Off The Kufs

Last Scene To "Boy Meets World"

2012-01-28T05:04:00.000-05:00

This scene, as a teacher and a lover of Boy Meets World, is a really good one.

Obama Economic Record

2012-01-27T05:10:00.000-05:00

This chart speaks for itself. How can people justify him? I had someone say he could have done more if he wasn't "blocked" by Congress! How soon they forget they had control of the House and the Senate! Done more? He has done enough! Others also said he inspired them in the State of the Union. Maybe 3 years ago, I don't agree, but maybe you could say that. However, now, he cannot. Further, he gave the same speech last year.

I Like the New Gavin Degraw Song

2012-01-26T05:16:00.000-05:00

This song, "Not Over You", is a good one by Gavin Degraw

I Love Tim Thomas

2012-01-25T05:12:00.001-05:00

My new favorite hockey player. By the way, they made heroes out of hating Bush but find people on ESPN and other articles to bash this guy. The media hypocrisy is HILARIOUS!

Politico- There was a notable absence during a White House reception this afternoon for the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins: star goalie Tim Thomas.

Thomas refused the invite for "political reasons," Sports Illustrated reports.

Nearly every other member of the Bruins was at the ceremony, where President Obama congratulated the team on its victory. Thomas is a staunch conservative and is expected to explain his snub of the president on his Facebook page this evening.

"Whatever he will say is not reflective of our organization's views or beliefs," Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli told SI.com.

Happy Birthday to My Sweetheart

2012-01-24T05:02:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to the best mommy and wife in the entire world. To be honest, I don't know how she does it dealing with me. All I know is I can't believe how lucky I am to have her to spend my life with and raise our beautiful boy Billy together.

Manny Pacquiao Singing

2012-01-23T05:03:00.001-05:00

I am not going to lie, when I was a dorky, sappy high school student I loved "Sometimes When We Touch" by Dan Hill more than anything. Ask my friends-it was absurd.

This version is by Manny Pacquiao with help from Dan Hill. Yes, that Manny Pacquiao, arguably the generation's greatest boxer. He is a character!

My Analysis of the GOP in the Coming Months

2012-01-22T05:05:00.002-05:00

On the heels of Newt's win last night in South Carolina I want to make one suggestion to the assertion that Mitt Romney is the most electable of the GOP candidates. You are wrong.

See, electability means that you can win. Sure, Mitt can win. So can Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Why is Romney more electable? I think he is the least of the three. Here is why:

Because he can easily get spoofed by the John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Saturday Night Live people who have destroyed George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, etc. He can get destroyed by the mainstream media that destroyed Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, Herman Cain as well. He will be portrayed as out of touch, too wealthy, the 1%. It is already happening.

The attack on success and wealth is making me sick, by the way. Why should Romney need to apologize for his success and wealth? We should want someone who knows how to do that to lead us rather than a community organizer who has never worked a real job in his life like Barack Obama!

Further, George Washington was one of the richest Americans when he was President. And the Democrat leaders aren't too poor themselves the last I checked. Bill and Hillary make hundreds of thousands of dollars a speech!

Trouble is Romney seems embarrassed of his wealth. He should be bragging that he knows how to make money and he will do it for us. The other trouble is some Americans do not care. The class warfare ploy created and perpetuated by the Obama Administration worked. The occupiers mindset hates success. Capitalism has been attacked and it is resonating. So, Romney, because of this, might be the least electable.

Newt may be wealthy as well but no matter. In spite of his troubled personal life past he seems to have it bounce off. He is far to arrogant to be messed with by the media or an opponent on personal stuff. Besides, you can't have it both ways. FDR, JFK, MLK Jr., and Clinton are all documented adulterers and well, that is not what comes up when talking about them. I am not saying I condone Newt's marital past, it disgusts me. I am saying, however, there is a clear double-standard.

Newt can also not be spoofed. Sure, they can say he has a big fat head and looks like a white-haired pumpkin. They'd be right. But they can't make him dumb like Quayle, Bush, Palin, Bachmann. For all of Newt's traits, good and bad-NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE would say he is dumb. That is huge to many. Sarah Palin is despised just because Tina Fay and others stereotyped her accent and made he to be dumb. Quayle and Bush are even better examples.

When push comes to shove if Romney is the candidate he will need to reteach capitalism to many Americans and explain that most rich are rich because of hard work and not because they are Kardashians or Paris Hilton. Most are the innovative geniuses that make this country great. If Newt is the candidate he will have to get Obama to debate him as much as possible. If either of these things happens it could spell lights out for Barack.

Did I mention I like Rick Santorum best? :)

Nevertheless, I think it is a two-horse race and Newt might even be the favorite right now. Boy it could get interesting.

Dear 16 Year Old Me

2012-01-21T05:08:00.000-05:00

Watch it!

My Thoughts on Education Evaluation Changes in NY State-Part II

2012-01-20T05:05:00.000-05:00

So how are we going to judge effectiveness? Standardized tests? Well this will never be apples to apples. My scores could be worse because I have classes with kids that are not as advanced or vice-versa. Some content areas have no standardized tests. How then would you evaluate my wife as a music teacher? How about a teacher in a content area like English? The English Regents is a product of the education of the 9, 10, and 11th grade teacher but the scores would only be reflective of the 11th. And the 12th grade English teacher gets off really easy, there is no standardized testing evaluation for them.

So what other method could be used? Administrators? If we believe that all administrators are noble enough to judge based on effectiveness alone I could see it. But that is impossible. They will favor those they like, style and/or personally. They will oppose those that they combat with. So does that mean that the employer must then not rock the boat with their boss, not challenge any policy? If they do they might get a poor evaluation or two and lose their job. You are shouting, “YES! That is how the real world works” but you are wrong! It brings us back to profit. This administrator if they were a supervisor at a Xerox would want the best employees that make the best profit. But this is not a factor in education, therefore their evaluation can easily be tainted.

So who will do the evaluation? Students and parents? Come on, this will lead to popular (but not necessarily effective) teachers getting merit pay and high scores and unpopular (but not necessarily ineffective) getting fired. How can this work?

Who really judges effectiveness? Perhaps it is a combination of all of these groups. That, however, seems so impractical and impossible. Not to mention- how do you attach a 0-100 score based on this(proposed by the state of NY)? And how is getting a lower score as a teacher going to motivate them to do better if the scoring system is inherently flawed? I think any score for me below 98 will do not but de-motivate me and hurt my feelings.

I get it, again, this entire system is because everyone believes stuck within their district there are one or two old, stale teachers that are hurting kids and the unions and tenure are making it impossible to punish or get rid of them. So every district is telling everyone else not to worry about new evaluations because they are “good teachers”. But teachers, because unlike free agency in sports for example, are stuck for thirty years in the very system they created. We are not going anywhere. Administrators, however, change like the seasons. Just because your current one thinks you are “good” does not mean your future one might feel the same. So none of us are safe.

Politically the Republicans feel like they won, finally the teachers union can be weakened. The Democrats think they won as well, they have a popular governor and a President who is “reforming” this broken system. I have not even gotten into the mandates from professional development to services each local district is saddled with, another story for another time.

But I ask the question- who won here? It certainly doesn’t seem like the kids.

My Thoughts on Education Evaluation Changes in NY State-Part I

2012-01-19T05:09:00.001-05:00

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an ultimatum in his 2012 budget that unless individual school districts develop a system of teacher evaluation then state aid will be cut off from that district. This, in theory, sounds fair and reasonable. It both pleases the Republican minority who have long tangled with NYSUT over many issues, and it backs the Democrat majority into a corner in part because the “Race to the Top” money promised by their party nationally would be cut off as well.

Make no mistake about it, politics has plenty to do with this issue on the national and state levels. Had the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” been proposed by a Republican, New York State would have told them to stick it and that we always went above and beyond federal mandates and what the other states were doing in regards to education anyhow. Instead, because it was proposed by a Democrat, New York fell into line.

Public outcry against unions, particularly teacher unions, is louder than ever. Most of the reasons are because we have poorly painted what we do and why our unions in education are necessary. Our salaries are called into question when other public employees like firefighters, police officers, prison guards, nurses, are not. I am not asking for them to be, either. I am simply pointing out the obvious. The difference is we are required to go to six years of education and complete an extremely costly Master’s Degree for our jobs while the previously mentioned, in some cases, require from zero to two years. If, theoretically, you want to pay us less or take our benefits then drop the educational requirements. Let’s be honest, teachers do not go into the field for pay. The benefits and job security are the only real perks. If you take them then what incentive would it be to pursue six years of education for a salary a prison guard could make without the in some cases six figures of debt? Intrinsic rewards only go so far.

So why is the teachers union vital? I am speaking as a strong philosophical conservative, mind you. I am opposed to unions in many ways. I have seen, to some extent, the harm that they have done in my region of the Northeast. In public education, however, all eyes are on teachers. Since everyone went to school everyone is an expert on education in their minds. The parents (and students to some degree) have been so empowered by cowardly school districts that teachers are under a microscope daily. This can be good, like any other arena, anyone working with children needs extra scrutiny. With a union to protect, however, one accusation from an angry parent that little Johnny is upset because he didn’t get his way with a teacher could result in immediate dismissal. My colleagues at the local factories do not face such public scrutiny. The union serves as a buffer to protect the employee from the whim of an angry parent and to help differentiate the offenses between the silly and the severe. Without it, because profit is not to gain by employers, then dismissal is simple.

Profit is the key here. If I worked for a large company, like Xerox, my standing with the company would be how I contributed to their profit. That is how capitalism works. And it should. In education, I am not working for profit. My usefulness is not measured by people with that motive. Therefore, finding ways to dismiss me because I might have been a boat-rocker or simply, based on years of service as a higher wage earner could be easy if not for unions and the system of tenure.

So what are they doing to circumvent tenure? Developing a system by which tenure no longer matters. They are getting rid of “first in, first out” because there is a perception the newest teachers are good and the oldest are stale. The trouble is there is no mechanism that can adequately measure this even if there was some truth to that statement. And there is no truth to that statement. There are teachers, good and bad, that are the newest and the oldest. What is good and bad, anyway? The easiest way to judge this is by asking the question-who likes kids? Most, if not all, teachers that do are effective. Sure their styles might all be drastically different but that is a good thing. In preparation for the real world these students will be getting all different styles of bosses as well and must be prepared to cooperate with all of them.

Part II tomorrow

Newt Fights Race-Baiting

2012-01-18T05:07:00.000-05:00

Newt Gingrich was race-baited by FOXNews's Juan Williams and recieved a standing ovation in the South Carolina debate.

"Without You" is a Good Song

2012-01-17T05:04:00.000-05:00

I have never known Usher to be any music that I like. Nor do I understand how if he wrote this song and sings this song how some French DJ named David Guetta gets any credit. What, he mixes the beats? Nevertheless, I really like this catchy song.

Twitter > Facebook In So Many Ways

2012-01-16T05:12:00.001-05:00

I have been trying to convince some of my friends to join Facebook. Many will never do either. I figure the Facebook ones are a good sell. For example, in the past few months:

I've:

1)had questions answered from my favorite musician John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting

2)my blog read and acknowledged by my favorite columnist Brett Bozell

3) argued with local Syracuse 1260AM sports talk show host Brett Axe

4) my questions answered by my favorite college hoops player Dion Waiters

5) regular dialogue with my favorite author David Limbaugh, the best conservative on Twitter.

If you like sports, politics, information, pop culture etc get on there!

I am not saying it to brag at all, really.

This is no different than anyone on Twitter. It is just what Twitter is. Facebook is good to catch up, plan events, start clubs, have long discussions, see and post family pics.

Twitter is information... It is being connected to the people in whatever field you like. I know the Red Sox lineup 4 hours before a game. I know trades before the player traded knows. Famous deaths break before CNN. And all the stuff I mentioned above.

Okay, quick Twitter tutorial.

You can attach by using the @ symbol anyone you follow or even those you do not follow if you know their name. A good start would be to go through who my @jkufs followers are and clicking to follow those names you recognize. Things like Drudge Report get you instant news, or the Heritage Foundation. Like I said, @davidlimbaugh is the best conservative on there-he is active and whatnot. The two local friends great to follow are Dave, a former Cayuga County legislator and huge conservative mind and Kenny, a former student of mine who is going to law school next year who is also a smart conservative.

The hashtag # is to categorize something. This way the top ten things talked about are "trending", and you can search the trends as well. The # can be literal like #obama or #tcot (which is the conservative group) or #scprimary or #FOXdebate. The # can also be for humor. #theawkwardmoment #damnitscold. You can Retweet someone else's smart stuff by just clicking it and hitting retweet. You can also click quote and type RT (retweet) next to it and write a message after. You can reply to someone's tweet also. I follow some liberals and reply and argue often. Keith Olbermann infuriates me.

Oh, and the best option is simply sharing articles like would you do on Facebook and typing commentary. You can attach an @ as well if you want to share. Oh, and if you must go over the 140 characters you can do 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 and write multiple part tweets. It is really amazing to directly communicate with famous folks and get information really fast. Particularly good during debates and such.

It really is an amazing world of Twitter

"Up" is Quite the Love Story

2012-01-15T05:08:00.000-05:00

My beautiful wife made me watch a movie called up. I regrettably knew nothing about it.

What a movie, a real feel good movie. To be honest feel good movie seem to only exist in animation these days.

The clip of Ellie and Carl's life together from the wedding to their end is an amazing four minutes. Please watch and enjoy and feel free to shed a tear like me :)

Rick Reilly Comes Around On Tebow!

2012-01-14T05:06:00.001-05:00

This, my friends, is why I love Tim Tebow so very much. Even Rick Reilly, his biggest critic of the past, has come around. I just ripped Reilly's hatred for Tebow yesterday. READ THIS! What a guy! Just reading this brings a tear to my eye and makes me a better person. Unbelievable.

He has vaulted into my favorite famous person ever, athlete or otherwise. To join a list with Ronald Reagan, George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Ted Williams is pretty impressive.

I have been following sports people my entire life. Few, if any, have ever been like him. John Wooden comes to mind. The wins, the comebacks, the odds stacked against him-just a bonus. The real story is a kid. When they erected a statue of him at Florida while he was still a student I should have known. When his college coach, Urban Meyer, said just 5 minutes with Tim Tebow would make you a better person...I just cannot get enough of this remarkable person. To have Rick Reilly, his biggest detractor, "get it" just shows you. He is in a very brief period of time transcending sports

Friday, January 13, 2012
I believe in Tim Tebow
By Rick Reilly
ESPN.com

Tim Tebow with Jacob Rainey, one of the many people dealing with health problems that Tebow hosted at Broncos games this season.

I've come to believe in Tim Tebow, but not for what he does on a football field, which is still three parts Dr. Jekyll and two parts Mr. Hyde.

No, I've come to believe in Tim Tebow for what he does off a football field, which is represent the best parts of us, the parts I want to be and so rarely am.

Who among us is this selfless?

Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured, flies them and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel, buys them dinner (usually at a Dave and Buster's), gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff (!), gets them 30-yard line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and sends them off with a basket of gifts.

Home or road, win or lose, hero or goat.

Remember last week, when the world was pulling its hair out in the hour after Tebow had stunned the Pittsburgh Steelers with an 80-yard OT touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas in the playoffs? And Twitter was exploding with 9,420 tweets about Tebow per second? When an ESPN poll was naming him the most popular athlete in America?

Tebow was spending that hour talking to 16-year-old Bailey Knaub about her 73 surgeries so far and what TV shows she likes.

MORE FROM TIM TEBOW
For Tim Tebow's take on being named America's most popular athlete, click here.

"Here he'd just played the game of his life," recalls Bailey's mother, Kathy, of Loveland, Colo., "and the first thing he does after his press conference is come find Bailey and ask, 'Did you get anything to eat?' He acted like what he'd just done wasn't anything, like it was all about Bailey."

More than that, Tebow kept corralling people into the room for Bailey to meet. Hey, Demaryius, come in here a minute. Hey, Mr. Elway. Hey, Coach Fox.

Even though sometimes-fatal Wegener's granulomatosis has left Bailey with only one lung, the attention took her breath away.

"It was the best day of my life," she emailed. "It was a bright star among very gloomy and difficult days. Tim Tebow gave me the greatest gift I could ever imagine. He gave me the strength for the future. I know now that I can face any obstacle placed in front of me. Tim taught me to never give up because at the end of the day, today might seem bleak but it can't rain forever and tomorrow is a new day, with new promises."

I read that email to Tebow and he was honestly floored.

"Why me? Why should I inspire her?" he said. "I just don't feel, I don't know, adequate. Really, hearing her story inspires me."

It's not just NFL defenses that get Tebowed. It's kids who will die soon. It's adults who can hardly stand. It's high school girls who don't know if they'll ever go to a prom.

For the game at Buffalo, it was Charlottesville, Va., blue-chip high school QB Jacob Rainey, who lost his leg after a freak tackle in a scrimmage. Tebow threw three interceptions in that Buffalo game and the Broncos were crushed, 40-14.

"He walked in and took a big sigh and said, 'Well, that didn't go as planned,'" remembers Rainey. "Where I'm from, people wonder how sincere and genuine he is. But I think he's the most genuine person I've ever met."

There's not an ounce of artifice or phoniness or Hollywood in this kid Tebow and I've looked everywhere for it.

Take 9-year-old Zac Taylor, a child who lives in constant pain. Immediately after Tebow shocked the Chicago Bears with a 13-10 comeback win, Tebow spent an hour with Zac and his family. At one point, Zac, who has 10 doctors, asked Tebow if he has a secret prayer for hospital visits. Tebow whispered it in his ear. And since Tebow still needed to be checked out by the Broncos' team doctor, he took Zac in with him, but only after they'd whispered it together.

And it's not always kids. Tom Driscoll, a 55-year-old who is dying of brain cancer at a hospice in Denver, was Tebow's guest for the Cincinnati game. "The doctors took some of my brain," Driscoll says, "so my short-term memory is kind of shot. But that day I'll never forget. Tim is such a good man."

This whole thing makes no football sense, of course. Most NFL players hardly talk to teammates before a game, much less visit with the sick and dying.

Isn't that a huge distraction?

Not everything Tim Tebow does on one knee is controversial. Ask Zac Taylor.

"Just the opposite," Tebow says. "It's by far the best thing I do to get myself ready. Here you are, about to play a game that the world says is the most important thing in the world. Win and they praise you. Lose and they crush you. And here I have a chance to talk to the coolest, most courageous people. It puts it all into perspective. The game doesn't really matter. I mean, I'll give 100 percent of my heart to win it, but in the end, the thing I most want to do is not win championships or make a lot of money, it's to invest in people's lives, to make a difference."

So that's it. I've given up giving up on him. I'm a 100 percent believer. Not in his arm. Not in his skills. I believe in his heart, his there-will-definitely-be-a-pony-under-the-tree optimism, the way his love pours into people, right up to their eyeballs, until they believe they can master the hopeless comeback, too.

Remember the QB who lost his leg, Jacob Rainey? He got his prosthetic leg a few weeks ago and he wants to play high school football next season. Yes, tackle football. He'd be the first to do that on an above-the-knee amputation.

Hmmm. Wonder where he got that crazy idea?

"Tim told me to keep fighting, no matter what," Rainey says. "I am."

The Attack on Christians and Conservatives and Tebow Is Ticking Me Off!

2012-01-13T04:58:00.002-05:00

I am not the most religious person in the world, I am really not.

I went to a Catholic School growing up and know that Catholic Mass by heart but seriously, I am really not that devout. Which is why it is almost silly that I am constantly defending Christianity. But if I don't few will.

I am particularly mad at the arrogant, angry atheism I am seeing, especially from young people. Great, we get it, you don't believe. That is fine, but you are so adamant that you are correct... is in effect totally hypocritical. To be agnostic and acknowledge you don't have the answers is perfect. To be so sure you do is silly.

Couple this with the fact that we cannot say one single hurtful thing about Islam. If I dare then I am attacked for being insensitive and demeaning. Of course, radical Islam is cutting our heads off but no matter. We can mock and destroy Christianity at every pass. See Bill Maher or Rick Reilly if you don't believe me.

We can also politicize it. I might ruffle some feathers here but having a deep understanding of the Bible you cannot be an American liberal AND a Christian. They don't go together. Sorry, I said it. Yet yesterday 10 of my Facebook friends posted a video from some snarky, arrogant young kid saying his poem about Jesus being greater than religion. Seemed pretty anti-Christian to me. Acted like wars were the fault of religion, i.e. Christianity, which was silly. Further, it started with its underlying theme-that the "Republican Party" is not the party of Christians!

Which is the SINGLE DUMBEST THING I HAVE HEARD ALL WEEK!

Basically he tangled some nice, loving Jesus messages around a powerful political statement- the "Radical religious right in America is hateful and causes all the world's problems" and Jesus would be upset. This couldn't be any dumber of a statement if he designed that way! I would attach his stupid propaganda poem but I don't want it watched any more than it needs to be.

This comes in a week where I have to keep defending Tim Tebow. I don't give a hoot if you think he stinks as a quarterback-to be honest that becomes dumber the better he does. And maybe he does stink, who cares?

The question is WHY do so many hate him!?

What is to hate? He embodies everything a young athlete should be. He is the quintessential underdog and does everything with class and dignity. And those arrogant atheists I spoke of earlier hate his guts. We have NFL players getting arrested on a daily basis. We have a collection of killers, guys that run men over with cars while drunk, dog killers, felons, steroid freaks, deadbeat dads, cocaine dealers, and on and on and they ROOT for these guys! To not give Mike Vick a second chance I have been told is "ignorant" on my part. Then HATE TIM TEBOW?! On what grounds?

This country is getting me sick. The arrogant atheism is just too much. The left is doing everything and anything to destroy conservatism and I have had it. Like I said, I am not the most religious guy.

This crap is making me more so!

Santorum Keeps Getting Media Crushed

2012-01-12T05:07:00.000-05:00

Our friend Brett Bozell tackles the very subject.

Santorum vs. The Meat Grinder
Rick Santorum's surprisingly close finish to Romney in Iowa guarantees the media will expect him to get brutally "vetted" like every other not-Romney.
By: L. Brent Bozell Saturday, January 07, 2012

For many months, the liberal media elite has made no secret that in its mind, the field of Republican presidental candidates includes Mitt Romney and a collection of clowns. Clearly, Romney is the opponent that Barack Obama and the liberal establishment want nominated.

Journalists have mercilessly savaged every single conservative alternative to Romney who’s ascended to the top of the polls. Palin. Bachmann. Cain. Perry. Gingrich. It’s too bad for them that the results from the Iowa caucuses threw off their bold predictions that the Romney Juggernaut would achieve liftoff in Des Moines. Yet Romney won by only eight votes over surprising Rick Santorum. This means one thing only: Senator, step up to the guillotine.

“He's about to face the meat grinder of tough scrutiny for the first time,” promised Ann Curry on the “Today” show. I’m stil waiting for Obama to face the “meat grinder of tough scrutiny for the first time.” Instead, he gets to handle Barbara Walters slow-pitch puffballs in prime time, being asked what kind of superhero powers he’d like to have.

Some would protest Obama has faced some meat-grinder questions recently. Take the president’s “60 Minutes” favorite, Steve Kroft, who put some tough questions to the president on CBS in December. The complaint? Obama compromised too much with heinous right-wingers. Kroft scolded, “There are people in your own party who think that you were outmaneuvered, that you were stared down by John Boehner and Grover Norquist and capitulated....It seems to be all the compromising is being done by you.”

The compromising is supposed to be done by the conservatives. The media stayed on their message with a relentless discipline after the Iowa results. Santorum, like the other authentic conservatives, are too “far right” to win. Ann Curry started the meat grinder. “So is he going to have to change his conservative message as he's looking into north, looking into New Hampshire, which is a much less conservative state?”

ABC’s Jake Tapper laid out the “reality” of Santorum moving to the center. “His is an unapologetic, in-your-face conservatism. But Santorum argues this is all part of his fight for the traditional American family,” Tapper reported. “But in order for Santorum to succeed, he really needs to expand beyond those base Republican voters.”

CNN’s John King told Santorum he was a Democrat’s dream. “A lot of Democrats were celebrating, if you will, Senator Santorum, last night, saying, in their view, you're on the extreme right on many of these social issues and they think, for them, it's a good thing that these issues will be front and center.” This is especially appalling coming from CNN, which has created several hour-long specials boosting the extreme left, like “Gary and Tony Have a Baby.”

Several anchors – including NBC’s Savannah Guthrie before the caucuses and Fox’s Bill O’Reilly (warning of what would come) afterwards – pressed Santorum on artificial contraception, which hasn’t exactly come up in most presidential campaigns. Obama isn’t exactly being badgered about contraceptives and how he told a town hall meeting in 2008 they would help his daughters avoid being “punished with a baby.”

The media will demand Santorum move to the center on all of the issues: economic issues, defense issues, and social issues. But they think he’s especially vulnerable as “extreme” on the social ones. Conservative viewpoints are “extreme,” but the liberal counterpoints never are so.

It’s “extreme” to criticize contraceptives, but not extreme to give them to 12-year-olds in public schools. It’s “extreme” to oppose all abortions, but not extreme to favor every one of them (even partial-birth abortions) and want them funded with taxpayer money. It’s “extreme” to believe in traditional marriage, but it’s not extreme to support “poly-amorous” groupings of three or five lovers in loose “family” arrangements.

Amazingly, ABC’s “Good Morning America” slavishly promoted polyamory the morning after Santorum’s near-tie. Abbie Boudreau gushed, “Really, these days a modern family, just like ABC's hit comedy, can be anything you make it.”

Republican voters need to remember that the ultraliberals who run our national media are nowhere near the “mainstream” on the culture, or on any other vital American issue. When they insist a conservative candidate really needs to move to the middle, perhaps conservatives ought to push back and ask when was the last time these people were anywhere near the center. They couldn’t find it with a pair of binoculars.

Sex Education In 2nd Grade?!

2012-01-11T05:07:00.001-05:00

I cannot believe that this is happening! Second grade? Perhaps a little early? It sounds like the Obama Administration is clearly pushing an agenda.

New U.S. Sex Education Standards Released
Published January 10, 2012

WASHINGTON – Young elementary school pupils should use the proper names for body parts and know by the end of fifth grade that sexual orientation is "the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender," according to sexual education guidelines released Monday by health and education groups.

The nonbinding recommendations to states and school districts seek to encourage age-appropriate discussions about sex, bullying and healthy relationships, starting with a foundation even before second grade.

Most U.S. children enter first grade at age 6.

By presenting minimum standards that schools can use to formulate school curriculums for each age level, the groups hope that schools can build a sequential foundation that in the long term will give teens more help as they grow into adults.

Experts say schools across America are inconsistent in how they address such sensitive topics.

Despite awareness of bullying, for example, Debra Hauser, president of Advocates for Youth, a group involved with creating the standards, said some schools do not deal with it, or at least not in relation to sexual orientation or gender identity, which is what she said is the cause of a lot of bullying.

"They should tackle it head-on," Hauser said.

Other organizations involved with the release include the American Association of Health Education, the American School Health Association, the National Education Association - Health Information Network, the Society of State Leaders of Health and Physical Education, and the Future of Sex Education Initiative. The latest suggestions were drawing less enthusiastic reactions from some.

By the end of second grade, the guidelines say students should use the correct body part names for the male and female anatomy and understand that all living things reproduce and that all people have the right not to be touched if they do not want to be. They also say young elementary school children should be able to identity different kinds of family structures and explain why bullying and teasing are wrong.

Beyond lessons about puberty by the end of fifth grade, the guidelines say students should be able to define sexual harassment and abuse.

When they leave middle school, generally as a young teenager, they should be able to differentiate between gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, according to the guidelines.

They also say they should be able to explain why a rape victim is not at fault, know about bullying and dating violence and describe the signs and impacts of sexually transmitted diseases.

It calls for those leaving eighth grade also to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of abstinence, condoms and other "safer sex methods" and know how emergency contraception works. Many of these issues the groups encouraged to be further addressed in high school as well.

It was unclear how much influence the recommendations will have among educators.

Cora Collette Breuner, a pediatrics professor at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on adolescence who was not involved in the creation of the standards, praised the approach of encouraging discussions at an early age.

"The data points that trying to cover this stuff when kids have already formulated their own opinions and biases by the time they're in middle and high school, it's too late," Breuner said.

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Education Abstinence Association, said she does not agree with the topics and goals of the standards. Like the anti-smoking campaign of the last few decades that has had success, abstinence should be the focus of such programs, she said.

"This should be a program about health, rather than agendas that have nothing to do with optimal sexual health decision-making," Huber said. "Controversial topics are best reserved for conversations between parent and child, not in the classroom."

Ron Paul Is Nuts

2012-01-10T05:07:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul is nuts. And yet, not as nuts as his supporters. His supporters are a fine line from the supporters of the liberals. They are all over the Internet. They are one-trick ponies. It is Ron Paul or bust. They dominate Twitter and Youtube. They dominate any Internet polls. Why? Because Ron Paul resonates with conspiracy theorists. He is that guy. Even some conservative friends love Ron Paul.

I think his foreign policy is short-sighted, naive, and stupid. He is like Britain in the 1930's.

I think his ideas of drugs and minorities is ignorant. I think his ideas on crime are just as bad.

See, the libertarian makes sense in all except morality. They neglect the fact that we are a Judeo-Christian society predicated on the values of that faith. It is not about devotion to God as it is the law and order of the beliefs.

So Ron Paul, I am NOT with you or your kooky 76 year old thoughts. I respect your economic mind but your social issues are not correct.

Yet, I would still take you 1000x over who we have in charge today.

Celebrity One-Percenters Back Occupy Movement

2012-01-09T05:12:00.000-05:00

Rich Celebrities are such hypocrites!

Occupy's Celebrity One-Percent Backers Occupy Wall Street organizers claim to stand against the "One Percent," but they conveniently ignore the massive wealth of celebrities among their supporters.
By: L. Brent Bozell Tuesday, January 03, 2012

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has hit several huge road blocks. First it was the cold temperatures that sent many home. Next was the long-overdue decision to evacuate them out of public parks by liberal Democrat mayors. But another huge road block that’s emerging: their enormous hypocrisy on wealth.

The “occupiers” have pushed the ludicrous slogan that “we are the 99 percent,” somehow standing for the same public that installed 63 new conservative Republicans in the House in 2011. To demonstrate their 99 percentism in October, these protesters staged a “Millionaires March” in New York City, parading to the homes of wealthy citizens such as Rupert Murdoch and David Koch. But OWS organizers have conveniently ignored the massive wealth of celebrities within their own ranks.

Paul Wilson of the Culture and Media Institute has run down the list of the top 25 richest celebrities supporting Occupy Wall Street, according to the website Celebrity Net Worth. They possess – ready? – a combined net worth just over $4 billion. The lefties at MSNBC actually said on air these people may be “unaware” they’re in the top one percent.

While mega-banker Jamie Dimon (worth $200 million) was one of the targets of the ''millionaires march,'' he has a net worth less than five of the celebrities supporting OWS. The most flagrant example of hypocrisy is hip-hop music mogul Russell Simmons (net worth: $325 million). Simmons has been both a fervent OWS supporter and the author of a 2011 manual titled “Super Rich: A Guide to Having It All.” Simmons calls his book “a stimulus package of consciousness.”

Simmons visited Occupy Wall Street protests almost daily at the beginning, and then started a cross-country tour of different Occupy sites to gather grassroots support for his proposed constitutional amendment that would ban private donations to candidates running for federal public office. But on Christmas Eve, the New York Post gossips noted “he was spotted far from Zuccotti Park this week, strolling the beach in front of super-luxurious Hotel Isle de France on St. Bart’s.” At the same time Simmons tweeted in support of “Christ consciousness,” he angrily told critics to perform an oral sex act.

The hip-hop contingent wants to advocate for the far less “fortunate,” but they’re too rich to strike the right pose. At number two on the list was rapper Jay-Z (worth $450 million), who drew controversy for trying to sell T-shirts to Occupiers without ''sharing'' the proceeds. Rapper Kanye West, worth $70 million, showed up to the protests in New York wearing gold chains.

Yoko Ono (number one on the list at $500 million) is a descendant of a prominent Japanese banking family. Her late husband John Lennon wrote 'Imagine' in a Park Avenue penthouse. She threw in her support for the movement, saying “John is sending his smile to Occupy Wall Street.” She actually matches the OWS movement in mental aimlessness, with tweets like “You are water. I'm water. We’re all water in different containers.”

Actress and fitness guru Jane Fonda, worth $120 million, attacked the wealthy on the Joy Behar Show without contemplating she might, just might, be one of the loathsome One Percent. Like Simmons, she is currently selling two exercise DVDs and an advice manual. But she said the Occupiers were the forces of common sense. ''Any country that has a very, very small narrow layer, of very rich powerful privileged people and no middle class and the rest are just really struggling and some of them not making it, is a country that's not going to be stable.'' She even said of the Occupiers: “They’re the Paul Reveres.”

Alec Baldwin (number 19 on the hypocrite list with a net work of $65 million) visited the Occupy crowd in November and praised “a lot of dedicated people at Zuccotti Park.” But as Jeffrey Lord reported for The American Spectator, Baldwin’s partnerships with corporations for the Carol Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund show high levels of hypocrisy. “Alec Baldwin is a board member of a family charitable fund which partners with and takes money from a veritable who's who of that famous trifecta of liberal enemies: Wall Street, Big Oil and Corporations.”

The funniest hypocrite was radical filmmaker Michael Moore (net worth: $50 million), who tried to tell CNN’s Piers Morgan he wasn’t in the One Percent, and then later had to confess the obvious. The conservative site The Michigan View found and displayed photographs of Moore’s 10,000-square-foot mansion on Torch Lake in northern Michigan, where the average property sells for $2 million.

So have a good laugh when you read of Moore speaking to a very supportive Occupier crowd in September about those other rich people: "They are thieves. They are gangsters. They are kleptomaniacs. They have tried to take our democracy and turn it into an hypocrisy."

New Tom Hanks Movie Looks Great!

2012-01-08T07:44:00.002-05:00

I really love Tom Hanks movies. He can play so many types of roles. He is the greatest actor of the last forty years, hands down. His new movie looks like my kind of movie, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close":

I Am Feeling Really Sick

2012-01-07T04:57:00.001-05:00

I am sick.

Really sick.

I have missed three days of school in a row.

I missed nine days my first nine years.

I have been feeling sick for a few weeks. Really sick since Tuesday.

I am on the last day of an antibiotic. I had three containers of blood drawn but they have not called with results. I do not have strep according to the rapid test.

Here are my symptoms:

I cannot swallow. My tonsils are really swollen and have white stuff all over them. So gross and white that both the doctor and my wife gasped when they looked into my mouth.

I have an upset stomach and constant nausea.

I have a fever between 99.6-101.6 all of the time even with Motrin.

I am not hungry, which is rare. I am also feeling worse each day than the day before.

I have mucus and a cackle in my right ear.

My mouth has some sores in it.

I can hardly get up and move without feeling tired.

I am slightly short of breath.

Did I mention I cannot swallow without horrible pain?

At least it is not Billy. I sure feel sorry for my wife, however.

Let us hope this is over soon.

George Will On Santorum

2012-01-06T05:05:00.000-05:00

The great George Will had some great insight on Rick Santorum.

Jan 5, 2012
Suddenly, a fun candidate
By George Will

The complaint that Iowa is not a typical American state is true but trivial because there is no such state. Can you name one whose political culture, closely considered, is more like than unlike any other state’s? Anyway, someplace has to go first, and it should be somewhere the natives are receptive and media are not decisive, so marginal candidates have a sporting chance to become central.

Rick Santorum has become central because Iowa Republicans ignored an axiom that is as familiar as it is false: Democrats fall in love, and Republicans fall in line. Republicans, supposedly hierarchical, actually are — let us say the worst — human. They crave fun. Supporting Mitt Romney still seems to many like a duty, the responsible thing to do. Suddenly, supporting Santorum seems like a lark, partly because a week or so ago he could quit complaining about media neglect and start having fun, which is infectious.

He can, of course, be tenaciously serious. On Sept. 26, 1996, the Senate was debating whether to ban partial-birth abortion, the procedure whereby the baby to be killed is almost delivered, feet first, until only a few inches of its skull remain in the birth canal, and then the skull is punctured, emptied and collapsed. Santorum asked two pro-choice senators opposed to the ban, Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), this: Suppose the baby slips out of the birth canal before it can be killed. Should killing it even then be a permissible choice? Neither senator would say no.

On Oct. 20, 1999, during another such debate, Santorum had a colloquy with pro-choice Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.):

Santorum: “You agree that, once the child is born, separated from the mother, that that child is protected by the Constitution and cannot be killed. Do you agree with that?”

Boxer: “I think that when you bring your baby home . . . .”

Santorum is not, however, a one-dimensional social conservative. He was Senate floor manager of the most important domestic legislation since the 1960s, the 1996 welfare reform. This is intensely pertinent 15 years later, as the welfare state buckles beneath the weight of unsustainable entitlement programs: Welfare reform repealed a lifetime entitlement under Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a provision of the 1935 Social Security Act, and empowered states to experiment with new weaves of the safety net.

White voters without college education — economically anxious and culturally conservative — were called “Reagan Democrats” when they were considered only seasonal Republicans because of Ronald Reagan. Today they are called the Republican base.

Who is more apt to energize them: Santorum, who is from them, or Romney, who is desperately seeking enthusiasm?

Romney recently gave a speech with a theme worthy of a national election, contrasting a “merit-based” or “opportunity” society with Barack Obama’s promotion of an “entitlement society,” which Romney termed “a fundamental corruption of the American spirit”: “Once we thought ‘entitlement’ meant that Americans were entitled to the privilege of trying to succeed. . . . But today the new entitlement battle is over the size of the check you get from Washington. . . . And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing — the government.”

Romney discerns the philosophic chasm separating those who embrace and those who reject progressivism’s objective, which is to weave a web of dependency, increasingly entangling individuals and industries in government supervision.

Santorum exemplifies a conservative aspiration born about the time he was born in 1958. Frank Meyer, a founding editor of William F. Buckley’s National Review in 1955, postulated the possibility, and necessity, of “fusionism,” a union of social conservatives and those of a more libertarian, free-market bent.

If the Republicans’ binary choice has arrived, and if new technologies of communication and fundraising are repealing some traditional impediments to fluidity in political competition, Santorum can hope to win the nomination. Yes, in 2006, a ghastly year for Republicans (who lost 30 seats and control of the House, and six Senate seats), Santorum lost by 17 points in his bid for a third term. But, then, Richard Nixon was defeated for governor of California six years before being elected president, carrying California.

Even if Santorum is not nominated, he might galvanize a constituency that makes him a vice presidential choice. For Obama, getting to 270 electoral votes without Pennsylvania’s 20 is problematic. But so, just now, are Republican prospects of getting to 270 with their narrowing choice of candidates.

Rick Santorum Is The Answer

2012-01-05T05:04:00.000-05:00

When is the media going to get it? We are a conservative country. The Republicans, generally speaking, are the conservative party. Therefore a conservative should be the selection. Why do they think this is not the case? If you added up all of the votes of Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry you would be at 54%. Then take the sane half of the Ron Paul supporters and there you have 2/3, yes 2/3 of the voters in Iowa wanted the more conservative choice.

Now take into the equation the fact that independents can vote in Iowa! Whoa Nellie, that means that about 40% of Ron Paul and 20% of Mitt Romney's voters were not even Republicans. Now we are talking. This basically equates to 75-80% of the voters in Iowa want a CONSERVATIVE candidate.

The media spins this any way they want to.

The "8 vote" win out of 121,000 is so ridiculous. Romney spent billions. Santorum spent little. Santorum was teetering around 5% two weeks ago! Romney has been 25% for almost FIVE years in Iowa! Rick Santorum is a HUGE winner. Everyone else is a HUGE loser. Paul invested time and money into his best chance state-one where independents can vote (his appeal is there) and they did-for him. Yet even with that he finished almost 5% points behind in third place. Where can the 76 year old with his troubling foreign policy and his cult-like followers head next? Liberal, independent voters allowed New Hampshire of course. To get his typical 20-25%. That is all for Mr. Paul, however. Come South Carolina and Florida he has no chance.

Santorum has momentum. The debate this weekend will be focused on him. He needs to stay the course-pushing his experience, background, and values.

He is the son of an Italian immigrant, grandson of a coal miner. He is not another Ivy League stiff and that is charming. He is a northeastern with Southern values. A Roman Catholic that pleases evangelical Christians. He is quite remarkable, really.

He won a House of Representative seat against a 7 time Democrat incumbent. He won twice in the Senate in purplish-blue Pennsylvania.

He is the mock of the left who instead of mocking the man or the record, create fake-slang words that are dirty and inappropriate using his name or worse mock how he handled the death of his baby. Having had a baby, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same darn thing. Not to mention imagine if the right ever judged how the left grieved? My goodness they would run that person out of politics!

He will certainly be spoofed by Jon Stewart and SNL. He will be mocked by MSNBC and snubbed by Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer and the CNN elitists. He will continue to be said to be unelectable much like they said when he ran in Pennsylvania. Santorum will be called a bigot and a homophobe because heaven forbid he speaks on subjects like decaying cities and traditional marriage instead of dodging them like most pols these days.

It will not matter.

We are a conservative country and looking for a conservative choice.

Rick Santorum is that choice. New Hampshire will probably not be the answer, not enough money or time. South Carolina and Florida, however could set him up well for Super Tuesday. We need to keep pushing.

Rick Santorum, you have my vote!

Wal Mart Adventures

2012-01-04T05:07:00.000-05:00

Of course in my cold haste to make Billy have less steps into WalMart (and daddy), I left the car running in the fire lane. Just had to grab a script. Well, Billy pooped AND I locked the keys in the car! Nice! It all worked out via my wife's AAA & me having a random lady waiting for the bus watch the car (so no tickets or tow) while I bought diapers, wipes, treats, and changed Billy. Of course the tow came while I was in the bathroom. I feel like these adventures were my childhood with my dad, I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Did I mention my cellphone battery was dying as well? And my name is not on AAA so I had to beg and negotiate with the guy on the phone.

All in all it is just how it is going to be with my man and me!