Christmas Card Comparison

Obama Christmas Card 2012

Nothing says Christmas like a dog playing in the snow

Black dog in a White world

Reagan Christmas Card

Obama Gets Humiliated in the Pacific

It is symptomatic of the national condition of the United States that the worst humiliation ever suffered by it as a nation, and by a US president personally, passed almost without comment last week. I refer to the November 20 announcement at a summit meeting in Phnom Penh that 15 Asian nations, comprising half the world’s population, would form a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership excluding the United States.

President Barack Obama attended the summit to sell a US-based Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China. He didn't. The American led-partnership became a party to which no-one came.

Instead, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, will form a club and leave out the United States. As 3 billion Asians become prosperous, interest fades in the prospective contribution of 300 million Americans – especially when those Americans decline to take risks on new technologies. America’s great economic strength, namely its capacity to innovate, exists mainly in memory four years after the 2008 economic crisis.

A Toast to Miss Emma Jane Dilts ... my Great Granddaughter

WOW, Miss Emma Jane was born just about 24 hours ago, in Newark, Ohio. Her birth gives cause to think about what the future holds for Miss Emma.

I know what all has transpired during my lifetime, I  have seen the inventor of the airplane, Orville Wright, and seen a man walk on the moon. Think of the evolution of electronics that I have seen, I used to listen to WLW radio from Cincinnati, Ohio on a "catwhisker" crystal radio. We had a small screen black and white TV which received the two stations that were broadcasting, with just an outside antenna.

I have experienced the evolution of printing. From hand set type to offset printing, now to the computer generated printing, which I must admit, I know little to nothing about. All that I know about printing is obsolete.I did see an ad on TV this morning for a company in Columbus, Ohio that is surviving by doing "old fashioned" printing. I congratulate her. I had the idea to do that once.

I remember model A and model T Fords on the highway.

Tomorrow, December 7, I remember so vividly where I was in 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and I remember the end of the war in Europe and Japan, then Korea, Viet Nam and Desert Storm, and our present conflict. I, and my family, have participated in most of them.

I have lived under 14 presidents.

I hope and pray that Emma lives a long, prosperous and healthy life, and can reflect on her 80 years in 2092.

My new Great Grandaughter, Miss Emma

Here is a picture of Miss Emma Jane Dilts

 born at 11:50 today, 12/5/2012

 7 lbs. 1 oz. 

and 21 and a quarter inches long. 

She and her mom are both doing well......

The Frank Beckmann Show

The liberal world is exploding with calls for gun control in the wake of the Kasandra Perkins/Jovan Belcher tragedy.

Guns didn't cause the murder/suicide, Belcher's behavior did.

To blame guns for crime is to blame cars for auto wrecks or water for drownings.

We've got a world where the sanctity of life has been discarded by the acceptance of abortion (it kills over a million babies per year), a society which ignores personal responsibility, and a continued collapse of the 2 parent household under which children are best raised.

Reinstate respect for life and family, restore the expectation of personal responsibility, and you'll see a reduction in the kind of events like those in KC which horrified us!

Frank Beckmann

Study reveals violent head contact can lead to CTE

I doubt that anyone was surprised, what took them so long to determine this? I doubt the TV networks care, the harder the hits the more the viewers. Touch football would not go over well ...........

On the heels of the latest NFL suicide, researchers announced today that 34 NFL players whose brain were studied suffered from CTE, a degenerative brain disease brought on by repeated hits to the head that results in confusion, depression and, eventually, dementia.

The study was released just days after the murder-suicide of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. It's not yet known what triggered Belcher's action, but they mirror other NFL players who have committed suicide.

Researchers at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy published the largest case series study of CTE to date, according to the center. Of the 85 brains donated by the families of deceased veterans and athletes with histories of repeated head trauma, they found CTE in 68 of them. Of those, 34 were professional football players, nine others played college football and six played only high school football.

Of the 35 professional football players' brains donated, only one had no evidence of the disease, according to the study.

Finally agreed to something .......

(Reuters) - Striking harbor clerks and management at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach agreed to federal mediation on Tuesday in a bid to end a week-old labor clash that has idled most of America's biggest cargo shipping complex.

The agreement to mediation, announced by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, came after an all-night bargaining session that a spokesman for the Harbor Employers Association, representing shippers and terminal operators, said had left the parties "still far apart."

But a union spokesman said the opposing sides had "made incredible progress," and he credited the mayor boat with helping contract negotiators narrow their differences.

The spokesman, Craig Merrilees of the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers Local 63, said a new round of talks would begin once the mediator arrives later in the day.

With mounting economic losses estimated at several billion dollars, the strike marks the largest cargo traffic disruption at the Southern California harbor facilities since a 10-day lockout of longshoremen at several West Coast ports in 2002.

Dreamliner sleeps .....

A brand-new United Airlines "Dreamliner" airplane bound for Newark was diverted Tuesday morning, making an emergency landing in New Orleans because of an undisclosed mechanical problem.

The highly acclaimed Boeing 787 Dreamliner recently began service in North America in a debut last month with United Airlines. United and Boeing are both based in Chicago.

On Tuesday, the 7:30 a.m. United flight 1146 from Houston to Newark was diverted to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and landed safely there at 9:25 a.m., the airline said. The plane, the third delivered to United recently, carried 174 customers and 10 crew members. Neither United nor Boeing would describe the problem except to say it was a "mechanical issue."

"We are re-accommodating the customers on a different aircraft to Newark," United said in a statement. "United will work with Boeing to review the diversion and determine the cause."

The Federal Aviation Administration "is looking into it," an FAA spokesman said.

Barefoot homeless man not actually homeless

By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! News

The homeless man who was given a pair of boots by a kindhearted New York City police officer apparently isn't homeless. According to the New York Daily News, Jeffrey Hillman, 54, has an apartment in the Bronx that is paid for via a combination of rent vouchers, Social Security, and military veteran benefits.

Hillman and Officer Lawrence DePrimo became Internet sensations after a visiting tourist posted a photo of DePrimo giving Hillman a pair of boots from a nearby Sketchers store. The photo went viral. Yesterday, we ran a story about how Hillman was spotted around New York City, again barefoot.

Those shoes are hidden," Hillman told the New York Times. "They are worth a lot of money—I could lose my life."

The Daily News reports that various city organizations have attempted to help Hillman. Barbara Brancaccio, a spokesperson for the city's Homeless Service said, "He [Hillman] has a history of turning down services."
The man's brother, Kirk Hillman, told the Daily News that he hasn't heard from Jeffrey since January. "We love our brother very much," Kirk Hillman said. "Our door is always open to him, but this is a lifestyle he's chosen."

Jeffrey Hillman told The New York Times that he is grateful for the boots from Officer DePrimo. "I want to thank everyone that got onto this thing. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. It meant a lot to me. And to the officer, first and foremost."

Create Legal Documents

The gun was NOT the problem .. an inappropriate use of air time

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — NBC broadcaster Bob Costas used his halftime segment on "Sunday Night Football" to advocate for gun control following this weekend's murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, causing an immediate debate on social media.

In a segment about 90 seconds long, Costas paraphrased and quoted extensively from a piece by Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock.

After praising the column, Costas said: "In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here, wrote Jason Whitlock, is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

Belcher shot and killed Perkins, the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, on Saturday morning, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide in the parking lot of the team's practice facility.

The online reaction to Costas' segment was swift, with many people criticizing the broadcaster for expressing his personal views on a program meant for entertainment.

I personally thought it was not appropriate, and it was not the proper venue to voice it. It was a tragedy. I understand that he had a few guns, and he and his wife would occasionally go to the range to shoot, so it was a hobby of  theirs. We will probably never know why it happened, but something would have happened regardless, the gun was not the cause. Why it happened is immaterial. 

An act of kindness

ONE BILLION A DAY - LOST

 (Reuters) - A national coalition of U.S. business groups is urging an end to a strike at the twin California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach amid fears that a prolonged stand-off will cost the American economy many billions of dollars, and could even spread to the east coast.

Trade groups led by the National Retail Federation have sent letters to U.S. President Barack Obama and leading members of Congress asking them to intervene and help end the strike at America's two busiest container harbor facilities. Those industry groups say the strike, which entered its sixth day on Sunday, is already costing $1 billion a day.

The labor dispute has been triggered by 500 clerical workers at the ports, members of the relatively small Office of Clerical Union Workers. Their industrial action and clout has been significantly strengthened because some 10,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have supported them, refusing to cross the clerical workers' picket lines.

Occidental College Transcripts Reveals Obama Claimed Foreign Citizenship to get Scholarship

In 2008, candidate Obama called Bill Ayers an “English Professor” who he knows and runs into in his neighborhood. He condemned “despicable acts” Ayers committed when Obama was “eight years old.”

In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has Released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College …

Released today, the transcript school indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate.

NY Public School Teachers Getting Taxpayer-Funded Cosmetic Surgery

A teacher’s union in a Buffalo, New York is fighting to preserve a decades-old health care plan that covers cosmetic surgery… and taxpayers are footing the bill. A new report shows that they spent nearly $3 million of taxpayer dollars on procedures like hair removal and liposuction.

Ralph Hernandez, vice president of the Buffalo school board, joined America Live to give an update on the negotiations. He said there are reassurances from the leadership of the unions that they would drop the issue before the next collective bargaining agreement.

But in a school district where only half of the kids are graduating, Megyn asked why this wasn't re-negotiated before. He said that it’s been part of the Buffalo public school system for about 20 years, though he would like to see that money go toward the classroom.

Announcer plays along when 3 deer beat horses onto US racetrack

A post I thought was worthwhile. The comments to the article were great also ....

WASHINGTON - Spectators who came to watch horses at a western Pennsylvania racetrack got a surprise this week when three deer got onto the course first and beat the horses to racing.

According to KDKA-TV, a race was about to begin Wednesday night at the Meadows Racetrack in Washington County when the deer jumped onto the track.

Race announcer Roger Huston didn't miss a beat. He began calling the race as it unfolded, saying things like: "As they race down the track, Bambi has the lead. Here comes Rudolph from the outside."

The deer ran fast but kept changing directions. At one point, they appeared headed to the paddock, where the horses were being held.

Several minutes into the show, the deer decided to leave the track to the horses.

Huston says Bambi won the race.

Someone won big bucks

Oh, deer!

The next headline will outline the possibility of a deer doping scandal

Nothing runs like a Deere

Just my luck. I put my money on Rudolph to win.

I won some doe

Seven of 10 Richest Members of Congress Are Democrats

 For the second year in a row, Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas is the richest member of Congress, with a reported net worth of $305 million — the first time a Washington lawmaker has surpassed the $300 million mark.

Roll Call’s annual list of the 50 richest members of Congress reveals that seven of the top 10 are Democrats — and four of the 10 owe their fortunes to wealthy spouses.

McCaul, a former federal prosecutor, reported in 2010 that his wife had received assets as gifts from her parents, boosting his net worth from some $73 million to at least $294 million that year. His wife Linda is the daughter of Clear Channel Communications Inc. CEO and founder Lowry Mays.

Second on the 2012 list of richest members of Congress is Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., up from No. 3 last year with a net worth of $199 million. His wife Teresa Heinz Kerry is the widow of the late Sen. H. John Heinz III of the Heinz ketchup fortune.

At No. 3, down one place this year, is Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., at $141 million. Issa is the founder of Directed Electronics Inc., which makes car alarms.

Next on the list is Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., at $86 million. He made his fortune as co-founder of Nextel Communications Inc.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., is No. 5, with $83 million. He is the great-grandson of Standard Oil Co. founder John D. Rockefeller.

He is followed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., at $79 million. His wife Cynthia Blumenthal is the daughter of New York real estate mogul Peter Malkin.

Another Democrat, Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado, is No. 7 with a net worth of $72 million. Much of his wealth comes from Blue Mountain Arts, his family’s greeting card and publishing business.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, yet another Democrat, is No. 8 at $57 million. He is co-founder of Automatic Data Processing, a payroll processing company.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., No. 9 on the list, owes her fortune to her husband Richard Blum, president and CEO of the private equity firm Blum Capital Partners LP. Her net worth is estimated at $42 million.

Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, is No. 10 with a net worth of $37 million. He has significant investments in fast-food chains, electronics companies, pharmaceutical companies, and oil giants, according to Roll Call.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California is at No. 13, with a net worth of $26 million, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is at No. 37 with $9 million.

The “poorest” member on the list is Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., with a net worth of $6.28 million.

Subject: Montana Department of Employment

The Montana Department of Employment, Division of Labor Standards claimed a small rancher was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate him.

AGENT: I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.

RANCHER: Well, there's my hired hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board. Then there's the mentally challenged guy. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.

AGENT: That's the guy I want to talk to - the mentally challenged one.

RANCHER: That would be me.

Water, water, everywhere.......................

I think it was '56, working at the Nevada Club in Reno, the Truckee River was over flood stage, water rising, in the club, policy was, keep dealing until the water gets to the "money drawer" on the table. People kept playing the slots though, something to see. As I recall,, the Truckee did that almost very year when the snow melted up on Mt. Rose.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Northern California is bracing for more stormy weather this weekend after heavy rain and strong winds knocked out power to thousands, delayed flights, tied up traffic and flooded some roadways.

After the second in a series of storms slammed the region Friday, scattered showers are expected Saturday before a third storm strikes Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

A flash flood watch will remain in effect for most of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Santa Cruz Mountains throughout the weekend. The storms could cause rock and mud slides in areas already saturated and affected by wildfires this summer, said NWS forecaster Diana Henderson in Monterey.

"It's not a super storm by any measure, but this is pretty significant," Henderson said. "We should see periods of moderate to heavy rains."

Message on a leaflet:

IF YOU CANNOT READ, 

THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS