Ramblings of Sarge

Saying is one thing, attitude another.

What is the real issue here? Saying the wrong things is certainly not good, but the attitude is at the root of the problem. Even if these examples go unsaid, the attitude still has great potential to affect the worker and those around him/her. Realizing what the job is, accepting it and doing it with a good attitude raises the level everything around from relationships, to atmosphere, to performance. Less stress and more joy leads to contentment and a happier life. People are miserable because they don't have the courage to leave a job they hate. It is time for people to once again take personal responsibility for their own actions, which includes the job they accept and agree to perform. Enough of the "world owes me" attitude. Gratitude to an employer for the opportunity will go a long way to improving the quality of life. This was my reaction to the article, 7 Things Never to Say to Your Boss, By Karen Burns, Posted: March 17, 2010. It was on the U.S. News & World Report site. Also visit our Forum at: http://truthdriven.8.forumer.com/

New password-stealing virus targets Facebook | Reuters

New password-stealing virus targets Facebook | Reuters Posted using ShareThis

New password-stealing virus targets Facebook

If the attachment is opened, it downloads several types of malicious software, including a program that steals passwords, McAfee said on Wednesday.

Floating Sheep

A blog that you may not have seen is Floating Sheep. This is a very interesting page that tracks trends by actually plotting variations on maps. The current visualization is Christianity trends across the nation and around the world. This site is worth checking out for some info and entertainment. http://www.floatingsheep.org/ Some past mapping projects were:

• Great American Pizza Map
• Beer Belly of America
• Metropolitan Cyberscapes
• Google Geographies of religion II
• Google Geographies of religion I
• Mapping Wikipedia

Also visit our Forum at: http://truthdriven.8.forumer.com/

Floating Sheep

A blog that you may not have seen is Floating Sheep. This is a very interesting page that tracks trends by actually plotting variations on maps. The current visualization is Christianity trends across the nation and around the world. This site is worth checking out for some info and entertainment.

http://www.floatingsheep.org/

Some past mapping projects were:

• Great American Pizza Map
• Beer Belly of America
• Metropolitan Cyberscapes
• Google Geographies of religion II
• Google Geographies of religion I
• Mapping Wikipedia

 

 

Also visit our Forum at: http://truthdriven.8.forumer.com/

" Deem and Pass " Scam

In a day when we are spending more than we will ever be able to pay back, is it too much to ask Congress to actually follow the Constitution with how they pass legislation? I realize that to the majority of the current Washington D.C. crowd the Constitution of the United States of America is nothing more than an inconvenience standing in the way of progress. This tactic, however, is going a little too far and may create the backlash of an awakening public that one could only dream about happening. ABCNEWS.com posted a blog tonight titled, Obama Not Worried About “Procedural Rules” like “Deem and Pass” for Health Care.

President Obama said today that he is not too worried about the controversial “deem and pass” strategy being considered on Capitol Hill, and that members should not “pretend” that a vote, in whatever form it ends up taking, is anything other than a vote for or against reform.

It saddens me that our Nation's leader is not bothered by the circumventing of our Constitution so that his legislation project can be passed in any manner necessary. And why is it necessary to use such methods? Because the majority of people are against the legislation and enough congressmen have actually heard the people and are, believe it or not, actually representing them rather than the Party that they think employs them. From the Washington Post: House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed. The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

I need to ask the question, why would a law maker be inclined to go along with this? Are there payoffs and backroom deals that they don't want to have come to light? Our public officials should have their name attached to anything and everything they pass. If it is something they are ashamed of and want anonymity, they should not be voting for it. This process is just plain wrong and the results of it are detrimental to the welfare of our nation.

Watergate to Jobsgate

As the Nixon White House covered up the Watergate activities for as long as they could, so seems the Obama White House to be bent on repeating history. The activity that initiated the story might be quite different, but the cover up activities seem quite similar. I don't believe it will result in a President Obama resignation, but credibility is being brought into question. Even as the Hawaii legislature considers, "Measure Would Allow Hawaii to Ignore Repeated Requests for Obama's Birth Certificate", the Obama folks are mum on charges that possibly involve the commission of a felony by one or more people. The American Spectator says:

There can be no other reason for Gibbs to be fending off Jake Tapper or Major Garrett, for Robert Bauer and Gibbs both to ignore Congressman Issa, or for Andrew Romanoff to stonewall Denver's Peter Boyles -- the list is growing - than one.

That one reason?

At a minimum someone inside the Obama White House has screwed up and embarrassed the president.

Or, that somebody or more than one somebody -- a somebody or somebodies of note  -- has or have in fact committed a federal crime in the President's name.

In the article, Specter Opens Door on White House Felonies, By Jeffrey Lord on 3.16.10 @ 6:09AM, the soap opera is laid out concerning the questioning and non-answering of and from the White House. Robert Gibbs, a master at talking in circles for days at a time in hopes that a new hot topic will wash away the item he wishes not to discuss is in full form here.

Perhaps lesson number one here for Gibbs and his colleagues  as the unraveling of Jobsgate proceeds is never to "Zieglerize." Never, ever, look the American people in the eye and stonewall. The results are never -- ever -- good.

It is a lesson that Robert Gibbs has at least five times in 18 days demonstrated he is willing to ignore.

Credibility at the Justice Department may get a bit tarnished if the quest for information continues. The story goes on to say:

One former high-ranking Justice Department official, after telling me that there were indeed problems with the Department's silence on this issue, said that in the current political climate at the Holder-run Justice Department, any Justice official who sought to go to Holder with thoughts of investigating Messina or his boss Rahm Emanuel or anyone else in the White House would have to have "brass balls." A colorful way of saying that Justice Department officials are being intimidated from pursuing the truth, no matter where it leads.

Congressman Issa is quoted as saying:

"Right now, they're doing the 'I won't confirm or deny,' and for us, it leaves two possibilities. One is the promise of transparency in this administration is just shot. The second one is even worse, which is either Sestak is lying or the administration has done something wrong and is covering it up…" -- U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa on Friday on March 12, 2010

Plausible deny-ability may work for a time, but as President Nixon learned the hard way, covering up isn't the same thing. This administration has not appeared to choose to learn from history in the past and this go around seems little different. Read the article and ask yourself if this is more of the same or something serious enough to garner attention. Sadly, both options are more true than many would care to admit.

"Deem and Pass" Scam

 In a day when we are spending more than we will ever be able to pay back, is it too much to ask Congress to actually follow the Constitution with how they pass legislation? I realize that to the majority of the current Washington D.C. crowd the Constitution of the United States of America is nothing more than an inconvenience standing in the way of progress. This tactic, however, is going a little too far and may create the backlash of an awakening public that one could only dream about happening.

ABCNEWS.com posted a blog tonight titled, Obama Not Worried About “Procedural Rules” like “Deem and Pass” for Health Care.

President Obama said today that he is not too worried about the controversial “deem and pass” strategy being considered on Capitol Hill, and that members should not “pretend” that a vote, in whatever form it ends up taking, is anything other than a vote for or against reform. 

It saddens me that our Nation's leader is not bothered by the circumventing of our Constitution so that his legislation project can be passed in any manner necessary. And why is it necessary to use such methods? Because the majority of people are against the legislation and enough congressmen have actually heard the people and are, believe it or not, actually representing them rather than the Party that they think employs them.

 

From the Washington Post: House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

I need to ask the question, why would a law maker be inclined to go along with this? Are there payoffs and backroom deals that they don't want to have come to light? Our public officials should have their name attached to anything and everything they pass. If it is something they are ashamed of and want anonymity, they should not be voting for it.

This process is just plain wrong and the results of it are detrimental to the welfare of our nation.

Watergate to Jobsgate

As the Nixon White House covered up the Watergate activities for as long as they could, so seems the Obama White House to be bent on repeating history. The activity that initiated the story might be quite different, but the cover up activities seem quite similar. I don't believe it will result in a President Obama resignation, but credibility is being brought into question. Even as the Hawaii legislature considers, "Measure Would Allow Hawaii to Ignore Repeated Requests for Obama's Birth Certificate", the Obama folks are mum on charges that possibly involve the commission of a felony by one or more people.

The American Spectator says:

There can be no other reason for Gibbs to be fending off Jake Tapper or Major Garrett, for Robert Bauer and Gibbs both to ignore Congressman Issa, or for Andrew Romanoff to stonewall Denver's Peter Boyles -- the list is growing - than one.

That one reason?

At a minimum someone inside the Obama White House has screwed up and embarrassed the president.

Or, that somebody or more than one somebody -- a somebody or somebodies of note  -- has or have in fact committed a federal crime in the President's name.

In the article, Specter Opens Door on White House Felonies, By Jeffrey Lord on 3.16.10 @ 6:09AM, the soap opera is laid out concerning the questioning and non-answering of and from the White House. Robert Gibbs, a master at talking in circles for days at a time in hopes that a new hot topic will wash away the item he wishes not to discuss is in full form here.

Perhaps lesson number one here for Gibbs and his colleagues  as the unraveling of Jobsgate proceeds is never to "Zieglerize." Never, ever, look the American people in the eye and stonewall. The results are never -- ever -- good.

It is a lesson that Robert Gibbs has at least five times in 18 days demonstrated he is willing to ignore.

Credibility at the Justice Department may get a bit tarnished if the quest for information continues. The story goes on to say:

One former high-ranking Justice Department official, after telling me that there were indeed problems with the Department's silence on this issue, said that in the current political climate at the Holder-run Justice Department, any Justice official who sought to go to Holder with thoughts of investigating Messina or his boss Rahm Emanuel or anyone else in the White House would have to have "brass balls." A colorful way of saying that Justice Department officials are being intimidated from pursuing the truth, no matter where it leads.

Congressman Issa is quoted as saying:

"Right now, they're doing the 'I won't confirm or deny,' and for us, it leaves two possibilities. One is the promise of transparency in this administration is just shot. The second one is even worse, which is either Sestak is lying or the administration has done something wrong and is covering it up…" -- U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa on Friday on March 12, 2010

Plausible deny-ability may work for a time, but as President Nixon learned the hard way, covering up isn't the same thing. This administration has not appeared to choose to learn from history in the past and this go around seems little different. Read the article and ask yourself if this is more of the same or something serious enough to garner attention. Sadly, both options are more true than many would care to admit.

God Minutes 2.03 Those Who Have Not Heard

I tried to answer the question, "If Jesus is the only way to heaven, what happens to people who have never even heard of him?"

YouTube - Sarge4's Channel

Health Care and Cause of Death

The upcoming vote concerning health care caused me to think about the leading cause of death in our country and the affect of this bill on that cause. The most recent hard numbers I could find quickly were from a 2009 report for the year of 2006. Not surprisingly, heart disease was at the top of the list for the general population. The report also included infant mortality with the top cause of congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities (congenital malformations). The report is long and filled with information, but I was looking for the simple statistics. Following is a shallow summary of the 135 page report. National Vital Statistics Reports Volume 57, Number 14 April 17, 2009 Deaths: Final Data for 2006 Mortality experience in 2006

• In 2006, a total of 2,426,264 resident deaths were registered in the United States.
• The age-adjusted death rate, which takes the aging of the population into account, was 776.5 deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population.
• Life expectancy at birth was 77.7 years.
• The 15 leading causes of death in 2006 were:

1. Diseases of heart (heart disease) 631,636
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 559,888
3. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke) 137,119
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 124,583
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 121,599
6. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) 72,449
7. Alzheimer’s disease 72,432
8. Influenza and pneumonia 56,326
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease) 45,344

10.  Septicemia 34,234 11.  Intentional self-harm (suicide) 33,300 12.  Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis 27,555 13.  Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension) 23,855 14.  Parkinson’s disease 19,566 15.  Assault (homicide) 18,573 16.  All other causes (residual) 447,805

• In 2006, the infant mortality rate was 6.69 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.
• All causes ................................................ 28,527
• The 10 leading causes of infant death were:

1. Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities (congenital malformations) 5,819
2. Disorders relating to short gestation and low birth weight, not elsewhere classified (low birthweight) 4,841
3. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) 2,323
4. Newborn affected by maternal complications of pregnancy (maternal complications) 1,683
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 1,147
6. Newborn affected by complications of placenta, cord and membranes (cord and placental complications) 1,140
7. Respiratory distress of newborn 825
8. Bacterial sepsis of newborn 807
9. Neonatal hemorrhage 618

10.  Diseases of the circulatory system 543 11.  All other causes (residual) 8,781 I find it interesting that as the Democrat leadership continues to point at the Republicans as the hold up on the passage of the health care legislation, the country as a whole is watching the pro-life democrats withhold their aye votes as long as there is federally funded abortion language remaining in the bill. Even as Speaker Pelosi proclaims such witticisms as the bill isn’t about abortion, doesn’t have abortion in it and that we just need to see what is really in the bill by passing it and getting beyond the debate, it is Democrat Representative Bart Stupak that is heading the standoff. Then there is the following gem from an interview with National Review Online. Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.” And… Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.” What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

In the report, Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States, from the Guttmacher Institute, the number for abortion exceeds one million.

July 2008

INCIDENCE OF ABORTION

• Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.[1] Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.[2] • Forty percent of pregnancies among white women, 69% among blacks and 54% among Hispanics are unintended. • In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred.[2] • Each year, about two percent of women aged 15-44 have an abortion; 47% of them have had at least one previous abortion.[3] Add this information to the #15 Assault (homicide) 18,573, and suddenly the #1 Heart Disease is a distant second place on the list. With the current economic struggles in our country, how many of us have really considered the economic impact of killing off nearly fifty million Americans over recent years? Social Security, the great Ponzi scheme that it is, has been and is now in dire straits due to the work force being too small for the number of retirees it needs to support both now and in the near future. Add in the number of workers and consumers and we get the current results of the financial crisis. Consider the following numbers while thinking about the vacant houses, declining enrollments and the concocted need for illegal alien workers. They are from All American Life League. Abortion and Planned Parenthood Statistics by ALL Released October 5, 2005 Abortions in the United States Total number of abortions in the U.S. since 1973: 48 million + Abortions per year: 1,200,000 Abortions per day: 3,288 Abortions per hour: 137 9 abortions every 4 minutes 1 abortion every 26 seconds The financial considerations are great and appear to be one of the issues considered by our legislators according to Rep. Stupak. This is of course a great financial interest to companies the likes of Planned Parenthood. The financial aspect is however dwarfed when compared to the moral considerations. Abortion and the accompanying attitudes has cheapened the perception of life in our country and the results can be seen around us through school shootings, domestic abuse, domestic terrorism and the lies we need to tell ourselves each day to alleviate our guilt. Could the financial desperation we are currently experiencing be partly the judgment for our sin? We can choose to not look at abortion as murder and conveniently leave it out of the homicide statistics. We can blindly defend it as a legal practice in most parts of our country. We can even deny that it has anything to do with the cheapening of life that influences other crime. What we cannot deny is that the lost population is the lives of people we will never know. It doesn’t even matter that some had potential greatness. What matters is that they were each a human life. Fight on Representative Bart Stupak. Stand your ground on the principle of life for you do not know whose liberty is the next to be snuffed out by your fellow politicians. A couple more articles of interest are:

100 million ‘missing’ girls

IN INDIA each year, it is estimated that as many as a million baby girls are aborted by parents determined not to raise a daughter. Those unborn girls are the victims of a fierce cultural preference for boys — and of modern imaging technology that makes it easy to learn the sex of a baby in the womb. Ultrasound scans started becoming widely available in India in the 1980s; since then, an estimated 10 million female babies have been destroyed during pregnancy.

Sex-selection tests are illegal in India. So are sex-selective abortions. But the laws are rarely enforced and easily circumvented. Rather than openly disclose the sex of a fetus after an ultrasound exam, for example, some Indian doctors signal the results by giving the parents pink or blue candies or candles. Others dispense with subtlety altogether, advertising their services with such brazen slogans as “Spend 500 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later’’ — an allusion to the potentially crippling dowry that an Indian bride’s parents are expected to pay when their daughter gets married. Many couples have taken that deal. The result is an alarming shortage of young Indian women — and a growing population of young Indian men with little prospect of finding a wife.

Gender genocide

One recent Unicef report estimated that that figure had already been far surpassed, with 7,000 fewer girls born in India every day because of sex-selective abortion – though this calculation has since been questioned – amounting to more than 2m “missing girls” a year. Not that those who choose to terminate a pregnancy for such reasons ever admit it. To do so would be tantamount to confessing a criminal offence, even though laws banning the use of ultrasounds to reveal the baby’s gender and sex-selective abortions are rarely enforced. Many doctors skirt the law forbidding disclosure of the sex of a foetus by using signals such as handing out pink or blue sweets or candles after an examination. Some families talk instead of “miscarriages”. Given the demographics of villages like Dera Mir Miran, it seems many such “miscarriages” must have occurred. Dera Mir Miran – population around 790 – is situated in a district called Fatehgarh Sahib, which in India’s last census in 2001 had the lowest ratio of girls to boys at birth of any district in the country. This census revealed that nationally the number of girls born per 1,000 boys was 927 (figures gleaned from a sample of 1.3m households in 2004 suggest this number had fallen in three years to 882). The natural birth rate globally is around 950; in China it is 832. But in Fatehgarh Sahib in 2001 it was 754, and in some villages less than 500. In Dera Mir Miran it was just 361.