"Potee-wah Sainyo Schain"

Ok – Now this has really gone too far.

And there’s really no clever or funny way to ask this: But Where in THEE HELL did all the Americans go??

This disappearance of pretty much MY ENTIRE CULTURE has left me to wonder: Did Jesus Really come back and perhaps I got left?? Maybe Preacher Maddox was right! Or... perhaps, like in Atlas Shrugged, they all just got tired of it, ran off to the mountains of Colorado to create an Achievers' Paradise and I just never got the memo. But either way, this has now become so bizarre that I can no longer wrap my mind around it.

Some time ago, I remember watching the movie “I Am Legend”, with Will Smith. The premise of the movie was something about nearly every human having been finished off by a mutant virus, and he alone is left to figure out what to do or how to fix it. (It is also a rather handy convenience that his character just happens to be a gifted and talented scientist, but I digress.)

So there’s our Will, roaming about the streets of New York with only his gun, his trusty German Shepherd, and his non-stop, overly-insipid flashbacks and memories to keep him company, (a technique that filmmakers use, incidentally, to fill in the blanks of a story when there isn’t time enough to cut into the adventure and mayhem parts – you know, the parts that sell tickets. Ahhh... the mighty flashback!) as he looks for signs of intelligent and unaffected life.

But poor Will, there’s just NO one in the streets. No one to be found anywhere – Not a single soul with whom he is able to communicate.

I know exactly how that feels.

How on Earth... can there not be one single English speaking American within our borders who doesn’t want to earn a living or support their family by way of a motel, a donut shop, a Fast Food Restaurant…?? A Seven Eleven, for God’s Sake??



When I go to the deli counter at the local grocery, as an ADULT, I really don't think I should have to play Charades in order to ask for a simple half-pound of smoked turkey, very thinly sliced, thank you. It’s the most humiliating and embarrassing thing. Please press WHAT??!! And in my own country?? How did this happen??

And yes, I’ve heard it until I’m blue in the ears: “They take the jobs Americans don’t want to take.” Blah blah blah… My response to that is NO… No they don't... they take the jobs that Americans Can No Longer Get, because our government makes laws regarding border security and protecting our interests and then refuses to enforce them.



How is it that a Border Patrol officer can shoot someone trying to enter my country illegally, and then be railed and razzed as a criminal while the ‘victim’ is allowed to SUE, yes, SUE the border patrol agent who was simply doing his job?? (Think about that: Being sued by the people who HIRED you... for Doing Your Job!) And please explain to me how ANY judge or court in this country could not automatically rule in favor of the border patrol agent (who was simply doing what was asked of him when hired) if all the details in the case were deemed to be accurate?

It just seems to me that any barely-thinking person who wanted to cross borders illegally would naturally assume that Part of the Inherent Risk of such a stunt…would be gunfire. Part of the built-in gamble of breaching sovereign borders would be the danger of being stopped by any and all means necessary; up to, and including bullets.

For several weeks now, on Saturday evenings I make my way down to a small town in northern Indiana to play a little music with the old timers. And each week, because I just can't seem to make myself leave the house at a reasonable time, I tend to end up at the same McDonald's drive through(that's in Chicago... in AMERICA, by the way...)for a little on-the-road food. Simple enough. I mean, how difficult can it be to put a #2 order in a bag and send me on my way…?? Unless of course, I should be ordering a “Numero Dos”.

But every week when the order is complete, and I'm instructed to “please drive around”, I pay, receive my change,,, and then hear just about one of the strangest phrases I've ever heard in any language:

“Potee-wah Sainyo Schain”.

This is typically accompanied by a pleasant but not overly enthusiastic smile. And until recently I had just NOT been able to figure it out. I mean, each week I'm thinking to myself Whutin-ee hey-ul?? What could it possibly mean? Is it some sort of curse, or perhaps a blessing in her native tongue?

Well,,, I needn't have waited much longer, as it seems I've finally discovered the true and hidden meaning of the McDonald's Mystery Phrase.

Now shaken from a recent self-imposed state of attempting to at least trying to “look on the bright side”, this now comes full circle to bask in the light of blatant reality.

So after looking at my receipt to make sure the right order was in the bag, for some strange reason, this time I happened to notice the change due: *41¢*

Finally...! The mystery revealed!!

Potee-wah Sainyo Schain
FORTY ONE CENTS YOUR CHANGE!!

NOW... I get it.

And I give up.

¿Cómo se dice en español? “Doomed”

Don't leave school without it

Most people who know me have heard more than once the story of Mr. Abell and how he took me under his wing years ago, helped shape my philosophy and set me on a lifelong search for things of value.

I can remember clearly, as if it were yesterday, his words to me - "No excuses, only Results... the name of the game is Results." "The market won't pay for excuses and apologies; apologies are not solutions to problems, they are a salve, but not results. The marketplace will pay only for results!"

What an amazing time in my life, and it's only taken 20-some years for the power ideas of Mr. and Mrs. Abell to come full circle in my consciousness. But they are just as poignant today, if not moreso, than they ever were.

Another great awakening for me were his thoughts and ideas on education:

"It doesn't take money to make money. Get that idea out of your head right now. It takes Education to make money and to make something out of yourself. The Lord himself created the Earth in six days and didn't have a business plan." "Ignorance is NOT bliss... Ignorance is devastation! Ignorance is illness and poverty!" "What you don't know CAN hurt you.. can hurt your bank account, can hurt your future..."

"That's the thing about education, Allan, Don't leave school without it."

"Learn now to Love and Master the disciplines it will take to turn Your dreams into reality."

And so I did - and still do. So much so that education and the education process has become a major passion of mine. As my dear friend and Master Educator Ms. Dianne Gum says: "The goal of education is not just to teach, but to ensure that Learning Takes Place." Incredibly powerful words to be sure.

In recent days, I've been hearing about the mass layoffs in the Los Angeles public education system. It seems the system...

(by the way, the system that says to parents:
"We're NOT going to allow you the freedom to alot your dollars for education the way that YOU see fit to educate your children, because WE know best. Instead we're going to require you, by force and government mandate, to surrender a substantial portion of your income to us and in turn WE shall decide what is best for the education of your children - grades K - 12." And whether or not WE achieve the desired RESULTS (oops... There's that word again!) is of no consequence here. There are Plenty of excuses to go around, and we're actually not accountable to anyone and there's really not much you can do about it.")

.... is having some difficulty living up to its promises. And so their answer is to just reduce the number of educators, increase class size and in general make an already horrific system with zero accountability just that much worse.

Excellent! And this is from the same mindset which is hell-bent on taking over health care, but I digress.

And so in the recent news story I heard on the way to work this week, there are outtakes of recordings of the teachers' protests on the steps of the Los Angeles County courthouse. You can hear them shouting:

"Who got the Pow-ah??!!" "WE got the Pow-ah!!"

"Who got the Pow-ah??!!" "WE got the Pow-ah!!"

UH-mazing.

Could I just make this one little observation, please?:

If .......... I were an 'educator'... and RESULTS.... (i.e. ensuring that learning takes place) were the goal... and my job was about to be cut due to budget shortfalls...... and I wanted to prove to society at large that I brought a certain sustainable Value to the marketplace as a professional....

I would CERTAINLY not be standing on the steps of the courthouse, attempting to plead my case at the top of my lungs,,, using the most HORRIFIC GRAMMER possible to prove my point:

"We GOT the power." (???) Good Lord, my parents would have been mortified.

To me, this would be like the surgeon who wanted to prove his value by NOT washing his hands before he operated. It's just difficult to fathom.

~~ A little boy on the street corner with a little stand and a sign: "Smart Pills - only ten cents."

One of his friends happens by and asks with great skepticism: "Smart Pills? Are you kidding me? No way!"

The young man reassures him: "Yes, they are bona fide Smart Pills; you won't BEElieve the results!

At this, the young man can't resist and reaches into his pocket for a dime. Sampling the pill he notes: "Hmmm,,, I don't feel any smarter..."

His merchant friend replies "Maybe you should try another one." And so he digs for another dime and pops another pill. Still no change.

"I'm not sure about this; I tell ya I just don't feel any smarter and I only got one dime left!"

The clever young entrepreneur counters - "Well, try just one more and if you don't see it working the rest are on the house!"

Seems like a fair offer and so he profers his last dime and takes a Third pill.

"HEYyyyy... These don't taste like Smart Pills! These taste like Rabbit Turds!!"

And running away, laughing, his friend yells over his shoulder "See?? You gettin' smarter already!"

Will we ever learn?

StRaying The Course

~”….Now, for when (not "if" but "when") Russia decides to set their foot over there I sure am glad that Bush already has us standing and waiting. It's going to happen, it's just when is it going to happen.....All in the name of Oil….”~

Recently, a well-meaning friend made this comment on an earlier post: "And He is Us." I started to respond with a comment in that same section, but it sort of took on a life of its own and I felt it significant enough to warrant posting in this forum. Enjoy.

First things first:
So that someone reading will understand when I use the word ‘poster’ here.. I am referring to the person who Posted the response to my blog; as in “one who posts”.


MY RESPONSE: to the delusional tirade, or notion that The President knew what he was doing all along:

I was going to ask the 'poster' "is that your final answer"?? - and are you SURE that this is the point you want to make? I wanted to mercifully give you some avenue by which you could back out.. to give you the opportunity to say.. "Gotcha! I was just kidding." But since I know you well old friend, I'll forge ahead.

However, before I do:

Let's first of all define and illustrate (that would be "explain" for those of us educated in government schools) the concept of an incorrect premise vs. a correct premise:

If I were to ask you if your mother still "works the corner" at Peachtree and Sixteenth street - Yes or No?? You could not Answer that with a yes or no.

The reason you cannot answer with a yes or no is for the simple fact that your mother does not, nor has she EVER worked the corner at Peachtree and Sixteenth. My question to you is based on a completely Incorrect Premise; the premise your mother ever worked ANY corner anywhere; which in fact, she has not.

Your comments on this blog speak to a premise that is non-existent in this debate. (Like the politician who would not dare answer the question he had been ASKED, but will instead answer the question he WISHES HAD BEEN ASKED).

I understand that your hatred for liberalism (whatever that is) is so strong that you will defy logic to support ANY supposed opposition. But in this case...the so-called opposition is so unbelievably and provably spot-on that it is difficult to imagine any rational person taking exception.



My point was, and still is, that they claimed there were weapons of mass destruction - and there were none. They said THEY KNEW... that these were not suppositions... They KNEW. They lied.



Our Commander in Thief NEVER, EVER made assertions about protecting Iraqi or Iranian oil deposits from the Russians, with regard to the march to war in Iraq. What he did tell us however was that Saddam Hussein had "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and that he was a "Threat" to our national security. He spoke of "Mushroom Clouds" and "Unmanned Aircraft", possessing capabilities which would allow them to easily deliver "Chemical Weapons" to any of our major cities. THAT's what the President said.

Think about that for a moment - The Commander in Chief of the world's preeminent fighting force and intelligence gathering apparatus NEVER EVER, EVER, EVER TOLD US that we needed to protect 25% of the world’s light crude (as YOU Said) or that we needed to keep the Russians out of the thing they’d long hoped for: a Warm Water Port. I might have even been able to accept that, HAD THAT BEEN THE PREMISE he chose to send us into battle. But he didn’t.

He ……Never ……Said those things.

What he SAID was that we were in "Grave and Immanent Danger".

What those “Democraps”, as you call them, DO understand, for the most part …is the English Language, and those words or assertions NEVER CAME UP …in English.

(For the record, I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, as I cannot see any difference in either party other than the spelling of the names. I am a registered Libertarian)

He NEVER said “All in the name of oil” Never said that, my friend. He said: “Immanent Danger”.

And when ambassador Joseph Wilson went to Nigeria, Africa to substantiate the claim that Iraq was purchasing yellowcake uranium from them, and came back with the news that there was no sale of yellowcake uranium from Niger to Iraq – his wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative was thrown under a bus and out-ed by our very own vice president and his own henchmen, destroying years of networking and undercover status for many covert operatives working in the area.

Apparently the only Real parties to be in “Immanent Danger” were those who understood (Please see the ‘Downing Street Memo’) that this whole Iraq thing was totally bogus, and would seek to expose the madness and lies.

From the United States Senate Iraq Report, July 2004:

1999
An Algerian businessman, Baraka, allegedly arranged a trip for the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, Niger and other African countries.

2001
On 11 September 2001, terrorists attacked the United States.

On 15 October 2001, the CIA issued a report, credited to a foreign government service, that Niger planned to sell several tons of uranium to Iraq.

On 18 October 2001, the CIA wrote a finished intelligence report that said, in part (36-37)
According to a foreign government source, Niger as of early this year planned to send several tons of uranium to Iraq under an agreement concluded last year.

Iraq and Niger had been negotiating the shipment since at least early 1999, but the state court of Niger only this year approved it, according to the service.

There is NO corroboration from other sources that such an agreement was reached or that uranium was transferred.

United Nations Security Council (UNSF) Resolution 687 prohibits Iraq from purchasing uranium although the transfer would not require the application of safeguards.

In view of the origin, the uranium probably is in the form of yellowcake and will need further processing to be used in an uranium enrichment plant.

Iraq has NO known facilities for processing or enriching the material.

The quantity of yellowcake to be transferred could support the enrichment of enough uranium for at least one nuclear weapon.

On 20 November 2001, the Director General of Niger's French-led consortium said "there was no possibility" that Niger had diverted any of the 3,000 tons of yellowcake produced in its two uranium mines.

2002
On 5 February 2002, the CIA issued another intelligence report from the same foreign government service. This report included more detail and indicated that the agreement between Iraq and Niger totalled 500 tons of uranium a year.

In a 15 February 2002 report, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) aserts: "Iraq probably is searching abroad for natural uranium to assist in its nuclear weapons program."

NOTE: that two key qualifiers observed in the original CIA report are unchanged: there is no new source corroborating the claims and no new data on Iraq's (in)ability to process yellowcake. Also, there is no evidence offered to counter Niger's denial. However, the DIA reports to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

This is from the United States Senate Report on Iraq, for the love of God – And even if any of the Complete Fabrications (those would be "LIES" to you and me) were even remotely true – none of them reflect the PREMISE that you, the poster, established in your response to my blog, which was that we were actually there to KEEP RUSSIA FROM GETTING IT’S HANDS ON A WARM WATER PORT SUCH AS IRAN.

I could go on all day, literally, and put up one fact and truth for every lie the administration wants to tell, but A: I don’t have the time, and B: nor do I have the space.

What I do have, however, is the wonderful use of modern-day technology to show them in their own words just what miserable, lying, treasonous bastards they are:



"Misperception"???? Good GOD!

In conclusion –

Liar in Chief??…..you be the judge.. EITHER…. We went to war….to keep Russia from getting their hands on a Warm Water Port…. And to control 25% of the world’s light crude...

OR…… as the President Said, we went to war because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.. and we must act Now.

I’d have just much rather seen him come out and tell it like it REALLY is/was… rather than to have to wonder constantly about what other lies were being told to me.

(You see, a liar isn't a liar because he tells lies,,, he tells lies BECAUSE he is a liar... and can't stop... any more than the alchoholic can stop drinking 'any time they want.'

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8 KJV) )

But what is disconcerting to me in the extreme is that it's not just that he seems to lack the ability to do that ..... apparently, what he lacks is the capacity.
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Addendum:

The story is told of a man in a mental institution who is convinced that he is dead. His Doctor, his wife and his children exasperated, keep telling him he is not dead. But he continues to insist that he is dead.

They try telling him, "Look, you're not dead; you're walking and talking and breathing; how can you be dead?" But he continues to insist he is dead.

Finally the doctor, after a bit of inspiration, thinking that the man simply doesn't have enough information; that once he is shown by way of medical fact and data that there is no way that he can be dead - will see the light and come to his senses.

So the good doctor pulls out some medical books and is able to demonstrate to the man that dead men do not bleed. After some time, the man is able to admit that dead men do not bleed.

The doctor then takes the man's hand and a needle and pokes the end of his finger.

The man begins to bleed. Armed with his new awareness he looks at the wound and says:

"Well, what do you know? Dead people DO bleed!!"

This Space...

Intentionally Left Blank.

And he is Us

I read early this morning about a shooting at a mall in Kansas City this past Sunday afternoon… A few people are dead, including the gunman.

Just two weeks ago, a student at Virginia Tech, shot and killed at least 30 students before turning his bullet launcher on himself. (If this had been in Iraq, he’d have been referred to by our media as a “Suicide Bomber”… an “Insurgent”, if you will. )


I live and work about 15 minutes from a not-so-cozy area here in south Florida known as Riviera Beach, where there is literally …and hardly a week that goes by that you don’t read about yet another murder or two in that town. The chances are better than average that as you drive through Riviera Beach at night that you will hear the strains of the local “Insurgents” battling it out in the streets, if not actually see people running across Broadway with their heads down, trying to escape the madness. And yes, I have seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears, which is precisely the reason I no longer short-cut that route to North Palm Beach.

In the past three years, I can’t even begin to recount the number of news stories coming out of this part of town involving innocents just walking down the street and suddenly taken down by random gunfire, or gutted by a hunter's knife; or the many children strapped into their car seats – devices, ironically, that were designed to offer these precious youngsters some degree of safety – just snuffed out.

When I read about these things my heart is poured out to parents and family. But even more so, my heart goes out to all of us; to society as a whole. These mindless, guideless freaks and predators, who would unconsciously, and instantly choose to take the life of a child, and all of that potential for good, rather than to even consider that there might be… nay… MUST be a better way.

In contrast, I think about someone the likes of Gen. Colon Powell - who stood before the United Nations, in a mad rush for approval to make war with a country that not only did NOT attack us, but did not possess even the mere capability to attack us – pointing out, with stern and grave visage, the aerial photos depicting what appeared to be trailers, mobile launch sites for delivering their horrible "Weapons of Mass Destruction”.



"We must act NOW.", he warned.

“If we do not fight them (whoever ‘them’ are) over THERE we will fight them over HERE.”, our president has said repeatedly. The ‘THEM’ in this case, incidentally, seem to be nothing more than native Iraqis fighting for power and turf.

Amazing.

So let me just see if I have this straight now: We were going to “fight them over THERE” to protect our Liberty and Way of Life, so that we would not have to “Fight them over HERE.”

And yet somehow, despite all the ranting I hear from Washington, I still do not feel one bit safer HERE in the streets of my own country than I did 5 years ago – for the simple reason that I am not any safer.

All this time in Iraq now, untold thousands of our best and brightest sacrificed… wasted,,, the billions of dollars spent (and profited, I might add), and all the other losses along with it... I know we’ve all heard those various losses mentioned over and over and so I won’t bore you with the list - and yet I STILL do not feel safe enough HERE to drive down the center boulevard of Riveria Beach.

There is evidence which now Demands a verdict showing clearly that they are already fighting HERE, and have been for quite some time; seeking to destroy what little sense of Liberty we once took for granted – and along with it our “Way of Life”.

(And they don’t wear turbans, or ride camels or any of the other stereotypical B.S. that our elected hate mongers would have us believe)

It may sound Uber Cliché, but I think we have met the enemy, Mr. President –

and darned if he doesn’t look exactly like us.


(Actual White House Photos ^)

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