DailyMail: Phil Robertson Interview

This is a fantastic collection of comments from Phil Robertson. Regardless of your stance on the subject (homosexuality and promiscuity in general), you should take note of how he is conducting himself. Phil isn't backing down, isn't getting angry, and isn't returning insults to those who are reacting with vehemence towards him.

Here is a quote:

Then reading from the Bible he said, ‘The acts of the sinful nature are obvious. Sexual immorality, is number one on the list. How many ways can we sin sexually? My goodness. You open up that can of worms and people will be mad at you over it. 

‘I am just reading what was written over 2000 years ago. Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom. All I did was quote from the scriptures, but they just didn’t know it. Whether I said it, or they read it, what’s the difference? The sins are the same, humans haven’t changed. 

‘If you give them the bad news, they’ll start kicking and screaming. But you love them more than you fear them, so you tell them.

The full story can be found here. Unfortunately, it is the DailyMail, so the website itself is fairly horrible to contend with.

The original interview with Phil by GQ is here.

BTW, my favorite part of the GQ interview:

The ecology here has been so perfectly manipulated that it feels as if two giant hands reached down from the sky and molded the land itself, an effect that I’m sure would please Phil. Whatever you think of Phil’s beliefs, it’s hard not to gaze upon his cultivations and wonder if you’ve gotten life all wrong. This is life as summer camp. It’s gorgeous, in a way that alters you on an elemental level. I feel it when I breathe the air. I feel it when I survey the enormity of the space around me. I shouldn’t be sitting around the house and bitching because the new iOS 7 touchscreen icons don’t have any fucking drop shadow. I should be out here, dammit! Killing things and growing things and bringing dead things home to cook! There is a life out in this wilderness that I am too chickenshit to lead. 

Where are Obama's Columbia Classmates?

There is an interesting story on The Blaze written by Wayne Allyn Root. He graduated from Columbia in the same class as Obama ('83) and had the same major, Political Science and Pre-Law. And he says that he never, nor did any one else in his graduating class, met or saw Barack Obama during his time at Columbia. Here's an excerpt:

So I asked every classmate I met at our 30th reunion, many of them Political Science majors, if they ever met, or saw, or heard of Obama. The answer was a resounding NO from every one of them. I asked if they found this strange, or worried how this was possible? They all answered YES. I asked if they thought it was possible to be a Political Science major and never meet a fellow major in our small classes? They all gave me a very strange look and answered NO. So I asked, “How could this be possible? Can you explain this?” No one had an answer.

Small graduating classes always know each other. Some how, some way. Take for instance this story about my mother-in-law and my parents. I moved 1500 miles and met my future wife. When talking to her mother I learned that she went to the same small college as my parents and knew them, not well or in any personal way, but knew them none the less. The chances of this coincidental meeting is amazingly small, yet there it is. In college, you are not anonymous. Even in the early 80's. Someone in your class would be able to stand up and say, "Yea, we were study partners once."

But not with Barack Obama.

I like Mr. Root's closing statement:

Now I know somewhere in America is an Obama defender that will accuse me of lying. But are all those classmates at our 30th reunion lying too? And if I wanted to lie, wouldn’t I better off saying I knew the future President well? If I wanted to malign the President, shouldn’t I be saying he was my close buddy and I witnessed all kinds of terrible things? But I can’t say that. Because I never witnessed anything. Neither did any of my classmates. We didn’t know him. Never met him. Never saw him. My story is simply the truth- and it’s the same consistent story I’ve told since 2007. 

There is something wrong with Obama’s story- that much I know. He is either the ghost of Columbia, or the perfect Manchurian candidate. But something smells rotten at Columbia.

Obama Budget Caps Retirement Tax Benefit

Hand it to the Federal Gov't to change the rules as they want more money.

Remember how your IRA is supposed to let you pay taxes now and not have any tax consequences so long as you use the money in retirement.

Well, in the few short years that they have been in existence, the original plan is already under fire. Obama has proposed in his budget that if your retirement account exceeds $3M, you'll get another tax.

The cap proposal is a clear play to unlock some of the $10 trillion sitting in IRA and 401(k) accounts, which have become the primary retirement savings vehicles in America. Congress pried this door open a few months ago by toying with a law forcing heirs to liquidate an IRA within five years—almost certainly triggering otherwise avoidable income-tax payments. We may see that yet.

 The $3 million cutoff is itself something of a mystery. The White House reasons that $3 million is enough to provide an annual annuity of $205,000, which it further reasons is plenty income for any retiree. Yet there’s a lot wrong with this line of thinking.

How great is that! I love helping the gov't give more of my money away.

I wonder if the amount will be locked to inflation? Does the White House believe that the most we simple Americans should be allowed to live off is $205k/yr? How... Communist.

The worst part: Very few in media are talking about this. It doesn't show up in any of the major outlets front page. Not on Google News, not on CNBC, not on ABC, or CNN Money. I only knew about it from the radio yesterday and had to specifically search for the terms to find any news. Thank you, mainstream media, for covering up the agenda again.

Pope Francis

So far, I'm liking what he is saying. He is the highest "ranking?" figure within Christianity speaking in a way that I haven't seen many others do - Catholic, Protestant, Calvinist, etc.

His goal seems to focus on the things Christ wanted us to - caring for and defending those that cannot do so for themselves. And living it. For instance, there has been a war on unborn children since the 1960's... possibly sooner depending on your view of eugenics.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, encouraged Catholics this week to untiringly defend the unborn against abortion even if “they persecute or kill you.” Amidst a debate in the country over the legalization of abortion being sought by non-governmental organizations and by some members of the government, Cardinal Bergoglio recalled that the faithful have the duty to defend life “from the beginning until the end.”

Catholics should persevere in this mission, he said, even if “they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you.”

The cardinal compared the “egoism of the culture of death” with “weeds that begin to grow and invade and kill the trees, their fruit and their flowers. They kill life.”

 “No child should be deprived of the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to go to school.  No elderly person should be left alone, abandoned,” the cardinal said in remarks to a group of pregnant women.

Pope Francis is declaring war on abuse and death. And he's living it out, not just talking about it. And for that, I am glad.

More on Pope Francis:
Path to becoming Pope
Setting the Example
Condemning Abortion
Five thing about Pope Francis

Climate Change: We are the Gods

In ancient days, cultures, society, people in general worshiped nature around them as the gods. They had their sun gods, water gods, earth gods, druids, gods on stars, gods on planets, gods who battled in the sky as lightning and thunder, gods who made the volcanos explode, gods who controlled the seas... and gods which ruled the weather.

The weather has always been a finicky lady. She changes her mind without warning. Regions around the world have had droughts for years on end. Mountains rise and turn deserts out of fertile farm land. How many climatologists talk about the world wide sudden climate change that happened in 2200 BC?

In the ancient days, people prayed to their gods to grant them rain. Just a 200 years ago, Native American Indians performed rain dances to please the gods. Until recent years, mankind around the world have always known that the weather was beyond their direct control. That's not to say they didn't try to control it. They were human. And as humans, we need control. It's our nature.

So they danced.

Then we had science. And science has been the key to slowly converting the west to its latest god. Us.

We now believe that we are gods. We control our own destiny. We have decided that our science has explained how this amazing world can exist. We explain away the miraculous universe in which we live.

We are learning to control our day to day lives. To control our ability to travel where we want, when we want. To have control over the day and night. To have access to what seems like an unlimited amount of knowledge instantly. We can dive to the depths of the ocean, or can explore the reaches of space. We try to see the beginning of time itself.

While we are at it, we have decided that through our actions, we are destroying our world. That, because of our interactions on this planet, it is getting "warmer". However, I do beg these scientists, politicians, self-theists, to please explain all the other historical, sudden, climatic changes that the Earth has experienced prior to our ability to affect the climate.

In any case, the public is more than willing to accept this claim that we now control our complete destiny, the climate included. Why should we not? We have been conditioned to believe that we are gods. In what ways are we limited? So, of course we are responsible for the way the Earth's climate changes. And we must do all that we can to prevent our own destruction by following the instruction of these climate activists.

That is the real plan. We have been deceived into believing we are in control. In doing so, we are willing to accept a different form of austerity. We let these few educated superiors tell us how we must live our lives. We let them enact ridiculous carbon taxes, force on us the idea that hybrid cars are the answer... or that we all need wind mills in our back yard, or that we have to spend $60 on a light bulb (make that $10M in tax payer dollars), or... or... the list can go on for a long time.

We get threats of our imminent destruction by our own hands. And the only solution is to trust these new-fangled dictators. That is the crux of the plan. That we give up and listen to those that are enlightened. That we willingly walk away from ideas like capitalism (the greatest equalizer the world has ever known) and trust this superset of mankind to lead us.

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?” 

- Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme; Opening speech, Rio Earth Summit. 1992

FYI: The oceans aren't rising that fast after all.

Notes:

How do you tax something which is a natural bi-product? How do you effectively turn carbon into a form of currency when it is something that, for all economic purposes, is near limitless? Burn a few trees in your back yard and get a bill? Run too hard and pay a fine?

Hybrids currently are more harmful to the environment when you account for the entire process and life of the car.

In some cases, hybrids consume four times as much energy in production, and in turn are responsible for four times as much harmful pollution that is released into the atmosphere, when compared to non‐hybrids.

Liberals, Capitalism, and Taxes

There is a massive disconnect between Liberalism and Capitalism. It can be captured very easily under a single day-to-day activity: taxation.

(Side Note: Liberalism is decidedly different than Obama's Anti-colonialist mentality)

I found an article talking specifically about how Apple is managing to have a global 10% (or so) corporate income tax rate. I'll pull some quotes from this article and try not to be out of context.

As it stands, the company paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8 percent.

The disconnect is most obviously seen with companies such as Apple and other industry giants in that they are large enough organizations that it is advantageous for them to exercise as many options possible to reduce their operating costs. The various executives, CEO's etc have this fiduciary requirement to the share holders and the employees to do everything legally possible in order to maximize the growth of the company. 

Liberals, and many people who consider themselves to be social progressives, feel that a person's (and by extension, a business') responsibility is to their community and government. If a business is benefitting from a local university, then it should provide the funds necessary for the university to operate. 

“I just don’t understand it,” he said in an interview. “I’ll bet every person at Apple has a connection to De Anza. Their kids swim in our pool. Their cousins take classes here. They drive past it every day, for Pete’s sake. 

“But then they do everything they can to pay as few taxes as possible.”

If the government (local, state, fed) is in need of income to make impossible to keep promises to buy votes, I mean in need of income for their programs to help those in need, then it is the responsibility of those earning the income to pay the bill.

This is reminiscent of where unions were with the Big Three very recently. Unions felt they were entitled to a certain dollar amount that was not tied to the well being of the business. Thus, the Big Three have suffered. The US government (and state governments), tax recklessly without realizing that yes, businesses will leave if it becomes advantageous. Now, governments are feeling the pain of their poor tax decisions.

Liberals are disconnected from the business demand to be as profitable as possible. If governments (and schools, programs, etc) were run as a business, then we would all be better off. But, right now they are intent on blaming businesses for demanding lower rates which cuts into state "revenue".

Such lost revenue is one reason California now faces a budget crisis, with a shortfall of more than $9.2 billion in the coming fiscal year alone.

A business has no room for wastefulness. It cuts into profit, employee efficiency, product realization, public opinion. If a company overlooks the slightest of gray spots within its walls, then there is a potential that the area could release a product the leads to poor public reaction which can manifest itself with reduced sales, reduced profit from extra work required to fix a problem area, reduced profit from unsold inventory, reduced profit from expenses which cannot be recouped. 

The US government is the perfect model of wastefulness. 10's of millions get lost in appropriations, campaigning expenses, "deal making" for a bill to pass, random projects receiving funding which have no need, nearly complete projects being cancelled, etc, etc, etc. This extends to state governments to a lesser extent, but it is still the same. But, law makers have resorted to these various projects as their way of winning votes. They call fiscal conservatives criminals, haters of the elderly, people who want to make the poor suffer, racist. And it works. Rant over, sorry.

There are genuine liberals out there who do not see the government as the problem, but the solution. Fine. But, they feel that the way to give the government its funding is through raising revenue through increasing taxes. Corporations, the creators of jobs, have it as their duty to figure out how to avoid as many taxes as possible. So, when the tax rates start rising to fund the programs Liberals are after, businesses start moving the jobs to where taxes are lower.

This includes Nevada, Luxembourg, Singapore, Ireland… They open offices in states and countries with low tax rates. The corporations are going to do their business. They are going to make money. And they are going to do it in a way that is as advantageous as possible. Liberals don't get this idea. 

“Apple, like many other multinationals, is using perfectly legal methods to keep a significant portion of their profits out of the hands of the I.R.S.,” Mr. Sullivan said. “And when America’s most profitable companies pay less, the general public has to pay more.”

Solution: Make government more like business. A simple idea is to just be competitive tax wise! How much more money would California have if it wasn't in Apple's interest to open a business in Nevada for tax reasons? Look at Cupertino - Apple threatened to move away from the city if they didn't allow Apple to build their new campus. It wasn't blackmail, it was a reality of doing business. Cupertino realized this and backed down from demands of Apple. They now get to keep their tax income. And remember, tax income is more than tax from the sale of goods - it includes income tax from the people employed in the state.

If the US government lowered corporate tax rates to be competitive with Ireland or other countries which have become tax havens, how much more money would the government now have in its coffers? Or, how about if the elected officials were less concerned about being re-elected and more concerned with making the government as streamlined and efficient and a positive force in the life of individuals, wouldn't we be better off?

But no. Apple (and others) are dubbed as villains for being wise and shrewd. For not doing their "fair share" in giving the government the un-checked funds that it feels it needs (for election purposes). 

America, we need change.

How To Make America Fail

Excellent video. I encourage everyone to share and to like the video.

Climate Change: Dr. Tim Ball Skeptic

I just heard about Dr. Tim Ball on Thursday. He is evidently a fairly well known climate scientist who, from his credentials, is quite authoritative on the subject. I was able to listen to a radio interview he did on the local WIBC radio station with Denny Smith (I don't know how to link directly to the podcast, but his interview was on April 12th, 2012).

The subject of the evening revolved around truth in the scientific community. About how everything is becoming more and more politicized. This is exactly what is happening with the outrageous global warming claims coming from the likes of Al Gore.

Why, do we as individuals, allow politicians to politicize everything? Why don't we call them out? Who is Al Gore in the scientific community (a propagandist)? How can someone with an agenda specifically targeted at increasing government control in you life be trusted as having a voice of truth in something as complex as the global climate? It's beyond me. Then again, in high school, I mocked the concept of being class president based on how impotence of the position.

"You don't accept anything at face value as a scientist" - Tim Ball

Back to Dr. Ball. He's a skeptic. As all good scientists should be. What is the scientific method if not a continual process to disprove the common beliefs until you are left with nothing but facts? And by following the scientific method, why is there such outrage towards the lone voices in the world who are saying that we should not fall into the topics which are really meant to be political traps? Tim Ball is skeptical of man created climate change. He doesn't doubt that there is definitely global climate change, or that we can have some impact, but the fundamental truth is that there has always been climate change and there always will be and we measly, weak, limited humans don't have the power to control this powerful force of nature (italics are my thoughts).

Why do we ignore the mechanisms of the sun? Why do we ignore interstellar effects? Why do we ignore changes to the Earth's orbit? Because CO2 was chosen specifically because it could be used as a tool to attack industrialized nations. It was chosen partly due to the work of socialist Maurice Strong.

Strong is considered to be the person behind the globalization of the foundation-funded environmental movement, and was the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in 1972, in Stockholm, Sweden.

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?”
- Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
Opening speech, Rio Earth Summit. 1992

The evidence that Tim Ball presents goes into great detail as to how much manipulation has gone into twisting the public perception regarding climate change. They have the bureaucrats on their side who have the power to shut down the voices of skepticism and the power to push their agenda to the governments around the world. This is more fuel to the fire that we need to get out of the UN.

Listen to this interview with Tim Ball. It is excellent. Be informed.

More Voter Fraud

Talk about people being ignorant! It is so easy to just walk up to a polling station and claim to be someone you are not. And we're told voter id isn't necessary. Right.

"You don’t need it," the poll worker said. "It’s all right. As long as you’re in here, you’re on our list, and that’s who you say you are, you’re okay."

Check out Project Veritas.

Pro Choice and Anti War

I saw a bumper sticker on my journey the other day:

How can you be Pro-Life and Pro-War?

This was on a car that had lots of Obama/Biden stickers also. So, a lib democrat I guess.

My immediate thought: isn't Pro-Choice (because no one wants to call it Pro-Death) and Anti-War (the obvious opposing option to Pro-War) even worse? On the one hand we have the option to want to save the lives of babies, but kill our enemies. Whereas the other option is to kill babies, but save our enemies. Hmmm. Was that bumper sticker thought out well? I could see being Pro-Life and Pro-Peace... and maybe Pro-Choice and Pro-War. Typically, however, the people on the other side of the wall are Pro-Choice and Anti-War.

At least by being Pro-Life & Pro-War the stance can be intelligently argued. We are protecting innocent lives; giving a voice to unborn and defenseless human beings. The most precious form of human life. To most Americans, Pro-War means we are willing to defend our families, our way of life, defending countries who are our allies (in the way only America can) and defending innocent lives when a dictator is committing massacres.

How can one intelligently defend the Pro-Choice & Anti-War stance? It's okay to let women choose to kill an innocent unborn child. Even if she is doing it simply because the baby isn't wanted*. But, how dare we go to war against another country! We'll risk losing American lives! (they volunteered to be in the military) We'll kill foreigners! (we go to war for a reason, I can't honestly believe that we are arbitrarily using our military to attack other innocent countries) We're disrupting another country's sovereignty! I personally view rouge countries much the same way I do criminals: They had their chance to operate sanely in the world, they have proven incapable of this, it is time for the consequences.

Speaking of criminals, the anti-war crowd is also against capital punishment. So, we will often have to let a known rapist and murderer (Here is a story about 9 boys who gang-raped a 14 year old girl. Should they be let off without a punishment?) live a life of relative safety in prison, but the unborn baby can be killed without any justification. 

This is a sad world we live in. I'm Pro-Choice. You have the choice whether to have sex.* I'm Pro-Life. We have a duty to preserve innocent life. I'm Pro-War. Genocide and war crimes must be stopped.

* Yes, rape is a very special circumstance and I can understand that there is massive amounts of trauma here. And when the case involves incest rape... Well, we know how Planned Parenthood handles that.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lawsuit-over-planned-parenthood-coverup-of-statutory-rape-resolved/

http://www.politikditto.com/2011/03/planned-parenthood-covers-up-rape.html

http://liveactionfilms.org/violations/