Runinations on Current Affairs

Ruminations on Current Affairs, or perhaps Ruination?

• Our society seems to be, at an ever more rapid pace, to be transforming to a secular worldview, and the clear sense of right and wrong that was Christianity’s gift to Western civilization is being replaced with a much more ambiguous morality. This is not good news. 

• Today's Word: 

"Bloviator" ~ Someone who pontificates about issues of which they are uninformed, yet pretend to be expert. Thus, Twitter, Facebook, etc. 

• I continue to see posts on Facebook, Twitter or in the "news" that Ronald Reagan was disinterested in the AIDS epidemic of the late 80's, early 90's. Patently untrue. The Gipper first mentioned AIDS, in response to a question at a press conference, on Sept. 17, 1985. On Feb. 5, 1986, he made a surprise visit to the Department of Health and Human Services where he said, “One of our highest public health priorities is going to be continuing to find a cure for AIDS.” He also announced that he’d tasked Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to prepare a major report on the disease. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, Reagan dragged Koop into AIDS policy, not the other way around.The administration increased AIDS funding requests from $8 million in 1982 to $26.5 million in 1983, which Congress bumped to $44 million, a number that doubled every year thereafter during Reagan’s presidency. 
• A simple blueprint for the Second American Revival, is in my opinion as follows: Undo the massive  Federal Bureaucracy.Revert to what the Founding Fathers envisioned, where the Federal Government was Limited, and the States held the power. Let's dedicate ourselves to electing conservatives R or D who will work to secure our nation’s border, reduce the debt for future generations, and – unlike so many in Washington – focus on achieving results.  Let's elect LEADERS who put the COUNTRY first, leaders who will take the most successful lessons from the states and apply the best practices at the federal level; leaders who know the only way to revive our country's ailing economy is by reducing taxes, cutting government spending, fostering private sector growth, and eliminating unnecessary government regulations. 
•  On Iran.Winston Churchill elaborated on his famous quote (recalling George Santayana's original expression of it) in the House of Commons in 1935 about the impending WWII: “When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong–these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”
• For the record, it's well past time to take back our Country!! 
• For those ignoramouses who comment online on the local "paper", or social media when there is a accident involving a truck, tractor-trailer on our highways. Stop your nonsense please.Trucking is is a very heavily regulated industry. The FMCSA Compliance Manual is over 900 pages of Compliance fundamentals and requirements - registration, USDOT number, insurance, and other prerequisite compliance information;  Personnel management - driver qualification, CDL standards, drug and alcohol testing; Hours-of-Service management - limits and recordkeeping; Vehicle management - equipment requirements, inspections, and maintenance; CMV driving - restrictions, accidents, and hazardous materials as well as Enforcement programs and penalties - CSA, audits, and ratings; proceedings and penalties. Not an industry for the "non detail" oriented. Just thought you might want to “know”.
• Ignorance is the most expensive thing on the planet and complacency comes in a close second.
• Calling people racists' for wanting to protect our border as a sovereign nation is despicable, unfair, and basically slanderous. It is NOT racist to want our borders protected against the invasion of illegals.
• No one is against immigrants coming here to live and work LEGALLY but these illegals come here ILLEGALLY and live off the backs of the citizens who are struggling to survive in their own lives. WHY should WE pay for their medical care, their education, their anchor babies to be born so they can draw welfare from the country, when they work under the table and send their money back to Mexico.. It is NOT racist to want OUR politicians to start representing the citizens and NOT the illegals... the illegals have NO rights here.. we should NOT be rewarding them for breaking our laws... 
• Economics is hard, difficult, confusing, I get it. But, too often we are looking at the micro as opposed to the macro. The LEFT will mislead you so let's review: The primary function of corporations is make money, not create jobs.  Job creation however, is a nice ancillary effect of corporate success.  Success is not achieved by tearing down the wealthy, but by lifting up the lowly.  They are not intrinsically linked.  The economy is not a zero sum game, meaning that the rich get rich only by the oppression of the poor.  Guaranteed high minimum wages, with guaranteed raises regardless of performance, act similar to entitlements, meaning they kill personal incentive and initiative. Individuals should be looking to make themselves more marketable, and aspiring for a better position, not looking to see how much they can squeeze out of a particular position. 
• Obama has consistently put liberal policy demands and partisanship above the goals of economic growth and compromise, TO THE DETRIMENT of the American people.
• Words to live by: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." — Winston Churchill
  
• Thoughts on the Progressive's who support BIG federal government: Reality check, it's Democrats today! Not, the Democrats of JFK or even Bill Clinton. 
  Proverbs 18:2 (NIV)Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.
  Our Lord did not forbid us from discerning the character of fools. In fact the Book of Proverbs commends this assessment as a necessity for those who would be wise. Several reasons are given for the need to discern between those who are fools and those who are wise.
  Leave the presence of a fool, Or you will not discern words of knowledge (14:7).
  Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, Lest he be wise in his own eyes (26:4-5).
  Fools mock at sin, But among the upright there is good will (14:9).
• “To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." ~Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
• In Connecticut, officials can use racketeering laws once reserved for the mob to go after gangs.I have been saying this for years. Use the RICO statutes. Break these scumbags.
• Just to clarify facts vs spin. 
  Climate Change has been occurring since the earth was formed based on scientific evidence.  (such as the numerous ice ages and subsequent warming the earth has endured)
  Global Warming is a theory that "man made" carbon dioxide is causing an unnatural and destructive warming of the planet.
  The terms are not synonymous.
  Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.
  I am a carbon based life form.
  I exhale carbon dioxide.
  Plants need carbon dioxide to survive.
  Plants emit oxygen.
  I need oxygen to survive.
  It is the cycle of life. Now, does that mean I don't support sustainability, quite the opposite. Being a good steward of the environment is important. Recycle, yes. Protect the environment, heck yes. Carbon tax, hell no!!!!!!
  
• The climate change hoax is an endless left wing assault to confiscate the wealth of the world's producers. It started in the early '70's when the left wing tried to derail capitalist productivity claiming we had to stop using fossil fuels because in 30-40 years, or by 2000 to 2010, THE LATEST, we would be out of them and would FREEZE to death. Actual temperatures rose a half-degree so they had to switch from cooling to warming! It is the biggest fraud the anti-capitalist, socialist left has ever tried to perpetrate.
  But, those who are normal and rational  have finally seen through this hoax and anyone with a brain knows man cannot control the climate. And the anti-freedom leftists continue to try to push this abject stupidity which defies all logic, reality and fact.
•  Finally, joke to lighten the mood, because we need a chuckle: President Obama went to the bank to cash a check and he didn't have his ID. And the teller said you've got to prove who you are. He said, "How should I do that?" She said the other day Phil Mickelson came in, he didn't have his ID but he set up a little cup on the ground, took a golf ball, putted it right into that cup so they knew it was Phil Mickelson. They cashed his check.
  And then Andre Agassi came in. And Andre Agassi didn't have his ID either. He put a little target on the wall, took a tennis ball and racquet– hit it onto that target time. We knew that was Andre Agassi so we cashed his check.
  And she said to him, 
  
  "Is there anything you can do to prove who you are?" 
  
  And [Obama] said, "I don't have a clue."
  
  And she said, "Well, Mr. President, do you want your money in small bills or large bills."