Hugo Chavez has nothing on US liberals

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and avowed socialist, has been granted authority to rule by decree by the outgoing Venezuelan parliament.  But he has nothing on our liberals.  They have been doing that for decades now by judicial decisions and bureaucratic regulations that have no basis in law.  The latest example is cited here by Charles Krauthammer discussing the regulations mandating government payments for end-of-life counseling, the EPA plans to enact cap-and-trade by regulatory fiat, and other measures that liberals cannot enact by legislative action in Congress in the manner established by our constitution.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/30/AR2010123003047.html?hpid=opinionsbox1


That is why I found Nancy Pelosi's pronouncement that Congress had to pass Obamacare so we could know what was in it not only laughable but totally immaterial.  It never mattered what was in the Obamacare legislation.  Liberals do not limit their agenda by what laws are passed or what passed laws actually say.


If you go back to the legislation that is claimed as the basis for racial quotas and preferences, before passage it was surrounded by controversy in Congress by claims of opponents that it would result in racial quotas in employment and other arenas within our society.  The sponsors of the legislation proclaimed in Congress that there was nothing in the legislation requiring racial quotas and in fact it prohibited racial quotas so it passed Congress.


Of course, we know what happened.  That legislation was used as the justification for all kinds of government regulations establishing racial quotas in hiring, education, government contracts, and any other facet of life that Congress could figure out how to control despite court challenges against racial preferences.  Liberal judges even acknowledged while denying court challenges to racial quotas the statements of legislative sponsors that the law prohibited racial quotas and still ruled that Congress did not intend to prohibit racial preferences which really became quotas anyway as practiced by bureaucrats and administrative law judges.  And the concept still lives on today with mandates for gender equity and diversity in the Wall Street Reform Act.


Citizens can have differences of opinion on whether measures like racial preferences and cap-and-trade are good or bad or of no consequence.  But how long can our system of government survive a concerted effort by liberals and judges and bureaucrats carrying out the liberal agenda to make laws out of thin air because they cannot get them enacted by legislation in Congress in the manner established by our founding fathers?

Super Bowl 2014 in the Meadowlands?

When the NFL awarded the 2014 Super Bowl to NY/NJ Meadowlands, I like a lot of people thought they are crazy.  Why risk having the most important game of your schedule disrupted, re-scheduled, or even relocated by the threat of winter weather in the NYC metro area in February?

Maybe the fiasco of today's Vikings at Eagles game in Philadelphia is Exhibit A.  The game should have been played this afternoon, but NBC selected this game to be flexed to Sunday night.  I still am not sure how that decision was made so I can only assume NBC determined that was the best ratings draw.  When you look at today's schedule, it seems to me that the Jets at the Bears and the Giants at the Packers would be much better choices for flex to Sunday night on NBC.  Maybe they were afraid it would snow in Chicago or Green Bay.  Ha!

The Sunday night forecast for East Rutherford, NJ at weather.com is Blizzard.  And we are only in the first week of what really is winter.  It makes you wonder how comfortable the NFL feels with the odds now for the weather in East Rutherford, NJ in the middle of February in three years.

I subscribe to the theory that the Super Bowl belongs in a warm weather city with occasional diversions to cold weather locales with a stadium that is or can be covered like Detroit or Indianapolis.  I think it is advisable to go to warm weather stadiums with a roof more often than not as I recall the rain in Miami when the Colts defeated the Bears.

On balance, I think and hope that all goes well with the Super Bowl in NJ in 2014, but there is enough of the cynic in me to hope that all hell breaks loose with the weather in NJ in February 2014 to teach the NFL a lesson.  They might think that they run and control everything, but that doesn't include the weather.

The NFL will have everything in place to make sure everything goes as planned to the extent that they can control things and that means having a Plan B, Plan C, etc.  If you dream of going to a Super Bowl without paying a small fortune, this might be your best chance since I really will be shocked if there is a strong market for tickets.  But then I could really be wrong on that given how NFL-crazy our society has become.

But I know one other thing for sure.  The powers-that-be in Indy should do all that they can do to impress the NFL with their capability to host the 2012 Super Bowl including their capability to host the 2014 Super Bowl on very, very short notice.

Christmas 2010 has been a wonderful Christmas

It is now 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Day of 2010.  It has been a wonderful Christmas.  Our oldest son again made it home from Florida from last Wednesday until next Wednesday.  Each of our two other sons and our daughter were able to join us at my mother-in-law's home on Christmas Eve along with other relatives for dinner and a brief gift exchange.  Then my wife and I returned home to host our four kids, our son-in-law, and our grandson in our family gift exchange.  We needed to have our gift exchange on Christmas Eve because our daughter and son-in-law both work on Christmas Day this year.

It is always fun to watch everyone during the gift exchange but that was especially so this year with our 2-year old grandson.  Everyone received many very nice gifts, me included.  Each of my gifts is very special and very much appreciated including the obligatory 2011 Dilbert desk calendar.

Christmas Day on a Saturday this year provided me ample time to be ready for Christmas Day itself since our work holidays were Thursday and Friday so I was ready for the festivities to start on Friday evening Christmas Eve.  And since our official family gatherings were both on Friday night, Christmas Day on Saturday has been very leisurely and low-key following Christmas Mass this morning.

Late this afternoon we drove to my parents' memory care facility to visit with them.  Those visits always are a mixed bag of emotions.  There is joy that they are both still here with us on this earth, but sadness that we continue to lose them a little bit day by day.

Such thoughts make me appreciate how special it is to have all our kids here with us for Christmas.  I thank God that we are so very fortunate and I pray that we continue to have that opportunity for countless years to come.


And I also pray to God to keep safe all the servicemen and servicewomen who have volunteered to serve our country and are not able to be with their loved ones this Christmas.  My prayers for their continued safety are with all of them and with their families.

Merry Christmas to all!

EMP - If you don't know what it is, you should

I first became aware of EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) over 20 years ago when I worked with an individual who is a former member of a very high level military security organization.  He explained to me the concept and properties of EMP and why it is such a threat.  Little has ever been said about EMP in the mainstream media, so few people know anything about it.  And that is dangerous because as long as that is the case, many of our national leaders will do nothing to prepare us for such an attack or to prevent such an attack in the first place.  In fact, our current leadership actually seems intent on weakening our defensive posture.

So what's the big deal?  Imagine a nuclear device explodes high over the North American continent.  Within a blink of an eye, every electronic device within line of sight becomes unusable.  Within a heartbeat we would have no communications, no electricity, no heat, no water, no utilities, no transportation, no airplanes, no trains, so trucks, no automobiles.  Just like that, the US would be driven back to the Dark Ages or even the stone age.

The first responsibility of our government is to provide for our common defense.  While we should worry about terrorists acquiring and triggering a nuclear device in a large metro area, the damage, as horrific as it would be, would be limited to some geographic area, but a successful EMP attack would end life as we know it.  How many of us are prepared to survive by providing our own food, water, heat, and other resources necessary to survival?  When North Korea already has nuclear weapons and Iran appears ready to join the nuclear club, how can we believe that our government is doing everything possible to protect us by developing anti-missile defenses and other systems?  North Korea already has weapons that are reported to be capable of reaching our western states.  But all they really need to do is install a missile launcher on a freighter, sail it to some distance off our shores, and launch a missile equipped with a nuclear device that detonates high in the atmosphere.

This is a threat to our survival as a nation.  Millions of US citizens would die as a result.  What are we doing to prepare for and more importantly prevent such an attack?

Credit for the following link goes to The Heritage Foundation (http://twitter.com/Heritage)

http://heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/11/EMP-Attacks-What-the-US-Must-Do-Now