WHO PAYS THE COST TO BE THE BOSS

"The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Irish abortion laws violated the rights of one of three women who sought terminations in Britain.

The woman, who was in remission for a rare form of cancer, feared it might return as a result of her pregnancy.

While abortion in the Republic is technically allowed if a woman's life is at risk, the court said that was not made possible for the woman involved.

But it ruled two other women in the case had not had their rights breached.

The court said the Irish government had failed to properly implement the constitutional right to abortion if a woman's life was in danger.

Correspondents say the ruling is likely to force the Dublin government to introduce new legislation or bring in new guidelines.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said politicians now needed to consider the implications of the ruling.

"It's an issue for the whole political spectrum to consider," he said."
BBC

I'm not even going to go into the abortion thing. I just want to ask a simple question; is Ireland a sovereign country any longer? I say the answer is no.

This is what happens when an economy is manipulated into collapse for political purposes. And this is what is happening to America now.

Again, I suggest that we have two possible courses of action, both depending on the obvious conclusion that our economic system is going to collapse. 1) We continue to look to China and others to finance our debt until we reach a point, probably sooner rather than later, when China and our other creditors demand payment we can't make and we are forced to default on their terms, effectively destroying our government and our Constitution, making us slaves to our enemies. 2) We default on our own terms, admitting that we have overreached both economically and politically. We withdraw back within our borders as quickly as possible, reduce our standard of living to the level that we can support with our own resources, pay back what we can and tell the rest sorry, retain our government, albeit in a much, much smaller form, retain our Constitution and most importantly our freedom.

Both choices are going to be incredibly painful and difficult and will require real toughness from the American people. Only one leaves us free.

I'd rather be destitute and free than comfortable and a slave any day.

PROPERTY RIGHTS MEAN NOTHING IN AMERICA ANYMORE

H/T SHTF

What in the hell is the matter with the governments in this country. Why can't they just leave us all well enough alone? This guy lives in a rural area and I'd be willing to bet that his neighbors don't care about how he lives. The place looks neat enough and there aren't any signs of meth labs or junk yards, the two major nuisances out here in the country.

The problem for this guy is that he's not lining the pockets of the county by improving his property so they can charge more taxes. He's not paying electricians and plumbers and carpenters to do work he doesn't want or need done. He's just living as cheaply and honestly as he can.

And he's not following the rules some elected official decided he should follow. And that just bugs the hell out of the kind of people that run for office, the power grubbing busy body types that are generally attracted to such an enterprise.

Here's an example for you. Pacific, Mo., a town about 10 miles from where I live has decided that its resident should be forced to clean up their property and paint up their houses.

Now I suppose that the idea might have some merit. Pacific is not exactly the neatest town in the world. It's residents are mostly working class, making their living at the Chrysler plant, construction and manufacturing jobs, a good many of which were related to that same Chrysler plant.

Well, as our economy imploded the Chrysler plant was shut down and is in the process of being demolished and the construction business is pretty much in a state of depression throughout the St. Louis area. The high paying manufacturing jobs that were part of the supply chain for Chrysler have disappeared and the ones that are left are more of the $8-$14 an hour type.

Needless to say, a lot of people in Pacific aren't exactly rollin' in the dough. So the city, in all its wisdom decided that this would be the perfect time to force, not persuade, the citizens of their community to come up with money better spent to pay the light bill and instead spend it on paint and flowers for their houses. And when I say force I do mean force.

Local blogger B.J. Lawrence has posted an article on her website describing a bill that will brought before the Board of Alderman on December 21, sponsored by Mayor Herb Adams and supported by the Missouri Municipal League that will allow the City Court to issue Administrative Warrants that would allow code enforcement officers, police officers and even the City Attorney to apply for a warrant to enter private property in search of code violations without the owners approval.

If someone is breaking the law, a real law like cooking meth or running a prostitution ring out of the house, well then fine. That could be endangering someone else's life. But if you don't have batteries in a smoke detector or your plumbing isn't exactly right or maybe the paint's peeling on the walls? Really? The law can invade my property simply because I'm not living up to someone else's standards for beauty?

So let's say I don't have a job and I can't afford a couple grand in plumbing repairs. Now what? Are you going to get a warrant when I won't let you in my house, arrest me or give me a citation, haul my broke ass to court, fine me and tell me I have to get the repairs done or else? OR ELSE WHAT??!! Am I going to go to jail because you don't like the way I built a set of stairs out the back door and I really need to spend my money on food, not wood?.

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE DAMNED POLITICIANS!!!???

They have got to get this through their thick heads, one way or the other. We know they have jobs because we're paying 'em money we don't have to come and harass us along with, in many cases, paying for their retirements to live like kings while we spend our golden years greeting people at Walmart. The thing they need to understand, and they need to figure this out quick; somebody is going to get shot if they keep pushing! And it's likely to be one of them.

This isn't a threat and I don't want to see it happen but it will because it already has. Just look at the school board shooting in Florida this week or the killings in Kirkwood City Hall a few years back.

This country is in a financial meltdown yet the politicians from D.C. to Pacific just don't see it. They had better open their eyes to reality before they open them to a gun barrel.

HAS THE USCCB GONE AS FAR AS TO CHANGE THE WORDS OF SCRIPTURE TO SUIT ITS ENDS?

From La Salette Journey:

"The Latin Vulgate (see the Douay-Rheims Bible) indicates that the effeminate will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:10). But the New American Bible, which is used by the USCCB, omits the word effeminate:


1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (Latin Vulgate):

Verse 9: "Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers:

an nescitis quia iniqui regnum Dei non possidebunt nolite errare neque fornicarii neque idolis servientes neque adulteri

Verse 10: Nor the effeminate nor liers with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor railers nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God.

neque molles neque masculorum concubitores neque fures neque avari neque ebriosi neque maledici neque rapaces regnum Dei possidebunt."


1Corinthians 6: 9-10 (New American Bible) posted online by the USCCB:

Verse 9: "Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites

Verse 10: nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Interesting. I always use the Douay-Rheims because of its faithfulness to the Vulgate but also because of the beauty of the language. Sometimes, though the use of language may be a bit archaic, I get insight that I never get with the NAB or RSVCE.

Regardless, as the writer at LaSalette asks:

"Why do you think this is so? The Latin Vulgate, which we have obtained from the great St. Jerome, is the most precise translation of the Sacred Scriptures available. There are many other problems with recent translations of the Scriptures. But my focus here is on this passage. Why has the word "effeminate" been dropped from 1 Corinthians 6?"

I don't know but I'm sure going to find out. I can make some guesses here based on certain proclivities toward the feminine that I have personally observed in many priests over the years, a proclivity I tend to believe exists all the way to the very highest levels in the Vatican and academia. I would also guess that this is further evidence of the evils of political correctness and it's Marxist roots infecting the Church. And of course the homosexuality that underlies the sexual abuse crisis does come to mind.

While I go in search of some answers I'd like to leave you with another passage from the Bible, Douay-Rheims version, of course:

"And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book."
Revelation 22:19

How deeply has the evil penetrated into the core of Holy Mother Church?

POLITICALLY CORRECT COLLAPSE

"It seems as though in Austria, the popular yodel is an insult to Muslims.

An Austrian court has recently fined a citizen for yodeling while mowing his lawn, according to a report in The Kronen Zeitung newspaper.

The citizen, 63-year-old Helmut G., was told by the court that his yodeling offended his next-door Muslim neighbors, who accused him of trying to mock and imitate the call of the Muezzin.

In Muslim tradition, the Muezzin is the chosen person at a mosque who leads the call to prayer at Friday services and the five daily times for prayer from one of the mosque's minarets."
Israel National News

The West deserves everything that's coming it's way. Europe is lost because it has allowed itself to lose and America could suffer, hell, it's in the middle of suffering the same fate because it has allowed it's freedoms to be subsumed by the forces of political correctness and its Marxist roots.

We've lost our backbone and our ability to see clearly the world around us because our words have been changed, our language stolen. Our kids are trained from an early age, and all this training is reinforced through every level of the education system, particularly college, not to offend any of the special groups that have been established with the sole purpose of dividing us.

The distortion of our understanding of right and wrong through the distortion of our language has reached into our churches, our government, our businesses and our home lives. As an example, the government is currently in the process of dismantling DADT. When this happens a protected group will have used the government to override our God given rights to free speech and religious freedom. How? I guarantee you that as soon as this passes military chaplains will no longer be allowed to preach any verses from Scripture on the morality of homosexuality and its labeling, by God, as an abomination, because it will offend some openly homosexual members of the military.

The language has been so badly distorted by homosexuals in their campaign to gain a moral legitimacy that they cannot by natural law posses that we can no longer see the harm this perversion of human nature causes. They stole the language, changing the generally accepted use of the words gay and queer, among others. They managed to dictate to us exactly how we can refer to them and if we don't follow their rules in our businesses our churches or any public and most private conversations we will most likely be negatively impacted. Through this management of the language they changed perceptions, especially among the young and now they elevated their perversions to nearly the same level as marriage, a moral good and a human necessity. Hell, they've even insisted that the meaning of the word "marriage" be changed to accommodate their illicit unions.

This subtle tactic has been used with great effectiveness by our enemies to rob us of our freedom to speak and through that our ability to think. We've allowed our minds to become so clouded with political correctness that, in the name of a one sided diversity, we allow our culture to be destroyed and our civilization to perish.

An Austrian can't yodel and a Southerner in America can't fly the flag his forefathers died for. The words of the Founding Fathers and Mark Twain are considered racist in some circles so they can't be taught to our children while while the lunatic ravings of Marx and Darwin are given a place of honor with no allowance for debate.

We deserve everything we get.

UPDATE

Click here for an example in todays news.

BISHOP OLMSTED-THANK YOU FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH

"The Catholic bishop of Phoenix will strip St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center of its Catholic status on Friday if the hospital's parent company, Catholic Healthcare West, does not meet his demands to guarantee compliance with church teachings.

Three demands were contained in a Nov. 22 letter Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted sent to Lloyd Dean, president of Catholic Healthcare West. The bishop wants the hospital to give him more oversight of its practices to ensure it complies with Catholic health-care rules, provide education on those rules to medical staff and acknowledge that the bishop is correct in a dispute over a procedure the diocese says was an abortion.

"There cannot be a tie in this debate," Olmsted wrote. "Until this point in time, you have not acknowledged my authority to settle this question."

St. Joseph's and San Francisco-based CHW did not immediately comment on the letter.

If the bishop were to revoke the hospital's Catholic status, Olmsted said, he would prohibit Mass and some religious items at the building. How the loss of Catholic identity would affect the facility's mission, funding and perception by patients and the public remains unclear.

The letter is the culmination of a debate that began in November 2009."
USA Today

"There cannot be a tie in this debate...". That simple truth deserves to be shouted from the rooftop of every Catholic Church in the world. This defines the battle. There is right...and there is wrong. There are no gray areas. Good cannot come from evil, no matter how well intentioned.

The sooner the Church remembers this and the sooner she begins to insist upon it the better off the world will be. Will it make her popular? No. Will it cause many to depart from the truth all the while proclaiming that somehow the truth has departed from them, as though truth can only be defined and described through the lens of their own personal and subjective experience and feelings? Yes. And I say, so be it.

A smaller, purer, more aggressive and militant Church is what the world needs, speaking the truth and doing battle with the forces of evil. Fast on its feet and able to move decisively against the enemy, superbly trained and grounded in solid and traditional tactics; a Marine Corp religion, if you will.

It's time to put on our belts and sheath our swords, pick up our shields and form the line of battle. The time for donuts and coffee, fellowshipping, holding hands while we pray and preaching love, happiness and salvation without pain , suffering and damnation are over. The time for war, the kind where people die and kingdoms are burned to the ground has come.

I believe that this war has already been engaged in the spiritual world and that it is fast bleeding over into ours. Prepare yourselves with prayer and the sacraments. Prepare yourselves with the Scriptures. Learn to listen to God, to argue with him and to accept the truth. This will be a war of earthly battles but they will be won in the spiritual realm.

The line has been drawn in the sand. Will you cross it? Or will you hold back, hoping that things will be all right if we just give it a little more time for negotiation, for talk, for fellowship and donuts?

Me? I made my decision about ten years ago and stepped across. I pray every day for strength, wisdom and the courage to do God's will. I'm scared, literally to the bone, of the things I know are coming. But I'm also sure that in the end God wins and I desperately want to be on His side, because I love Him and want to spend eternity with him.

You must make your decision, too. Not deciding will condemn you just the same as deciding for the evil one. God is truth, all black and white with no gray. Yes or no; those are your only choices.

Which will it be?

CAN WE CALL A SPADE A SPADE?

"Iraqi authorities have obtained confessions from captured insurgents who claim al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks in the United States and Europe during the Christmas season, two senior officials said Wednesday.

Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told The Associated Press that the botched bombing in central Stockholm last weekend was among the alleged plots the insurgents revealed. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, in a telephone interview from New York, called the claims "a critical threat."

Both al-Bolani and Zebari said Iraq has informed Interpol of the alleged plots, and alerted authorities in the U.S. and European countries of the possible danger. Neither official specified which country or countries in Europe are alleged targets."
CBS News

Can we just stop all the politically correct stupidity and admit it; we're in a HOLY WAR, a war being prosecuted by a religious group in hopes of destroying other religious groups, particularly Jews and Christians. And after we clear our heads of all the delusions can we all agree that life under a Judeo/Christian government informed by Judeo/Christian morality, philosophy and concepts of law is infinitely to be preferred to any other system but particularly the Islamic system of Sharia which our enemies want to impose on us?

And once we agree on this can we get serious about defeating this demonic religion of Islam and send it back to the hell it wants to impose on us?

Can we join forces with the Israeli army and push the Muslims off the Temple Mount? Can we make it exceedingly clear, after taking the Dome of the Rock from them that if they don't cease and desist their attacks against us we will wipe Mecca off the face of the earth? Can we start to wrap the remains of every Muslim killed in any action against the Western world in bacon before we feed them to the hogs?

Can we get damned serious about the threat that faces us or do we just want to give up and have our wives and daughters flogged for wearing pants and our books burned and our churches closed and our freedom destroyed by the most backward and evil belief system on earth today?

The choice is clear. We destroy Islam or it destroys us. We can't just win a war or get an agreement; it won't end the problem. Islam must be eradicated. I'm sorry to have to say that but I see no other clear choice as the situation stands.

We hear about the peaceful Muslims and there may be some but in my mind, based on what we've seen over the last thirty years, a peaceful Muslim is one that just hasn't been radicalized. Those that claim to be Muslim yet are willing to live in peace with other religions will eventually be destroyed by the religion they promote. The peaceful Muslim will be excommunicated by the leaders and the majority of the members of Isalm.

So, my peaceful "Muslim" brothers, you will have to choose. Either you retake the religion that you claim from the radicals or you move away from it. You can't stay where you are. Evil is being done in your name and the name of your god. You either accept the evil as truth or you fight it with all your might. To do nothing is to choose evil.

The time for standing on the sidelines is over; for all of us.

MISSOURI RIGHT TO WORK-IT'S TIME

H/T MOPNS

BEST BUY AND FED EX- A TALE OF TWO REALITIES

"Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) went Bye-Bye and blew up this morning on a monster earnings miss.

Grandma got run over by a reindeer...... right through the hole in your same-store sales numbers!

Unit sales declined, same-store sales declined, profits missed.

But Christmas was going to be so gooooood!

Uh, no.

Same store sales down 3.3% over the last three months, including Black Friday? What happened to the CNBS claims that Black Friday was "excellent", "awesome", "Big Box stores all did good"?

Diluted EPS of 0.54 is basically identical to the last quarter's 0.53, which is horrifying given seasonality. Revenue was down as well."
Market Ticker

"FedEx Corp. expects to move more than 16 million shipments around the world by the end of today, its projected busiest day in company history.

Holiday predictions included in Retail Report’s never-ending supply of shopping-related news releases say FedEx will move more than 223.3 million shipments between Thanksgiving and Christmas, an 11 percent increase over 2009.

More than half of that extra volume is expected to come from FedEx SmartPost shipments, a service largely used by online retailers and catalogue sellers. FedEx picks up the packages, then drops them directly at a U.S. Postal Service facility for the final leg to customers."
Des Moines Register

So how are these two stories connected? I'm no expert but I'm going to make a guess. Based on the relatively empty parking lots at the stores around here I'm thinking that most people are forgoing the normal orgy of Christmas shopping this year and just buying the minimum they need to buy to keep up appearances.

This would explain the upsurge in online shopping that is driving record volume for Fed Ex. It seems to me that if you really can't afford much, why go shopping? Just sit at the computer and get what you need online, probably at a reduced cost.

And if this is the case, the big box stores are going to get killed, as it appears is happening to Best Buy. If they can't get profitable during the Christmas season they aren't going to get profitable. And if they aren't profitable, they'll close. And all those jobs will be lost and all that commercial real estate will sit empty, both of which will cause further stress and collapse in the economy, feeding into the downward spiral of depression.

Merry Christmas!

UPDATE

Before you get all excited about the just released retail numbers go over to the Market Ticker to get his breakdown of these same numbers. The media, in particular Fox Business is spinning this!

Stuart Varney just said a minute ago that the sales numbers were back to the levels of 2007. REALLY?! How can this be with an official unemployment number of nearly 10% and the real number being closer to 20%? Are we really supposed to believe that with nearly 1 in 5 out of work or making one hell of a lot less than they used to that spending at the retail level is the same as when unemployment was around 5%? Do they thing we're that stupid? Well, yea, obviously they do because most will believe the lies because they want to.

You can't trust anything the government or the media says. What you can trust is your own two eyes and your ability to reason. If sales are up while unemployment is at 20% then something is wrong. If a bunch of people are using their credit cards and just sinking hopelessly into debt to buy a few more presents then maybe the numbers are up. However, over the last two years most credit cards had their limits reduced or were defaulted on by those that were unemployed so I doubt that this would account for sales increases. And revolving credit use decreased in October by 8.5% so I don't think that people suddenly reversed course.

Maybe the people that have lost their jobs didn't spend that much to begin with so their limited participation in the retail market isn't missed. I'd say this may be partially true but I would still think that lost sales are lost sales so the number should reflect that.

Maybe the people that still have jobs decided to pick up the slack and buy more so that we'd get over the hump. With prices being depressed by the lack of demand those that have money could find some great deals so this might be a partial reason. But I doubt enough to bring us back to 2007 levels of spending.

I think the truth is that the numbers are twisted and distorted to get the answers the government and Wall Street want. I think that the empty parking lots and the empty shopping carts being pushed around by bargain shoppers in the store tell me more about what's really happening than any corporate cheerleader ever will. I think that the empty retail centers that are popping up around here are far more indicative of the true state of retail than any chart produced by the Census Bureau.

I think that Best buy is hurting because people aren't spending in the store, for whatever reason. And I doubt that Best Buy is the only big box retailer that is going to have trouble surviving as their cost of operation goes up and the prices of goods sold have to continue to go down to attract shoppers. Without margins a business cannot survive and margins will collapse if prices can't be raised to reflect the true cost of goods sold.

I think that this holiday season will be the last for a bunch of companies that we've known for a long time.