Time 2 Escape WIFLI for Thursday, Jan 19, 2012

It was driving me crazy in the last few days, knowing that there was so much I wanted to get posted on this blog. I thought it was going to be a Tuesday (Jan 17) "WIFLI" issue when I was finally was able to start on this late Monday night. By Tuesday morning, I still had more work to do on this post, but snow was on my driveway that needed to be removed, and I had some paperwork that I needed to get done. I ran out of time. Well, no problem... "I'll get 'er done Wednesday," I was thinking. I found some more compelling stories to add to this post after doing a lot of reading and listening to talk radio, and again, I ran out of time.

So, you see, it wasn't really a case of "when I feel like it" (WIFLI) this week, but more like OPTDW (Other Priorities To Deal With... aren't acronyms awesome?), along with getting the right information that I could find for you to dive into this week.

Here it is, finally; another great WIFLI issue for you to consume. At first, you may not see a relationship between any of the articles/blogs that I've included in this issue. However, there is something that ties it all together. The clue is in the John Stossel column ("Who should stay home Election Day"). I have no doubt that even some of my most loyal readers, many whom are Conservatives and/or Republicans, have not heard anything about a couple of the stories that I included today.

At one time, the fact that there was a great lack of awareness among the American public upset me greatly. I felt it was because people didn't care, and that doesn't ever end well. Apathy and freedom usually don't go hand in hand. Just ask those colonists that felt we needed to declare our independence from the British so that we could be free...

But now, I think I'm beginning to understand. And in my prayers every day, I've asked God to give me the resolve to not only keep learning, but also to give me the ability to bring about more awareness of the dangers this country is facing, and the strength to keep trying to inform people, even when it seemed nobody was listening.

After about five years of writing and working on my blogs, listening to several hours of talk radio every day, I finally prayed that I could forgive those that aren't in tune with all that is facing this country, and the world, for that matter. I had to get used to the fact that the "rest of us have lives. We are busy with things other than politics."

Per John Stossel, as you will read below, very few people take the time to access all of the information that is available. Not that many people even bother to vote. Stossel doesn't feel that is such a bad thing, if the electorate has very little idea about the issues, let alone all of the angles involved in each issue. Some people can't even identify pictures of Newt or Mitt.  (I'm just happy that John Walsh has people that watch AMW and CAN identify people that are on the most wanted lists!)

The part of doing this blog as a top priority in my life was due to wanting to help preserve our freedom. However, my friend Ralph Marston woke me up with his Daily Motivator you will see below, where he writes: "As soon as you let go of the want, you begin to see, to feel and to make positive use of the very real connections between you and whatever you envision." I think that explains everything I'm doing. I'm just sayin'...

*     *     *     *     *

The News Stories:

Keystone XL pipeline to be rejected by Obama administration
From POLITICOPro.com ~ By DARREN GOODE | 1/18/12 11:51 AM EST ~ Via WND
TransCanada's planned route potent symbol in battle over U.S. energy policy

The State Department on Wednesday will reject the Keystone XL pipeline, multiple sources following the project told POLITICO.

The formal announcement is expected at 3 p.m. from Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. Although the permit would be rejected, TransCanada would still be allowed to continue to work on and pitch an alternative route through Nebraska.

Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail have endlessly attacked President Barack Obama for putting environmental interests and the green lobby ahead of a project that they say would create thousands of jobs. Republicans scored a rare win this Congress by including a 60-day deadline for Obama to make a decision on the pipeline as part of the year-end deal on extending the payroll tax holiday.

But administration officials have been clear from the beginning that forcing a decision within 60 days would not yield enough time to make a final decision and that Republicans were doing so merely to create a new set of political talking points.

READ MORE

Romney put on defense at South Carolina debate, as GOP rivals fight for edge in state primary
From FoxNews.com ~ via WND ~ Published January 16, 2012

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – Mitt Romney was put on defense out of the box at Monday night's Republican presidential primary debate -- answering questions about his record at private venture firm, Bain Capital; distancing himself from super PAC ads against fellow candidates; defending his record as Massachusetts governor, and dodging demands that he release his tax records.

But Romney fired back against the onslaught, saying he is proud of his record in business and as governor.

"We were fortunate to have an unemployment rate by the time I left office of 4.7 percent. Sounds pretty good today," Romney said. "And I was also proud of the fact that we balanced the budget every year I was in office. We reduced taxes 19 times, put in place a rainy day fund of over $2 billion by the time I left."

Still, with his rivals running out of time to make the case they are a viable and "conservative" alternative to the front-runner, the attacks were fast and furious.

READ MORE

*     *     *     *

Columnists and Their Commentaries:

Prizefight to watch: ‘Obama v. Arpaio’
Exclusive: Jerome Corsi explains Alinsky tactics being used against popular lawman
From WND Commentary ~ By Jerome R. Corsi ~ January 16, 2012

The front lines of the continuing Obama eligibility battle are being fought not in Washington, D.C., or before the U.S. Supreme Court, but in Maricopa County, Ariz.

Jerome R. Corsi

What is shaping up is an epic political battle in which the Obama White House has decided to launch a full-scale assault against local Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

In other words, the national battle on both illegal immigration and on the Obama birth certificate is rapidly coming down to a local duel that can be properly billed much like a heavyweight prizefight, as “Obama v. Arpaio.”

Moreover, it appears the White House has set February as the month Arpaio has either to comply with the Department of Justice demands, or face Eric Holder in federal court.

This is not coincidental.

February is also the month in which Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse will release it’s law enforcement report on Obama’s birth certificate and his eligibility to be president under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution.

READ MORE

Who should stay home Election Day
John Stossel hopes 'ignorant people' don't bother to cast ballots
From WND Commentary ~ By John Stossel ~ Published Tuesday, Jan 17, 2012

This is one reason I say those “get out the vote” drives are dumb. I take heat for saying that, but Bryan Caplan agrees. He’s a professor of economics at George Mason University and author of “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.”

“A lot of bad policies … pass by popular demand,” Caplan told me. “In order to do the right thing, you have to know something.”

The “informed citizen” is the ideal of democratic societies, but Caplan points out that average citizens have no incentive to become informed, while special interests do. The rest of us have lives. We are busy with things other than politics. That’s why our democratic government inflates the price of sugar through trade restrictions, even though American sugar consumers far outnumber American sugar producers.

READ MORE

*     *     *     *

From the Blogs:

Stop SOPA and PIPA
From The Right Perspective ~ By NewsGuy ~ Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012

The NewsGuy Show

Pending legislation, Senate 968 (Protect IP -or- PIPA) and HR3261 (SOPA), demand the ability to take down any web site (including craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) – without prior judicial oversight or due process – in the name of combating “online piracy.”

PIPA and SOPA authors and supporters insist they’re only after foreign piracy sites, but Internet Engineers understand this is an attempt to impose “Big Brother” control over our Internet, complete with DNS hijacking and censoring search results. Sadly, many Congress Members favor this idea.

This double-barrel legislation affects all of our free speech, regardless of political affiliation.

READ MORE

At one time, I used to write on my own blog often. And I will continue to, eventually, but it has been a very long time since I wrote a post for johnny2k Is Home. The following was the last time I posted one of my personal writings, but it is so profoundly accurate, I could not allow you to not know about it.  

By the way, you will soon see a sequel!

This Is How They Do It
From johnny2k Is Home ~ By John Kubicek ~ Monday, September 19, 2011

There will be one thing that will be apparent to you in a very short amount of time: President Obama will find a way to make the bad economy be for his advantage in November of 2012. Obama is in the process of making sure that Republicans and rich people get the blame for how bad things are going, even with all of the stupid ideas the Democrats and progressives have come up with that have failed.

It's Class Warfare 101. It's a trap, and Republicans can hardly avoid falling into it! It really isn't that difficult, is it? Obama's proposals to stimulate the economy with further spending and higher taxes will be a none-starter in the House, controlled by the Republicans. There are doubts that even the Senate will give Obama's plan a chance. When the economy totally fails, as it will pretty soon, Obama's propaganda arm in the media will reiterate the White House claims that it was because the Republicans refused to act on Obama's plan.

There will be anger out there amongst the potential voters in 2012 due to the fact that things are going so bad. The Democrats, especially those occupying the White House, are fully depending on the anger being directed towards wealthier Americans, which then will be extended to mean the Republican Party. It really wouldn't be that difficult for "the masses" to be influenced to direct their disgust toward those that we know as the Capitalists.

READ MORE

Live the richness
From The Daily Motivator ~ By Ralph Marston ~ Tuesday, Jan 17, 2012

Stop focusing your thoughts on wanting things, because whatever you want, by definition, you do not have. Instead, put your thoughts, your energy and your efforts into more fully manifesting and enjoying what you already do have, which is everything.

When your thoughts are focused on want, those thoughts build a wall of separation between you and life’s immense abundance. As soon as you let go of the want, you begin to see, to feel and to make positive use of the very real connections between you and whatever you envision.

Quit telling yourself you don’t have it, and begin realizing that you can already start to experience it. Look at your most treasured dream not as something you hope to achieve someday, but as something that is already unfolding right now as a result of your actions.

READ MORE

*     *     *     *     *

Don't be afraid!

WE the PEOPLE

are the MOB
ONE NATION UNDER GOD

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear

Green religionists are waging war on you ~ By Phil Elmore

In Phil's column, he explains how the green religionists have used tyrannical rules, regulations, and penalties to push their agenda. You will need to read the full article (click on the link at the bottom to get there) to see how various cities have instituted draconian fines for not "complying" with their green agenda. It is sad that those cities have done that, because there are better ways to promote recycling, as Phil mentions.

In the city where I live, they have the perfect system that makes sense. It works so well that they now give out very LARGE recycling containers that can easily be picked up by their recycling trucks. The cost of their recycling trucks is mostly offset by the savings they have in needing less property for landfills. It takes me weeks to fill mine up, it is so large. On the other hand, it also takes me weeks to fill up a normal size garbage can. If for some reason you have extra garbage, like when you get around to cleaning out the garage, you can buy extra garbage tags for around $1.50 and you just put the tags on the extra garbage bags. I've only had to buy 3 tags in the last five years when I threw out some things that were damaged by some extra water in my basement. So, as you see, our city realized that people would use their recycling much more by giving us the incentive to recycle. There are no fines that I know of. If they find garbage (non-recyclable) in your recycle container, they simply don't take it, and leave a notice for you to explain why not.

So, that is the part that got me about what Phil wrote. There was no need for the cities he mentions to use tyrannical methods to MAKE you recycle. But then, that is the thing about the green religionists, who are mostly going to be liberals: They just aren't that smart, I guess! That, and worse yet, I guess the liberals are addicted to the power that they can wield over their "subjects." Just sayin'...


UPDATE ~ August 27, 2010:

I happened to see this segment on Fox & Friends Thursday a.m. just a few hours after posting the column:

The Green Police - A true example of how they think, in their own words

Video provided by TheREALjohnny2k

In a free society, public service announcements encourage that society's citizens to act for the common good by appealing to their better natures. In a totalitarian society, governments slap the governed until the pain makes the ruled class comply. This is the critical difference between what our recycling laws and regulations should be and what they are increasingly becoming. Unless we stand up to the green religionists, unless we demand to know by what authority they presume to declare innocent American citizens heretics, we will increasingly feel their open-toed shoes on our necks. These heavy-handed recycling mandates are part of a greater problem. They are a few hundred of the thousands of cuts that will eventually bleed us all dry.

These draconian recycling laws are garbage, and so are the people who force them down the throats of the American people.

By Phil Elmore

Posted: August 26, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Did you recycle this week? Did you bow before the altar of the "green" movement? Did you show proper deference to the secular religion of environmentalism? Did you do, not as you were asked, but as you were told by brainwashed, sanctimonious hippies and their puppets in your government? No? What are you, some kind of heretic? Do you hate the Earth? Maybe we'll have to teach you the benefits of recycling. Maybe we'll have to re-educate you. Maybe we'll have to punish you.

Yes, that's it ... we'll punish you. We'll do it in the way that hurts you most in an economy still reeling under President Barack Hussein Obama's socialism. We'll punish you financially, fining you a hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there, until you've suffered so badly you either comply or we break you.

What's that? You don't have a hundred dollars? Oh, stop crying. No, sit down. That's quite enough of that. All we want you to do is recycle. It's good for the planet. It's good for everyone. Think of the children. There, there. Have you calmed down? Good. Now go take your recycling bin to the curb. That's a good boy. That's a good, whipped dog. That's a good, servile subject of an ever-more invasive and all-powerful government. Good lad. Maybe we won't have to punish you after all.

Did you enjoy reading the preceding three paragraphs?

I didn't ... and I wrote them. I don't enjoy them because I'm very worried. I'm worried because no matter how far-fetched are the seemingly endless schemes of "progressives," left-wing power-mongers and statists always seem to exceed my expectations for their dictates.

Previously in Technocracy, I described the Orwellian world our government functionaries, our inexorably marching legions of mindless and largely unaccountable petty bureaucrats, are dragging us toward. In that column, written almost exactly one year ago, I warned you of a nightmarishly totalitarian world in which even your garbage is suspect. At the time, I spoke most vehemently about a British campaign encouraging neighbors to inform on their fellow subjects:

"A new London Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism campaign," the post reads, "is encouraging law-abiding citizens to look through each others' bins to check for 'suspicious' items such as chemical bottles, and to report any troubling findings to the police." Troubling findings. Suspicious trash. Does anyone wish to place any wagers as to how many people will find themselves facing police interrogations based solely on their busybody neighbors' unfounded hysteria?

Declaring ordinary people, law-abiding citizens, to be heretics because they do not share the zeal of adherents to the "green faith" is becoming more common -- and more serious. Already, green religionists have helped spread the propaganda of global warming as prophesied by Al Gore, encouraging industrial and trade policies that would hinder American industry in the name of saving the Earth. While Gore and his willing accomplices in both "science" and among the press have been jeered and opposed, this opposition is not enough. This front is not the battle that will win this war. This is because such campaigns are far more abstract, far less personal, far less real than is the war that the green religionists are waging on you as an individual. Such environmental cultists will not be satisfied until you either toe the line and sort your garbage, or you are made to suffer for believing and acting in opposition to their mandates.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Hating humans ~ By Patrice Lewis

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

Despite the fact that there are a number of deep ecologists I would happily consider pushing down a flight of stairs, I find humanity to be a joyous, splendid thing. No other species can dance ballet or play the fiddle or paint a landscape. No other species can heal its own as well as other species. No other species can worship and revere. No other species can care.

By Patrice Lewis

Posted: February 20, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

A few weeks ago, I clicked on an online article for what seemed like an interesting but innocuous subject: human parasites. The slide show led me through tapeworms, Rhinosporidiosis and Triatomine bugs. But I did a double take as I clicked on the last link and read the following:

But while we're on parasites: The big picture singles out us. We're a parasite of sorts. … Many of us are a burden on our "host," Planet Earth. Deep ecologists believe that all forms of life have an equal claim on existence. Humans are only a part of nature, and not necessarily the most significant part. Think about that for a bit.

After reading about blood flukes and African eye worms, this was such an unexpected twist of logic that I blinked in surprise and wondered if I'd accidentally clicked to a different page. But no, this writer apparently believes that humans are a parasitical species. (I won't link to the article because I don't want to attack the writer; I merely want to address the issue.) Additional research on the author led me to these statements:

Once you broaden your definition, you can label many things parasites. A lot of people ask me, "Do you think humans are parasites?" It's an interesting idea and one worth thinking about. People casually refer to humanity as a virus spreading across the earth. In fact, we do look like some strange kind of bio-film spreading across the landscape. … I think it's a pretty good metaphor. If the biosphere is our host, we do use it up for our own benefit. … I don't think there's anything all that bad about being called a parasite. Parasites are very sophisticated; parasites are highly evolved; parasites are very successful, as reflected in their diversity. In fact, I would say that we may be parasites, but we're not very good ones. Successful parasites do a very good job of balancing – using up their hosts and keeping them alive. It's all a question of tuning the adaptation to your particular host. In our case, we have only one host, so we have to be particularly careful.

What interesting logic. The earth is our "host," and we're parasites. By definition, a parasite is something that takes but doesn't give back. This is how deep ecologists view us.

To extend this reasoning to its logical conclusion, it would seem deep ecologists would prefer to do with humans what it's best to do with all parasites: either get rid of them, or at least reduce the population to a controllable level so as not to damage the host organism.

This made me wonder: Why do some people regard humanity with such loathing?

READ FULL STORY >

The Green Police take over ~ By Ben Shapiro

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

The left is crying out for a friendly tyranny, whether it springs from the holsters of the Green Police, the Food Police or the Obama administration. Whenever there is backlash against their agenda, their first solution is to dismiss the people. To that end, we the people are characterized as stupid, angry and easily manipulated. No doubt, we the people are stupid or angry or easily manipulated sometimes. But we are still the people. And we the people aren't made to be ruled by the iron fist of the know-it-all know-nothings who now occupy our nation's editorial boards and highest offices.

By Ben Shapiro

Posted: February 10, 2010 ~ 7:16 pm Eastern

© 2010

The most interesting element of the Super Bowl wasn't the Super Bowl. It was an advertisement for the Audi A3 TDI. The commercial depicted uniformed officials arresting Americans for, among other offenses, asking for plastic bags at the grocery, throwing away batteries, failing to compost an orange peel and installing incandescent light bulbs. "Green Police," announces one of the green-clad fascisti. "You picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy." Believe it or not, this wasn't a parody of environmentalism gone wacko – it was a celebration of it. The end of the commercial informed viewers that by driving the Audi A3, they could heal their souls: "Green has never felt so right."

Audi confirmed that the ad wasn't designed to undermine environmental radicalism. "The Green Police are a humorous group of individuals that have joined forces in an effort to collectively help guide consumers to make the right decision when it comes to the environment," explains the Audi website. "They're not here to judge, merely to guide these decisions." By "guide," Audi presumably means "punish."

This would be funny if it weren't frightening. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom twittered, "Ok … That 'green police' Audi commercial hits home." There's a reason it hits home – San Francisco currently requires that citizens compost their food waste. The punishment for violation? Up to a $500 fine for businesses. On a national scale, President Obama pledged in his State of the Union Address to pass "a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America." The actual results: punitive fines on carbon emissions, higher electric costs and lower standards of living.

READ FULL STORY >