Freedom of Relgion - under attack or freedom of favoritism?

The Sun Sentinel reported a story about a very nice home in an upscale community, and the adjacent lot, are “tax free” due to the religious exemption. For Joe Average, this property would cost about $64,000 in taxes a year.

If this property was a church I wouldn’t mind as much (even though Jesus said something along the lines of “pay Caesar the money owed to him” referring to taxes). But it is not. The Sun Sentinel describes the property being used as:

“Church representatives say they use the property to house missionaries working in Haiti and as a home for the church founder”

That’s right; the founders personal home is tax free due to the religious exemption.

Here is the kicker. We have some friends in our Pagan / Wiccan groups who tried to claim religious exemption but were denied by the county since “Paganism and Wicca are not recognized religions”. In other words, only Christian, Jewish, and Muslim places of worship are “recognized”.

I guess someone packed us up and made us leave the USA without our knowledge (is Florida still part of the US?). I thought we had the “freedom of religion”? Hmm..

Oh, wait, we have this little document called “The United States Constitution” and the very first Amendment is:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Being the first Amendment (well, Amendment I for all of you law people) means it was the fist thing that came to the writers’ minds. It was the most important part of this document. If not, it would have been further down the list.

So, the Broward county officials feel that they can override the most significant part of the founding document of this nation by creating laws that benefit one religion over another.

Watch out America, our “Freedom of Religion” is under attack also.

Barak Obama needs a lesson in inflation now...

CNN News story

So now Barak is jumping on the band wagon, pump more money into the economy and we'll be fine. Sure. He cited jump in unemployment and rising gas & oil prices as the main reasons to do this.

OK, I haven't seen a single penny from the last increase in available money (the stimulus checks were NOT part of that). But what I have seen is the value of my own money go down which causes the price of anything that has to do with any kind of importing go up. Food, gas, electricity, just about everything. Since our dollar is weaker now, it costs more to get the same amount of produce in a foreign country (even if the price of those products remained the same in the other country). So they throw this money into the economy but very few of us see it (I'm willing to bet the people who see it are the ones who don't need it, the rich just keep on getting richer and us in the middle and lower classes get stuck with the high price tags).

Now Barak wants to do this again! Sure and I guarantee you that if another $500B (that's $50,000,000,000) is thrown at us the value of our dollar will drop to historically low value and the price of oil WILL shoot over $200 a barrel and we'll wish gas was only $4 a gallon. What's the worst part is that we're throwing so much money out of the country (outsourcing just about everything now) that there is less and less of it for us (you know, the people who pay to have the money printed?) to have in our own wallets making it more difficult for us to afford basics such as food, rent or mortgage, electricity, gas, etc.

I now see that Barak is no better than the rest of the politicians that are out there. Pat their friends on the back, fill their wallets and f*ck the working class in America, the people who actually voted him into the position he's in now.

OK, government, do you really want to help the economy? How about this:

• Tax breaks for businesses that keep workers in the US


• Tax breaks for citizens


• (Politicians) Stop all the bull$h!t dilly-dallying in Iraq and bring the troops home


• Force the car manufacturers and fuel companies to put out more alternative fuel cars and filling stations, we know they own all of the patents but they're just sitting on their hands while keeping us addicted to foreign oil. For me, the nearest "alternative fuel" station is over 4 hours away.


• Invest more into renewal energy & make it more cost effective

Wake up America! Part 2 - Inflation

OK people, let me give you a simple lesson in economics.

We’ve heard a nasty word recently (well, IMO it is not that nasty, it is only nasty when it works against us). INFLATION.

We’ve heard a lot of pointers on why the dollar is so “weak” right now (the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US Dollar now, don’t even get me started on the Euro, this has killed the potential for some good investments for me).

We’ve heard this is because of the high price of oil, the interest rates, the high price of gas, etc. etc. etc. All of which is complete bullshit.

Inflation is caused by the value of a country's currency which is the ratio of (Country’s GNP / Available Currency (including credit). So, anyone who knows ratios and fractions can see that the more currency (and credit) available the lower value our money is. Now, what happened just before the dollar crashed?

Don’t believe me? Webster’s:
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inflation )
A persistent increase in the level of consumer prices or a persistent decline in the purchasing power of money, caused by an increase in available currency and credit beyond the proportion of available goods and services.

Oh yeah, the government signed bills allowing BILLIONS of dollars to be pumped into banks allowing people to borrow more money. Smooth move people. Now our dollar is worth very little to other nations.

Now, we’re blaming OPEC on the high price of gas and oil which is also, ready? BULLSHIT!! Since our dollar is weaker, it costs more to get a barrel of oil from other countries. OK, so our dollar has gone to record lows in value causing the price of oil to skyrocket (which also directly affects the price we pay at the gasoline pump).

Our government is blaming inflation on the price of oil and OPEC when that is the exact opposite of the truth. Our own government pushed the value of our dollar so far down that anything that has anything to do with something that is imported will cost us more, including gas and oil!

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!

Wake up America!

I’ve had no love for Hillary for a very long time and I have never been shy about it.

I don’t know which is worse, the lies and narcissism that Hillary has displayed during this election or the people who have been duped into believing in here. OK, I can understand that a lot of people in the US didn’t see the NY senate race between Hillary and Giuliani. I lived in New Jersey at the time so it was all over our news. People even asked Hillary how come she was running for New York instead of Arkansas (where she’s from). Her response was “I’ve always been a Yankees girl”. Really now? Did you even know that the Yankees were in the World Series that year or were you too busy kissing up to everyone to even go to a single game? Giuliani made the time to go to several games and I think he even threw out the first pitch during one of the games. Someone of her magnitude could have easily gotten into one of the games.

A few months ago, while behind in the race, Hillary made a (desperate) offer to Obama. Let him concede and she would accept him as her vice president candidate. Um, what? You don’t make offers like that when you are in second place. Luckily Obama ignored the request and continued to win election after election and is now 4 votes shy of the nomination (over 200 delegate lead over Hillary). Then, she tells him he should quit to unite the Democrats. Now, she’s saying that she would accept an offer to be the vice president candidate.

Obama, I really hope you do not consider this. Most Democrats are very passionate and strongly divided. You would lose votes to McCain if you took her as your vice presidential candidate. If Hillary is in the office we can rest assured that the next 4 years she’ll end up being the president by hogging the spotlight.

If you ask me who Obama’s VP candidate should be, I have no idea. Someone with similar views to Obama (Cheney must have had an uncomfortable time w/ Bush’s “same sex marriage ban” issues with his daughter) and someone who doesn’t mind being in the background (not John Edwards either).

(This is not an endorsement; I’m going to consider this election, like many others in the past, the lesser of all of the evils).

American voters flip the bird to Washington, the media, and Americal corporations

It should come as no surprise to most people that today the media and large corporations are running America. Hopefully this isn't a surprise.

It shouldn't be a big surprise to see that it is also these corporations and the same media who choose who is our next president. Through advertising and opinionated news reporting, it is easy to skew our impressions of the candidates to favor one over the other.

It has been quite clear since the beginning that these two entities wanted McCain and Clinton to be on the November ticket. Clinton, definitely a player, most likely would have been voted in. I'll admit, as much as I don't like her, Hillary is a player. She is charismatic and knows what to say to who and when. The media does the same. Perfect example, the media today was all over Hillary's "huge" win in Kentucky. She picked up 22 delegates over Obama's 11 but the media is very quiet about Obama's win in Oregon (Obama picked up 29 delegates as opposed to Hillary's 19, making both states only a one delegate gain for Hillary). They are also very quiet about the mass migration of the super delegates over to Obama's side. Nope, they're making it sound like Hillary was a huge winner yesterday (even though she lost ground to Obama).

It seems that the American public has flipped the bird to the corporations and media trying to run this country. America has stood up and voted for Obama. Even with the media's call for "Operation Chaos" to try to get Hillary to win the nod failed.

Obama played a good game. He took the "T Mobile" strategy. In the beginning when all of the mud slinging was going on he didn't participate, even when the mud was being slung at him (much like as much as the other providers trach T Mobile in their commercials, T Mobile doesn't stoop to that level). Barak stood back and still stated his intentions and didn't even try to defend himself. That takes some cohones.

Good job, Barak. You didn't play the game everyone wanted you to allowing others to chew you out. Instead you acted mature and kept your cool. Even now, as your are ever inching towards the victory, the media is still trying to paint Hillary as the winner.

Palm Beach County - Is this communism or are you just insane?

This is part of Palm Beach County's new pet law:


I have been chatting on one of my breed group lists about these
legislative nightmares and just had some scary feedback from Palm Beach FL.

Palm Beach county is now hiring deputized volunteers. They call the volunteers s the Citizens Pet Patrol. These volunteers will act as puppy buyers, call on ads, call clubs for referrals, roam the neighborhoods, and yes, even dog shows. If they find anything they "THINK" might be wrong or against their agenda, they will run to get a warrant to enter your home. The hobby breeders who have a permit from the county have already given implied consent to these people to enter their homes by signing the permit.

Here is some language directly off the volunteer application:

*You must have a car and be able to volunteer 4 hours a day two days a week.

*Responsibilities involve setting up educational booths at pet supply stores, special events in the county (dog shows, perhaps?) and schools.

Additional roles include patrolling known problem areas for non-compliant issues and report findings to AC.

The volunteers are said to be mostly AR's who apparently have nothing better to do.

My breeder friends are terrified and feel they can no longer allow potential puppy buyers to come to their homes to visit the puppies.

(end quote)

WHAT THE HELL? Are we in Nazi America now? Citizen patrollers / tattle tales / uneducated animal freaks can just volunteer and easily get a warrant so THEY can enter your house?

Sorry, I thought this was America, home of the free. Well, this isn't freedom. In fact, this is the government intruding into your house. Yes, the government is once again telling us how to live our lives.

Hey Palm Beach, here's something to do: GO AFTER THE PEOPLE CAUSING THE PROBLEMS! You know DAMN WELL that the people abusing the animals will easily volunteer so they can keep their abused animals and go after the legitimate people trying to improve the animals lives. APRI registered "breeders" will go after ethical breeders and you'll be left with poorly bred, poorly raised, poorly trained, poorly kept animals all over the county. They're punishing the people who do things the right way.

I knew this law was a bad idea when I first head it and it is obvious that the people who wrote this have no clue about animals, breeding, training, or even how to raise them (and having a kitty cat you got from the shelter DOES NOT COUNT!!).

Grow up Palm Beach politicians.