to save as many as possible — as well as to lambaste those among us that no longer give a whit. But hey, for those so lost in their own narcissism that they care more about community organizing, punishing American business, depriving US from opportunity or protecting the weak from the likes of the Taliban — why waste words on them.

They HAVE FORGOTTEN!

They have forgotten the sight of their fellow Americans and yes, some from across the globe, making the harrowing choice to plunge to their deaths instead of burning alive. They have forgotten those that listened on their cell phones as loved ones on the doomed flights said their last good byes. They have forgotten the bravery of the resistors on Flight 93 as they forced that jumbo jet into a Pennsylvania field instead of allowing the hijackers to use it as a bomb against the Capital or the White House. They have forgotten those first responders that rushed into the twin towers to rescue as many as possible, but never made it out themselves.

They HAVE FORGOTTEN!

Not everyone has forgotten:

In today’s dead-tree-edition of the LA Times, they remember as best they can, with a single story on page 17 — with no blurb or mention on page one. Now, this current 9/11 has become “the first official National Day of Service and Remembrance,” to honor the spirit of volunteerism or some such parlance.

The Anchoress is remembering this 9/11 in a very different state of mind:

This 9/11 Anniversary, it just feels like too much. Or not enough. This 9/11, the day feels huge, too big for sentimentality, almost.

{…}

That’s kind of what I am feeling on this terrible anniversary – that the Day of the Bully may yet dawn again, but I am not so sure how psyche-scarred America will handle it. I know our first responders, our military, our Protector lads and He-men (and She-ra’s) will do what they always do; they will never let us down. But this is a very different -much more divided and thus weaker- country than we were 8 years ago. Our trust in each other has been shaken. I believe we would weather another attack and come together, as before, but is that simply because I want to believe it?

Michelle Malkin remembers:

Remember: Project 2,996.

Remember: “Let’s roll!”

Remember: The angels on loan from God.

Remember: The 9/11 babies.

Remember: Falling Man.

Remembrance is worthless without resolve. Resolve is useless without action.

Hugh Hewitt puts our struggle with the Islamists that would gladly have another 9/11 happen every day in perspective:

Thanks to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, coast guard, counterterrorism and public safety professionals who have prevented a second attack for eight years.

The enormous cost of the battles in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world have been made so that there have not had to be more pictures like this one. We remember the victims of 9/11 today, but we also need to salute the thousands killed and tens of thousands wounded in the war with the Islamists, fanatics who would gladly see a 9/11 every day in their war with the West.

Doctor Zero at Hot Air answers those that minimize the importance of that day and our efforts to see it never repeated:

Eight years later, it’s a lot to ask people to think about 9/11 every single day. On this one day, at least, we can remember three thousand people who began an ordinary morning, and ended it by falling through fire. It was not a natural disaster, or a “tragedy,” and by God I am weary in my soul of people who amuse themselves by pretending it was a government conspiracy. It was an attack. It was murder. Across the Middle East tomorrow, there will be people who celebrate the murderers. Don’t turn away from the sight. We cannot afford to allow this enemy to become invisible. We can’t afford to let our heroes become invisible, either. The savages with box cutters were real. So were the men who ran into those collapsing towers. In their name, with love for their memory, and luminous with their spirit, we will prevail.

James Lileks has put together a moving remembrance of that fateful day:

As for me, I can’t forget.

I can’t forget how such a level of EVIL existed eight years ago that 19 men armed with box cutters slaughtered so many of US purely out of their hatred for our society, our freedoms, our faith. I can’t forget that in Pakistan the Taliban is working and fighting night and day to overthrow the ruling government and get their hands on nuclear weapons to use on Israel and on the West. I can’t forget . . . well because to do so would be suicidal. With our current slate of leaders and their misguided policies it will most likely happen again, sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, next time will be worse . . .

Just in case you’re wondering how Obamacare will be enforced, just look at all the new IRS agents that were hired over the Spring when it looked like the ACA was likely to be overturned, just to kick off the Fed’s efforts in a timely fashion I’d imagine. $500-million of the HHS budget was diverted from initial use to add the new agents.

From The American Thinker just this past April:

President Obama is playing shell game with tax dollars in order to rush implementation of Obamacare before the Supreme Court strikes it down.

It may also be a ploy to bring Obamacare implementation so far along, that the Supreme Court will be reluctant to overturn the entire bill.

The shell game involves a $1 billion appropriation to HHS – Republicans call it a “slush fund” – that the agency can use as it sees fit. Half of the funding has been transferred from HHS to the IRS in order to set up enforcement structures for those who fail to buy insurance under the individual mandate.

At 26, she was getting her master’s in architecture from one of the nation’s top schools. But the triumph felt hollow, her sense of achievement tangled up with bitterness and fear.

{…}

The country that made you hide like a criminal and the country that promised to let you stand tall atop your talent — she’d grown up with both, somehow believed in both. But now, about to be pitched into a job market where she could not legally work, she felt dread in her stomach.

The rest of the piece details her early life and her collegiate journey, all while extolling the dangers of her being illegal. She even became an activist for the “Dream Act” legislation (where WE the taxpayers would be on the hook for the higher-education cost for illegals) — the LAT does love their progressive activists.

It ends, (all three pages of it online!) with her just missing out on a paying job, again because she’s illegal. Hmmm… what to do, what to do?

There’s real tragedy here. A child is brought into the country at the age of eight and taught to hide in plain site to avoid deportation. Our society makes it possible for her to get a first-class education in a field that could provide her an excellent living. One would think that Mexico would be clamoring for for folks like these to come, work and be a productive part of that country. Of course there’s this – who in their right mind, after living here all their lives, would want to go live and work in Mexico right now?

I have no answers for this dilemma, I’m just wondering if this was the most important “Late-Breaking” story of June 8th, 2012… or, is it just more water-carrying by the MSM for President Obama? Some convenient distraction from the Wisconsin results, the mess at Justice, the wide-spread predictions of Economic Armageddon next January — all of the above?

Just askin’.

Today once again we pause to remember all those who gave up their tomorrows
so that we could live out our todays. Not sure who came up with that one . . .
but it’s a darn good one.

Our eternal gratitude is owed to the fallen, to those that served and made it home,
and to our men and women in uniform who are out there getting it done on our behalf each and every day.

Five years ago today, Mother’s Day 2001, I was fortunate to be able to spend it with my Mom, the first time that had happened since I had moved out to California in ’83. I always enjoyed talking with her on the phone, especially on holidays, but being there was a special treat for both of us. Although I would get back again for her birthday in August of that same year, and the following year too, this would be the last Mother’s Day that I would get to spend with her in person.

She was a strong Christian woman, a loving mom, and she set the heart of at least one great guy on fire, married him, raised two kids with him and then took care of him through the long journey of Alzheimer’s. I marveled at her resilience, that she had the strength to stay with us for almost eight years after he was gone. I thank God for those eight years, as during that time I was finally able to relate to her, adult-son to adult-mother — time spent with her that I will cherish for the rest of my days.

In two weeks it will have been three years since I was back in Ok. I was there with my sister and my son, going through Mom’s little house, discovering what she had determined would be left for us to go through after she was gone. My sis and I then went to the annual family reunion, one of only two that I had ever gone to. In two weeks I will be back there again. On that Saturday my son will be getting married, and on Sunday I’ll be going to the Lomenick family reunion in Drumright, OK. I am looking forward to seeing everyone, although there are a few that were there in ’03 that won’t be there anymore.

Going back to that Mother’s Day, 2001. Mom and I had a pretty good day. I can see from my pics that we had dinner at my Aunt Joan and Uncle John’s place, which is the house in Oilton where my Mom’s mom had lived for so many years. You can tell from the breads that it was some kind of fine eatin’! Then I remember that we went back to Mom’s little house and spent the rest of the afternoon talking . . . and waiting. You see, her sister-in-law, wife of her deceased next-in-line brother was failing quickly, having been only recently diagnosed with cancer. Late in the afternoon we got the call. It’s one of the few times I have witnessed my mother weep. Perhaps I was meant to be there to comfort her, I hope that I was able to do so. I thought at the time how rough it must have been for my cousins who had just lost their mother on Mother’s Day. My thoughts and prayers go out to them every year on this day.

As for Mom, no more little house for her, she’s in God’s house now. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom — until we meet again . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: Mother’s Day

On Thursday of last week I became a grandfather for the second time. Lincoln Hughes Baker comes into this world in the hands of two wonderful, loving parents, an adoring big sister and a 2-3/4 year older brother.

They’re calling this one “The Fabulous Baker Boys”.

Lincoln and his “big sister”.

And then of course, there’s the woman that did ALL the work — isn’t that the way it always goes Mom?

Life is good . . .

A blessed Easter to you and yours,

Okie

The first hero was a birth mother, an un-wed teenager or young adult, or perhaps just an existing mother with already too many children that couldn’t face one more. In a clinic — not a hospital — this brave gal gave birth to a 5-1/2 pound blond, blue-eyed baby boy, (geez, where did this extra 190 pounds come from???)

She, and most likely also the birth father, were of German/Austrian decent — hey, I can look in the mirror! Often in the 80s folks thought that a dear friend, Steve Guentner, and I were brothers. I used to kid him that his dad must have been a traveling salesman passing through Tulsa sometime in 1951. But that is as much as I would/will ever know about the birth parents. Closed adoptions really meant “closed” back in the day, and that’s alright with me.

A project begun on my birthday in 2005, transcribing my Dad's letters to his Anny Mae during WWII - a project that I really should resume soon.

The second two heroes are my “real” Mom & Dad, my adopted parents, James and Anna Mae Baker. They took the leap of faith during that time of the dueling “Nature vs. Nurture” theories, as well as against the wishes of some of their family members, and took in this 3-hour-old new-born critter directly home from the clinic.

I am such a blessed human being. My parents loved each other so very much and stayed together until death did part them. She soldiered through the terrible ending of my Dad’s existence by way of Alzheimer’s, and spent another nine years after that with us here on this side of the Great Divide before going on to join him on the Next Great Adventure.

Turning 60 makes one aware that one’s own Next Great Adventure is coming up, sooner than ever before . . . however, out here in the Golden State of “existential granola”, ‘they” say 60 is the new 40. I keep telling that to my 60 year-old knees, lumbar vertebrae, spare-tire belly and various and sundry other body parts, and they keep coming back at me with — LOL!

Seems like every year I examine and comment on the elements surrounding my birth. This year it is especially poignant in light of President Obama’s assault upon religious freedom this last week via trying to force Catholic institutions to provide the “morning after” pill — (simply an early abortion in a pill), along with other contraception options, to all their employees by making that mandatory in their health-care plans regardless of that being a violation of the Church’s deepest held beliefs — as one Arch Bishop put it, to do so would be a “mortal sin”. But hey, to this administration, what’s a little mortal sin more or less? Last year I wrote:

Each year on this day I reflect on the thought that if Roe vs Wade had been the law of the land in February 1952, I am most certain that I would not be here to write this. Many tens of millions of nascent human beings have had their lives terminated since that SCOTUS decision. I truly wish that folks would make the right choice when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, and choose LIFE. There’s always some good folks out there without kids of their own — waiting, wanting to love and raise that baby as their very own.

[RANT] I feel the same way today. A fetus is NOT a disease. Nascent human life is not just some meaningless “tissue” that one should have the option to dispose of at will, on a whim. Viable babies should not be partially birthed and have their brains sucked out of them for someone’s convenience. Sorry to be so graphic, but look at that face up above — it is HUMAN! It wants to be ALIVE. You and I don’t have any right to KILL it just to make our lives less hectic, to solve our little problems, to be free of the responsibilities of our actions with each other. [/RANT]

Now that I’ve got that out of the way for another year . . . time to PARTY!!!!! Well, at least time to grab some great Mexican over at Casablanca Restaurant and take into the office for our Saturday “Tax Season” lunch. Dinner might be at the Polish restaurant Warszawa, or maybe that will happen tomorrow as some of our dinner party are under the weather today. If that happens, I’ve got about 8 pounds of smoked ham and the ham bones from a full one just dying to become something — meaning — split pea soup for EVERYBODY!

“Life is GOOD!”

Peace. Out.

One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found. Persuaded by Hoffmann & Campe, he and Lüning decided to write the book. Die kalte Sonne cites 800 sources and has over 80 charts and figures. It examines and summarizes the latest science.

Conclusion: climate catastrophe is called off

Their conclusions run to belief in a much more “robust” climate model, one that can withstand or absorb the effects of CO2 warming instead of being overwhelmed by it. They also now support the theory that the Sun has a much larger influence on the Earth’s climate than the Anthropogenic Climate Change proponents will ever acknowledge. Seem’s like a big “NO DUH!” to this ol’ Okie . . . let’s see, farting cows vs. mega-hydrogen-explosion in near-Earth space: I’d like to have the Vigorish on that!

 And the floods of skepticism are sweeping over the country. Worse, Germany’s flagship weekly news magazine Der Spiegel today also featured a 4-page exclusive interview with Vahrenholt, where he repeated that the IPCC has ignored a large part of climate science and that IPCC scientists exaggerated the impact of CO2 on climate. Vahrenholt said that by extending the known natural cycles of the past into the future, and taking CO2′s real impact into effect, we should expect a few tenths of a degree of cooling.

A few tenths of a degree here, a few there . . . nothing to see here folks, just move along. Make’s ol’ Al Gore’s hysterical rants and special-effect imagery of massive coastal flooding seem as realistic as, uh, the movie “2012″? — HA!

It needs to be pointed out Vahrenholt and Lüning are not skeptics; they are lukewarmers who have not been able to find any evidence of a coming climate catastrophe. They believe that man should switch to renewables, but do so in a rational manner: “Work fast, but don’t hurry.”

Skeptic readers should not think that the book will fortify their existing skepticism of CO2 causing warming. The authors agree it does. but have major qualms about the assumed positive CO2-related feed-backs and believe the sun plays a far greater role in the whole scheme of things.

The book cites more than 800 sources – including the latest peer-reviewed literature. It includes more than 80 graphics that clearly illustrate that all is not well with the claims made by alarmist science. It is written so that laymen can easily digest the material and it provides a comprehensive overview of the science and where it stands today.

Naturally, the Climate Change proponents are all going apoplectic over this new heresy by former believers. Religious fanatics always freak out when those in their ranks “defect”. Over at Hot Air, Bruce McQuain adds this perspective:

The building evidence is that rising CO2 has little warming effect in real terms regardless of the amount of the gas emitted. That there is a “saturation level”. If that’s true, and indications are it is, then there’s a) no justification for limiting emissions and b) certainly no justification to tax them.

That, of course, is where politics enter the picture. Governments like the idea of literally creating a tax out of thin air, especially given the current financial condition of most states. Consequently, governments are more likely to fund science that supports their desired conclusion – and it seems that in this case there were plenty who were willing to comply (especially, as Patrick J. Michael has noted, when that gravy train amounts to $103 billion in grants).

So, once again, it really is ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS!

Same as it ever was . . .

Merry Christmas from the ol’ Okie!

This post is one that I wrote in 2005 to commemorate this tragic, special day. Instead of just linking to it I decided to post it anew, as the stories of those that worked valiantly to save as many lives as possible deserve to be told again. The comments that I made about our brave men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are even more true today. Our fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts — The Greatest Generation — stepped up, took on the mantle of terrible responsibility and did their duty — history awaits whether we will stay the course and complete the tasks that destiny has assigned to our own.

It’s Pearl Harbor day, and most veterans, especially those that saw battle, never talk to non-veterans about their military service. In my own family, I know that all of my uncles served, many in WWII, but only much later, most after their passings, did I find out only a little of what they had done in the war.

My wife’s and my father were Navy guys, mine a pharmacists mate on a troop/supply transport ship named the “Mighty A”. The most dangerous thing that he ever told me about was his ship being hit with a dud torpedo. If it hadn’t been a dud, the story would have been more exciting, but he would not have been the one to tell me about it! I know nothing about my wife’s father’s Navy experiences, I just have a picture of him in his dress blues, dashing in appearance, with a small earring worn in a defiant manner, along with a scan of his honorable discharge that I worked into a pictorial tribute that accompanied his funeral almost a decade ago. Several of his brothers were also in the Navy, a couple were in the BUDs area of service that later became the Navy SEALS, and were covert operatives in Naval Intelligence and served in later branches of the intelligence services during Korea and Vietnam.

Which brings me to today, Pearl Harbor Day. I don’t know if any of my uncles were at Pearl Harbor. If they were, they never talked about it with me. In reading the LA Times this AM, I learned that the USS Oklahoma, a 27,500-ton Nevada class battleship, and the men who served and died aboard her, have finally been given their own special acknowledgment.

Tribute to Pearl Harbor Battleship Is Unveiled

From Times Wire Reports

Sixty-three years after the surprise attack that plunged the United States into World War II, hundreds of men who died aboard the battleship Oklahoma are finally getting their own special tribute.

A new exhibit of photos, artifacts and oral histories was unveiled in Honolulu to honor the 429 men from the Oklahoma who died in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by the Japanese.

That is the second-highest number of Pearl Harbor casualties behind the battleship Arizona, where most of its 1,177 killed crew members remain entombed after the ship sank in the attack.

I guess King Neptune had plans for this mighty ship, other than allowing her to be scrapped. The Kansas City Star adds more information to the above.

The Oklahoma was refloated in 1943 and sold for scrap after the war, but it sank in the Pacific Ocean while being towed to California.

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and other military bases on Oahu lasted two hours. Twenty-one ships were heavily damaged, and 320 aircraft were damaged or destroyed. In all, about 2,390 persons were killed and about 1,178 were wounded, according to the National Park Service, which maintains the Arizona site.

Powerline has a wonderful tribute that includes President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech asking Congress for a declaration of war and Churchill’s reaction.

As we remember those lost and those who fought so bravely on this day, 63 years ago, let us reflect on the fact that Japan is now one of our strongest allies and important trading partners. It took a long time to help them overcome the damage to their country and society caused by their leaders’ wartime ambitions, but with our guidance and financial help, Japan was brought into the modern world and became an important part of the world’s economy. They are a part of the “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq.

We must look to our past and not be too impatient in our present. The same fighting spirit of our fathers and forefathers exits within the warriors that are helping the Iraqi people even at this very minute. Many will come back, and not tell their stories for years to come, if at all, but they will be valiant stories, none the less! . . . db

[Update] LGF provides this link to the Navy’s archive of images and information, with some of the pics taken from Japanese warplanes.

According to the Navy site the following is what was going on here, as taken from a Japanese fighter:

Torpedo planes attack “Battleship Row” at about 0800 on 7 December, seen from a Japanese aircraft. Ships are, from lower left to right: Nevada (BB-36) with flag raised at stern; Arizona (BB-39) with Vestal (AR-4) outboard; Tennessee (BB-43) with West Virginia (BB-48) outboard; Maryland (BB-46) with Oklahoma (BB-37) outboard; Neosho (AO-23) and California (BB-44).
West Virginia, Oklahoma and California have been torpedoed, as marked by ripples and spreading oil, and the first two are listing to port. Torpedo drop splashes and running tracks are visible at left and center.
White smoke in the distance is from Hickam Field. Grey smoke in the center middle distance is from the torpedoed USS Helena (CL-50), at the Navy Yard’s 1010 dock.
Japanese writing in lower right states that the image was reproduced by authorization of the Navy Ministry.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Vertical aerial view of “Battleship Row”, beside Ford Island, during the early part of the horizontal bombing attack on the ships moored there. Photographed from a Japanese aircraft.
Ships seen are (from left to right): USS Tennessee with USS West Virginia moored outboard; USS Maryland with USS Oklahoma moored outboard; and USS Neosho, only partially visible at the extreme right. West Virginia and Oklahoma are gushing oil from their many torpedo hits and are listing to port. Oklahoma’s port deck edge is already under water. Nevada has also been torpedoed.

Rescue teams at work on the capsized hull of USS Oklahoma (BB-37), seeking crew members trapped inside, 7 December 1941. The starboard bilge keel is visible at the top of the upturned hull.
Officers’ Motor Boats from Oklahoma and USS Argonne (AG-31) are in the foreground.
USS Maryland (BB-46) is in the background.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

I hope that the Navy won’t mind that I’ve “borrowed” these three images and descriptions to help make this a better presentation and memorial for this day. I urge anyone interested in Pearl Harbor to follow the links to the Navy Archives site to better comprehend the full extent of the tragedy and valiant courage that defines this “day that lives in infamy”!

(Okie)

Wow! That looks gnarly, right? All that black smoke pouring out of the smokestack — must be some mighty nasty pollution belching out of there . . . maybe even some vile, repugnant, Global Warming causing CO2, right?

[CO2 is a clear, tasteless, odorless gas that we breath out of our bodies with every exhale -- don't know about you but my breath ain't BLACK!!!]

Back to the narrative. Noting that said stack was identified as being from the “Eggborough power station” and showing in another image that said station’s stacks pump out WHITE smoke, Anthony Watts goes on to investigate whether this image was altered via Photoshop to turn the white smoke that yucky-darkish-gloomy color . . . ie BLACK! He ran some diagnostics on it and voilà, here’s what came up:

Two definite ranges of image alteration . . . so easy to do, even a Geico Neanderthal could do it. Just make an area selection with the lasso tool, feather the edges and tweak the contrast settings of the selection and — ta da — white becomes black.

Instant pollution!!!

If, you don’t have a problem with lying to make your point.

Watts found two versions of this same image and they both showed Photoshop alterations. But, were they ever used anywhere? He answers that:

Nelson asks:

If you have time to compile a list of the mainstream media uses of this photo, please let me know. If you’ve taken some action to protest this propaganda (maybe a letter to an editor?) please also let me know.

By the way, has this photo been altered in any way? [YES - Anthony]

Update: A TinEye search for the top image yields 92 results.

A TinEye search for the bottom image yields 94 results.

So, the not-so-enquiring minds of the main stream media (MSM) pushed this image off on the public at least 186 times in support of articles about pollution and Global Warming, or Climage Change. Don’t ya just LUV our media, how truthful, how investigative, how . . . much they are lying pieces of crap!!!??? And, this isn’t hard to do folks.

Watts then does a show and tell to show just how easy it is for these jokers to lie to us, and presents even more examples of the blatant fauxtography by the Climategate scientific consensus.

Continuing updating of Climatgate 2.0 here: Watts Up With That?

Don’t be left uninformed . . . and don’t let the “Climate Change” hysterics make you lose any sleep . . . and vote to keep them from costing you both arms and both legs — ’cause they won’t be stopping there!!!

I just read a story in the current Smithsonian magazine about “Green Cement”, new mixtures being created to replace the Portland cement that has been a staple of modern construction since the 1820s when “Joseph Aspdin invented modern cement.” You see, Leftist sources of information like Smithsonian are still all Coo-Coo-for-Coco-Puffs over Global Warming and the making of cement releases a lot of CO2 — the devil incarnate of green-house gases according to the “consensus” of climate scientists hacks that control the current dialog on Climate Change. So that makes concrete BAD!!!

And the Obama EPA totally agrees and is implementing draconian regulations on our domestic cement industry that will shut down plants, make cement prices soar along with building costs — all of which will cost America more and more jobs.

Portland cement is a type of cement created by grinding base materials and heating them in kilns to a high temperature. The EPA has proposed new regulations on kiln emissions, which would severely impact the cement industry. The cement industry is already one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country.

Potential Impact on Jobs and the Economy

These new regulations set emission levels at unreachable levels and are expected to result in 18 plant closings, approximately 11 percent of production. The estimated $3.4 billion price tag over the next three years – which totals half of the entire industry’s annual revenues – would lead to at least 4,000 lost jobs and to increased costs.

In fact, a recent study by the Portland Cement Association estimates these regulations would raise the cost of state and local road projects between $1.2 billion and $2 billion annually.

But hey now — cement is BAD don’t ya know??? What to do, what to do? Why, make a BETTER, GREENER cement of course! Everyone wants to go GREEN nowdays — it’s on all the product labels so it must be true.

From the Smithsonian article:

The chemicals [Nikolaos] Vlasopoulos mixes with magnesium oxide and water to make the cement harden are magnesium carbonates, which he makes by adding carbon dioxide to other raw materials. That means the cement, in some scenarios, is not just carbon neutral—it’s carbon negative. For every ton of Vlasopoulos’ cement produced, one-tenth of a ton of carbon dioxide could be absorbed.

Eventually Vlasopoulos, with Cheeseman’s help, started a company, Novacem, to develop a new cement. The firm, with more than a dozen employees and partnerships with some of the biggest cement companies in the world, is located in a business incubator for high-tech startup companies at Imperial College.

{…}

“The cement industry is now stepping up in financially significant, in scientifically significant ways right now,” said Jennings, referring to all of the various experimental approaches. “The world is changing. Everyone, including all the cement companies, will need to be as green as possible and take care of the world a little better.”

{…}

The major obstacle that the company still has to overcome is history. Portland cement works. Always has, since that afternoon in 1824 in Joseph Aspdin’s kitchen. “Cement has been around a very long time,” Bhardwaj said. “People trust that. They can look around at all the buildings that have survived hundreds of years. So for Novacem, the proof of durability will take time. They will have to go slow. If I have to build a bridge or a building using Novacem cement, how do I convince people that that is OK? That’s the challenge. Nobody wants a bridge to fall down.”

Go and read the entire article. For me, one thing missing was any discussion of the cost of these new cements, let alone any comparison of their costs to the existing Portland cement. That leads me to believe that they will be a factor, or multiple factors more expensive than the cost of what we use now. And that make the existence of the EPA regs crystal clear.

The only way to get industry to switch to these new GREEN cements is to make Portland cement just as expensive or more so, if not regulate it completely out of the industrial system!

Just more strong-arm tactics from the Obama administration to promote and shove the radical-environmental movement down America’s throat!

It’s the Chicago way . . .