Friday, November 28, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
I Go To Extremes
Call me a joker, call me a fool
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Out of the darkness, into the light
Leaving the scene of the crime
Either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
No I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Out of the darkness, into the light
Leaving the scene of the crime
Either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
No I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Saturday, November 22, 2014
A Well Balanced Breakfast
Sometimes, it’s the easy things that explain the complex ones. Take, for example, this...
I want to hear the argument that the well balanced breakfast has the rights. I want to understand how ANYONE would believe that. They won’t, and yet switch that with “Well Regulated Militia” and suddenly bacon has more rights than you.
I want to hear the argument that the well balanced breakfast has the rights. I want to understand how ANYONE would believe that. They won’t, and yet switch that with “Well Regulated Militia” and suddenly bacon has more rights than you.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Obama on Executive Orders
Every time President Obama does something, or is about to do something, that has conservatives up in arms - especially if the protest is based on abuse of his constitutional authority - you can count on the left doing one thing: Finding a supposed example of a past Republican president or presidents doing the exact same thing.
Oh, I guess it was OK when a Republican did it!
They've been all over that argument the last couple of days with Obama's soon-to-be-announced executive order granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, claiming that both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did the exact same thing. This argument is just clever enough that people who don't really understand the issue or don't really know the history might buy it.
But when you really look into it, as Hans von Spakovsky did today for the Daily Signal, you'll find that the liberals' claim here is a complete load of crap:
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA), which provided a general amnesty to almost three million illegal immigrants. According to the Associated Press, Reagan acted unilaterally when his Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner “announced that minor children of parents granted amnesty by [IRCA] would get protection from deportation.” In fact, in 1987 former Attorney General Ed Meese issued a memorandum allowing the INS to defer deportation where “compelling or humanitarian factors existed” for children of illegal immigrants who had been granted amnesty and, in essence, given green cards and put on a path towards being “naturalized” as citizens. In announcing this policy, Reagan was not defying Congress, but rather carrying out the general intent of Congress which had just passed a blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.What Obama is getting ready to do has nothing at all in common with what Reagan or Bush did. Both of these past Republican presidents made fairly run-of-the-mill administrative decisions on the implementation of bills Congress had passed, and that they had signed. That is entirely uncontroversial, and would be so if Obama did it too.
As the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website itself explains, the children of individuals who become citizens through naturalization have a relatively easy process for also becoming naturalized citizens to avoid breaking up families. And as Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies points out, the INS was, as a practical matter, going to “look the other way under certain circumstances with regard to minor children both of whose parents received amnesty.” This was well within the authority delegated to the executive branch and a “legitimate exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
The Bush administration relaxed these technical requirements under a “Family Fairness” policy to defer deportation of the spouses and children of illegal immigrants who were allowed to stay in this country and seek naturalization through the IRCA amnesty. Shortly thereafter, Bush worked with Congress to pass the Immigration Act of 1990, which made these protections permanent. Significantly, the Bush policy and the 1990 Act affected only a small number of immigrants–about 180,000 people –in comparison to Obama’s past (his 2012 implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program) and anticipated unilateral actions that will affect millions of immigrants.
Some supporters of Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration have also pointed to other actions by past presidents that allowed immigrants such as Afghans and Nicaraguans to stay in the U.S. But those limited actions were based on very special circumstances such as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Communist-driven civil war in Nicaragua or the Chinese massacre of students in Tiananmen Square that led Bush to granted deferred departure to threatened Chinese nationals.
What Obama is proposing to do here is to act action on his own specifically because Congress has not given him authorization to act. That is about as unconstitutional as a thing can be, and it bears no similarity to the examples liberals are trying to put forward as its equivalent.
Nice job on von Spakovsky's part doing the work to expose the fraud that is this argument.
Of course, the most galling thing about all this is that, if Obama really wants immigration reform, he could wait until the new Congress is sworn in and then work with them on it. But he doesn't want that because the new Republican Congress is not going to pass a bill that's designed solely to serve the electoral objectives of Democrats. So suddenly, after getting nothing out of Congress on this score for six years, he suddenly has to act now because it's a huge emergency.
No wonder the left has to go to such ridiculous lengths to construct a rationalization. When you actually take an honest look at what he's about to do, you realize it's completely indefensible.
You know, you just might like Dan's books too! Go here to get his series of Christian spiritual thrillers - Powers and Principalities, Pharmakeia and Dark Matter - in print or e-book form, or read his teaching on spiritual matters. You can follow all of Dan's work by liking his page on Facebook.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
sebekm's Blog
sebekm's Blog
Another Opportunity - Let's Not Blow It
by sebekm
"I Don't Mind A Parasite. I Object To A Cut-Rate One."
Last comment by HMJC 13 hours, 49 minutes ago.
Take Me To Post Comment FormSome of you may have noticed that I’ve been away from this site for awhile. It was intentional, although family medical issues have consumed my time for the better part of the past two months and contributed to my absence.
I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank those good “bloggin’ buddies” with whom I have commiserated here for the past several years. It’s been grand, but for me it’s time to go. This will be my final post.
My message for this blog is – to everyone: VOTE on Tuesday, if you haven’t already done so. My opinions on the shortcomings of the Democrats and the Obama administration have not changed in my absence, and are well documented if anyone wants to review them before I delete my account. Obviously, I urge everyone to vote REPUBLICAN on Tuesday. I thought I’d share an article I read earlier today at nypost.com by a registered Democrat – Michael Goodwin – who makes the best case for a GOP Congress that I have seen to date. Here it is in its entirety:
“Obama always pointing the finger of blame at someone else
By Michael Goodwin November 2, 2014 1:58 a.m.
In the New York Times the other day, anonymous aides to President Obama trashed Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Kerry was mocked mercilessly, with officials joking “that he is like the astronaut played by Sandra Bullock in the movie ‘Gravity,’ somersaulting through space, untethered to the White House.”
A week before that, The Times reported that, despite Obama’s public efforts to calm fears over Ebola, he was privately seething at health aides’ bungling. In a bid to separate him from the incompetence of his administration, the leakers claimed Obama was “visibly angry” and “demanded a more hands-on approach” from his team.
Then there was the story about Pentagon boss Hagel firing off a memo to national security chief Susan Rice that faulted America’s Syrian policy. Then there was a story about — oh, never mind, you get the picture.
The extraordinary pile-up of crises has turned the usual White House blame game into something more lethal: a shootout in a lifeboat. The presidency is sinking, but we are expected to believe that only the president is blameless.
It won’t wash. The problems cannot be fixed by firing one or two members of the president’s team, or all of them. Something else, something more fundamental, is happening.
We are witnessing the total collapse of a bad idea. Obamaism, a quasi-socialist commitment to a more powerful government at home and an abdication of American leadership around the world, is being exposed as a historic calamity. It is fueling domestic fear and global disorder and may well lead to a world war.
If there is a smidgen of a silver lining, it is that the unraveling, complete with Obama’s shameless attempts to duck responsibility, is playing out on the eve of the midterm elections. Fortunately, voters seem ready to respond by giving Republicans control of both houses of congress.
I second that emotion, and not just because Obama is a failure. For all his narcissism, he didn’t make this mess alone.
He was aided and abetted by every Democrat in Congress. They marched in lockstep with his cockamamie policies, from ObamaCare to open borders. They protected corrupt leaders in numerous federal agencies, from the IRS to the General Services Administration. They stymied efforts to find the truth about Benghazi and the Fast and Furious gunrunning debacle.
They ceded their constitutional obligations and allowed Obama to crash the system of checks and balances. The vast majority stood silent while he gutted the military and abandoned our allies, including Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and courted Iran, the most menacing nation on earth.
With painfully few exceptions, Democrats put their loyalty to him above their duty to America.
And now they must be punished. All of them.
Normally, I am not a partisan advocate. I am a registered Democrat, though I vote as an independent.
Not this year. This is a national emergency and the only responsible action is to vote Republican for every federal office.
Sparing even a favorite Democrat or two could allow Obama to spin defeat as a minor loss. Most worrisome, if Dems keep the Senate, the election will further entrench a corrupt government and further erode America’s strength and influence.
That is not a chance worth taking. Six years is enough. Collective punishment is the appropriate answer.
If there were any doubts the Obama Democrats cannot be trusted, look at their scurrilous campaigns. From coast to coast, their message is uniformly odious: Republicans are waging a “war on women” and they are racists.
That’s it. They can’t defend the legislation they passed, the economy they produced or the foreign policy they supported. Most don’t want to be seen with Obama, yet they take the money he raises and follow his lead in exploiting race and gender fault lines.
Scraping the bottom of the rancid barrel, they prove they will do anything to hold on to power. They cannot be allowed to succeed.
It is time for them to go.”
See: http://nypost.com/2014/11/02/obama-always-pointing-the-finger-of-blame-at-someone-else/
I agree with the above 100%. The Obama administration – as supported and implemented by the Democratic Party across this country - is the worst perversion of national government that I have seen in my lifetime. WE THE PEOPLE have another opportunity at the ballot box to get back on the road to national sanity, and to restore some HOPE for CHANGE to all citizens of this country. Elections nowadays tend to be a choice of the lesser of all evils. This time - in my humble opinion – the GOP is the far lesser evil, and offers the best hope for change and a restoration of national and international priorities and competence. Let’s not blow this opportunity.
God bless you all, and thanks for listening.
I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank those good “bloggin’ buddies” with whom I have commiserated here for the past several years. It’s been grand, but for me it’s time to go. This will be my final post.
My message for this blog is – to everyone: VOTE on Tuesday, if you haven’t already done so. My opinions on the shortcomings of the Democrats and the Obama administration have not changed in my absence, and are well documented if anyone wants to review them before I delete my account. Obviously, I urge everyone to vote REPUBLICAN on Tuesday. I thought I’d share an article I read earlier today at nypost.com by a registered Democrat – Michael Goodwin – who makes the best case for a GOP Congress that I have seen to date. Here it is in its entirety:
“Obama always pointing the finger of blame at someone else
By Michael Goodwin November 2, 2014 1:58 a.m.
In the New York Times the other day, anonymous aides to President Obama trashed Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Kerry was mocked mercilessly, with officials joking “that he is like the astronaut played by Sandra Bullock in the movie ‘Gravity,’ somersaulting through space, untethered to the White House.”
A week before that, The Times reported that, despite Obama’s public efforts to calm fears over Ebola, he was privately seething at health aides’ bungling. In a bid to separate him from the incompetence of his administration, the leakers claimed Obama was “visibly angry” and “demanded a more hands-on approach” from his team.
Then there was the story about Pentagon boss Hagel firing off a memo to national security chief Susan Rice that faulted America’s Syrian policy. Then there was a story about — oh, never mind, you get the picture.
The extraordinary pile-up of crises has turned the usual White House blame game into something more lethal: a shootout in a lifeboat. The presidency is sinking, but we are expected to believe that only the president is blameless.
It won’t wash. The problems cannot be fixed by firing one or two members of the president’s team, or all of them. Something else, something more fundamental, is happening.
We are witnessing the total collapse of a bad idea. Obamaism, a quasi-socialist commitment to a more powerful government at home and an abdication of American leadership around the world, is being exposed as a historic calamity. It is fueling domestic fear and global disorder and may well lead to a world war.
If there is a smidgen of a silver lining, it is that the unraveling, complete with Obama’s shameless attempts to duck responsibility, is playing out on the eve of the midterm elections. Fortunately, voters seem ready to respond by giving Republicans control of both houses of congress.
I second that emotion, and not just because Obama is a failure. For all his narcissism, he didn’t make this mess alone.
He was aided and abetted by every Democrat in Congress. They marched in lockstep with his cockamamie policies, from ObamaCare to open borders. They protected corrupt leaders in numerous federal agencies, from the IRS to the General Services Administration. They stymied efforts to find the truth about Benghazi and the Fast and Furious gunrunning debacle.
They ceded their constitutional obligations and allowed Obama to crash the system of checks and balances. The vast majority stood silent while he gutted the military and abandoned our allies, including Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and courted Iran, the most menacing nation on earth.
With painfully few exceptions, Democrats put their loyalty to him above their duty to America.
And now they must be punished. All of them.
Normally, I am not a partisan advocate. I am a registered Democrat, though I vote as an independent.
Not this year. This is a national emergency and the only responsible action is to vote Republican for every federal office.
Sparing even a favorite Democrat or two could allow Obama to spin defeat as a minor loss. Most worrisome, if Dems keep the Senate, the election will further entrench a corrupt government and further erode America’s strength and influence.
That is not a chance worth taking. Six years is enough. Collective punishment is the appropriate answer.
If there were any doubts the Obama Democrats cannot be trusted, look at their scurrilous campaigns. From coast to coast, their message is uniformly odious: Republicans are waging a “war on women” and they are racists.
That’s it. They can’t defend the legislation they passed, the economy they produced or the foreign policy they supported. Most don’t want to be seen with Obama, yet they take the money he raises and follow his lead in exploiting race and gender fault lines.
Scraping the bottom of the rancid barrel, they prove they will do anything to hold on to power. They cannot be allowed to succeed.
It is time for them to go.”
See: http://nypost.com/2014/11/02/obama-always-pointing-the-finger-of-blame-at-someone-else/
I agree with the above 100%. The Obama administration – as supported and implemented by the Democratic Party across this country - is the worst perversion of national government that I have seen in my lifetime. WE THE PEOPLE have another opportunity at the ballot box to get back on the road to national sanity, and to restore some HOPE for CHANGE to all citizens of this country. Elections nowadays tend to be a choice of the lesser of all evils. This time - in my humble opinion – the GOP is the far lesser evil, and offers the best hope for change and a restoration of national and international priorities and competence. Let’s not blow this opportunity.
God bless you all, and thanks for listening.
Latest Activity: Nov 02, 2014 at 9:03 PM
Blog has been viewed (127) times.
Sheran commented on Sunday, Nov 02, 2014 at 21:46 PM
JimmyMack commented on Sunday, Nov 02, 2014 at 21:53 PM
SEBE: Needless to say, your words will be missed on these pages. You have been a gentleman, a great expressionist of words regarding your point of view, and a Peacemaker (see JimmyMack vs. Tot.)
Take care, wherever you are going my blogging buddy.
I wish the best for you and yours. Keep on, if circumstances allow, putting your views out there. Yours is a voice that is essential to the on-going debate.
Warm Regards,
Jimmy Darsey
P.S.
Now, if you could only put out an APB on Funk for us before leaving.... it would ease the pain of your departure.
Take care, wherever you are going my blogging buddy.
I wish the best for you and yours. Keep on, if circumstances allow, putting your views out there. Yours is a voice that is essential to the on-going debate.
Warm Regards,
Jimmy Darsey
P.S.
Now, if you could only put out an APB on Funk for us before leaving.... it would ease the pain of your departure.
Sheran commented on Sunday, Nov 02, 2014 at 21:55 PM
Now that I read your blog, I'm sad again we are loosing a friend....Thanks for your last blog and God Bless.
timeontarget commented on Monday, Nov 03, 2014 at 12:10 PM
sebekm, Thank you for this blog. I wish you would, if you could stay with us if only occasionally with some of your level headed thoughts.
Without you and Funk this site is far less interesting and I know that you and I have differing opinions on a few things however we agree far more often than we disagree.
I especially like the way you stayed respectful of others as you exchanged dialoge with them.
Wherever you go and whatever you do I wish you well.
May God bless you and yours.
Merry Christmas
Without you and Funk this site is far less interesting and I know that you and I have differing opinions on a few things however we agree far more often than we disagree.
I especially like the way you stayed respectful of others as you exchanged dialoge with them.
Wherever you go and whatever you do I wish you well.
May God bless you and yours.
Merry Christmas
timeontarget commented on Monday, Nov 03, 2014 at 12:16 PM
"I agree with the above 100%. The Obama administration – as supported and implemented by the Democratic Party across this country - is the worst perversion of national government that I have seen in my lifetime."
I too agree.
I am glad I am old and I feel sorry for those who come behind us.
I too agree.
I am glad I am old and I feel sorry for those who come behind us.
HMJC commented on Monday, Nov 03, 2014 at 20:47 PM
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Mystery of Earth's Water Origin Solved
STAR STRUCK
Mystery of Earth's Water Origin Solved
Instead of arriving later by comet impact, Earth's waters have likely existed since our planet's birth.
The south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta is seen in this photo taken with the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 30, 2014
The water that makes Earth a majestic blue marble was here from the time of our planet's birth, according to anew study of ancient meteorites, scientists reported Thursday.
Where do the oceans come from? The study headed by Adam Sarafian of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, found that our seas may have arrived much earlier on our planet than previously thought.
The study pushes back the clock on the origin of Earth's water by hundreds of millions of years, to around 4.6 billion years ago, when all the worlds of the inner solar system were still forming.
Scientists had suspected that our planet formed dry, with high-energy impacts creating a molten surface on the infant Earth. Water came much later, went the thinking, thanks to collisions with wet comets and asteroids.
"Some people have argued that any water molecules that were present as the planets were forming would have evaporated or been blown off into space," said study co-author Horst Marschall, a geologist at WHOI.
For that reason, he said, scientists thought that "surface water as it exists on our planet today must have come much, much later—hundreds of millions of years later."
Ancient Origins
But no one was certain. To pin down the exact time of the arrival of Earth's water, the study team turned to analyzing meteorites thought to have formed at different times in the history of the solar system.
First, they looked at carbonaceous chondrite meteorites that have been dated as the oldest ones known. They formed around the same time as the sun, before the first planets.
Next they examined meteorites that are thought to have originated from the large asteroid Vesta, which formed in the same region as Earth, some 14 million years after the solar system's birth.
"These primitive meteorites resemble the bulk solar system composition," said Sune Nielsen of the WHOI, a study co-author. "They have quite a lot of water in them, and have been thought of before as candidates for the origin of Earth's water."
Vestal Waters
The team's measurements show that meteorites from Vesta have the same chemistry as the carbonaceous chondrites and rocks found on Earth. This means that carbonaceous chondrites are the most likely common source of water.
"The study shows that Earth's water most likely accreted at the same time as the rock," said Marschall.
"The planet formed as a wet planet with water on the surface."
While the authors are not ruling out that some of the water that covers 70 percent of Earth today may have arrived later, their findings suggest that there was enough already here for life to have begun earlier than thought.
"Knowing that water came early to the inner solar system also means that the other inner planets could have been wet early and evolved life before they became the harsh environments they are today," explained Nielsen.
This sky chart shows Vesta's location in the southwestern evening sky above the bright orange star Antares in the constellation Scorpius.
IMAGE BY A. FAZEKAS/SKYSAFARI
See for Yourself
Circling the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in the main asteroid belt, Vesta is the second largest asteroid known and has an ancient, battered surface.
For sky-watchers with binoculars, the magnitude 7.8 Vesta looks like a very faint, starlike object in a sea of stars. It is visible low in the southwestern sky after dusk, about 6 degrees above the bright orange star Antares, but only from a dark location. For those stuck under light-polluted city skies, I recommend looking at the asteroid with a pair of binoculars or small telescope.
Although you can easily see the asteroid with binoculars, a telescope will allow you to watch it move in front of a background of stars.
With a help of the star charts above, steadily held binoculars, and some patience, you should be able to find distant Vesta, some 267 million miles (430 million kilometers) away. Sky and Telescope's website has someprintable sky charts for extra help.
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