Sunset over the South China Sea

I love being back in Malaysia visiting family and friends. After two weeks in Malaysia, the jet lag is over, but the discomfort caused by the extreme humidity always takes much longer to adjust to.

From previous experiences, a month is about the length of time needed to adjust – not totally adjust, but enough to where you can get on with life without complaining as much about the humid weather!

June is supposed to be the driest month of the year, but this year, rain is very much a daily occurrence. But fortunately when it rains, it is only for a short time, even though the sky is still thick with rain clouds.

If not for the almost daily showers, the alternative could be a lot worse. Thick haze caused by dust particles from fires from farm and land clearing makes breathing difficult and life a misery. The rain helps to keep the air clear from the haze caused by the fires.

The thick clouds in the sky makes for beautiful scenes during the evening. These beautiful scenes really feed my photographic appetite!

*This guest post by Nora Grayson.

Doug has wanted the kids to get swimming lessons ever since they could walk.  So now that there is someone who is available to teach,  the kids will be learning to swim at last.

I was concerned that she might not be able to keep an eye on Duncan who is not very good about doing what he is told.   “Don’t worry”, she told me. “I will make sure he listens to me!”

It would be nice if we had our own pool in our backyard but since we don’t, the public pool will have to do.

But then again, if you have young children in the house, there are safety issues that we must look into.

Check out the following post by my guest blogger Norah Grayson on pool safety.

Immigration: Arizona moves to protect its citizens from a raging border war, and the administration and its activist supporters cry racism. Why is antelope protection more important than protecting American lives?

‘We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act,” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday after signing a tough new immigration law giving police more power in dealing with illegal immigration. “But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.”

Arizona’s new law is a reminder that the states formed the federal government and not the other way around. One of the federal government’s functions was to provide for the security of the new country against foreign enemies and intruders. At this, and particularly under this administration, it has failed miserably.

Read the full story from Investors Business Daily here.

Obama calls the new law “irresponsible” and “misguided”. I think those two words describe the President’s position more accurately than they do Arizona’s.

Today, Eric Holder, the Attorney General, the one who is supposed to enforce the nation’s laws, says that his department may challenge the state of Arizona law in court. And the most laughable statement of the day came from Janet Napolitano – “It is secure now as it has ever been.”

Unbelievable!

I am a legal resident.  I am required to show my passport, my green card, and even have my picture taken every time I re-enter the country from a trip overseas.  Why do I have to go through all these at the airport, yet south of the border, anyone can come through without so much as a travel document?

And I am supposed to be worried about being profiled?

That is the least of my worries!  I have all the documents to show that I am not illegal in this country, and I have broken no laws!  Why should I be worried?

All the hyper-ventilating over the law is just cover for the pro-amnesty crowd.  Enforce the existing laws and secure the borders, and Arizona might not have to come up with this new law.

President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009
PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama’s Address to Students Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education
September 8, 2009

Before the Speech:
• Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
• Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
• Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
• Students can record a

Read the full document here.

Obama’s word is NOT gospel and responsible parents should not allow their children to be used as pawns in the Obama administration’s agenda.

Get your kids out of school on September 8, and show Obama and his minions that their attempts at indoctinating our children are not going to go on without a protest.

The last two paragraphs of that article:

Or is the new hypocrisy an eerie sort of psychological compensation at work? Perhaps the more Al Gore rails about carbon emissions, the more he can without guilt enjoy what emits them. The more Professor Gates can cite racism, the more he himself is paid to spot it. And the more a Tom Daschle wants to tax and spend for health care, the less badly he feels about his own chauffer and tax avoidance?

Here’s a little advice for all of America’s aristocratic critics: a little less hypocrisy, a little more appreciation of your good lives — and then maybe the rest of us will listen to you a little more.

Read it all here.

So who’s telling the truth? Obama or his critics?

President Reagan opposed socialized medicine because it does not lead to choice. It is just another means for the government to take away your liberties and to tell you what you can and cannot do with regards to your health care needs.

Reagan’s words are as fresh today as they were then.

Was she informed, or was she briefed? Oh wait, she was misled! And the CIA lied! Yes, like they lied about the presence of WMD! She just had to throw in that zinger, didn’t she?

What a bold faced liar! She deserves to be hauled up in front of Senate hearing committee and let’s investigate, yes let’s investigate all those torture memos! Let’s find out her role in approving the enhanced interrogations techniques on those captured enemy combatants!

What say you that she had something to do with Obama doing a 180 about releasing those “torture” pictures?

Kudos to Donald Trump for seeing the bigger picture and for seeing through the not so subtle attempts by the mainstream media and the homosexual activists, to villify and dethrone Miss California.

I love Donald Trump’s zinger about President Obama holding the same view as Miss California’s! “It’s the same answer the president of the United States gave,” said Trump. No kidding! How come Perez Hilton does not call the President on his stance on gay marriage? How come no one in the mainstream media ever said anything that Miss California’s view on marriage is no different than that of the President’s, Hillary Clinton’s and more than half of the people of California who voted for Proposition 8?

I can just picture tomorrow’s TV morning shows …. how disappointed those libtards on CBS’s Morning Show and those at NBC will be by Donald Trump’s decision to allow Miss California to keep her crown. They were so gleeful this morning when new nude pictures of Carrie Pejean surfaced! As for David Shuster of MSNBC, I wished he had choked on his vomit!

There’s one thing that is just so predictable with these liberals. They talk about tolerance and free speech, but only if you agree with them.

Don’t know what I am talking about?

How about this story reported by CNSNews.com – Georgetown Says It Covered Over Name of Jesus to Comply With White House Request?

If Obama objects to signs and symbols reflecting Christianity near him, he should not have spoken at a Catholic University. But then again, he has to cover up his ass after claiming that America is not a Christian nation.

So now he has to put to rest that niggling suspicion that some people have about him being a secret Muslim. Hence that speech, held at Georgetown University and making references to the Sermon on the Mount about building something on a rock …

No, of course the false messiah doesn’t want to share the stage with the name of the real Messiah behind him! There’s only room for one messiah at a time! And yes, he’s the one we’ve been waiting for!

Yeah. Right.

What was all that talk about the country being a nation of cowards where the subject of race is concerned?

I agree with Rush Limbaugh today, he, Rush, is no coward. Look what his reference to race with regards to Donovan McNabe got him? Cries of racism!

Want to know who the racist is? Jeremiah Wright and ilks like him! And guess who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church pew, for 20 years and soaked all that in? Obama, you betcha!

And when Eric Holder says we are a nation of cowards, he is actually saying we are cowards because we don’t agree with his view of how the subject of race should be treated! And that is treat minorities and their rights with liberal kid gloves, and bend over backwards to address their perceived grievances.

I like Ward Connerly’s reaction to what Eric Holder said.

The old saying, “be careful of what you wish for,” applies here.

In characterizing the American people as “cowards” for not openly discussing their attitudes about race, the attorney general seems to be be anxious to provoke a dialogue about the subject. Yet, there is no evidence, based on his presidential campaign, that President Obama wants to have such a discussion.

Moreover, it is difficult to have such a discussion when some with differing views are harshly and publicly attacked for their views. For example, when asked about my initiatives to end race preferences, candidate Obama labeled them as those “divisive Ward Connerly initiatives.” Such characterization is hardly consistent with the view that we should openly put our views about race on public display.

I also believe the attorney general is out of step with the majority of Americans when he implies that the source of and solution to most social disparities is race. I believe most Americans are no longer content with this line of thinking and its ultimate conclusion of race-based solutions to resolve these disparities.

I am sure there are lots of black people like Ward Connerly who feel the way he does about Holder’s speech.

I love handbags and I couldn’t resist this contest where I stand a chance to win a  free handbag from HandBag Planet.  I am sure there are lots of other women out there who would also love to win a free handbag, but what the heck – I won’t win if I don’t enter the contest, right?

I know Doug will complain if I add one more handbag (if I am lucky enough to win, that is) to those that are already hanging in the closet!   :lol: