Monday, April 27, 2009
afternoon of storms.. cold front from northwest running under warm air on top of us.... cool shots
notice the wind in the videos... I could hardly stand up to shot the last video... more photos online in picasa gallery.
I have seen this problem before but caused by other reasons...
Not positive but from my farming experience, there are two problems with this field of wheat. One is the very late freeze probably killing over half of the small crop that is here.. the evidence is the white heads, full of empty promises... nothing in the head at all...
and two, some of the worst farming I have ever witnessed! This field had not been worked in two years with the crop from two years ago left in the field due to all the summer rain we had, and then it was disked once and sowed to wheat, and then top dressed... anyone who knows farming in this area realizes you are inviting a disaster to happen, and sure enough, just as I predicted when it was sown, it is a field of Cheat! very little wheat at all... and if you look close you will see one of the best stands of wheat that I have ever witnessed on our land.
For those "city folks" .. haha... cheat is a very valuable crop to makers of cheap livestock feed. It has zero value in a ration, cost almost nothing, but is considered good fill in a grain mix.. to cheapen it up! To the wheat farmer, this is one of the last things you want in a field of wheat. It is a bad weed and grows very easily, especially when encouraged to. It gets its name because when it is ripe and is cut along with the wheat by the combine, it takes up space. Farmers are paid by the bushel for their grain. Wheat weighs an average of 60 lbs to the bushel... and cheat weighs about 18 to 22 lbs to the bushel... when the load of wheat from this field is taken to the elevator and dumped.. it is first checked to see how much "cheat" is in it.. in the old days they did not do this.. and the precentage of cheat in the wheat is deducted from the weight of the 60 pound bushel of wheat.. so if there is 10% cheat.. the farmer would have to give the buyer another 6.67 pounds of good wheat to make up for what they are cheated by the cheat!! As you can see this is a very costly weed especially to the wheat farmer.
It's not to easy to control but the first thing wheat farmers learn in wheat farming 101 is it can be controlled somewhat by proper farming practices, and now days chemicals can be applied to control it even more... the easiest and simplest way is to work the ground a couple of times after showers in the late summer and early fall, especially if not wanting to pasture the crop.
Oh well, I think I am writing this because I wanted to see if I could remember.. haha.. and I do..
so moving on..
have a great day!
s
Sunrise at Moffat Park, Stillwater, OK.
After an 1/2 inch of rain, and an afternoon and night of severe storms and tornados in OK, what a wonderful promise for a great day!Sunday, April 26, 2009
Rooms Availbable on a first come first serve basis...
only Purple Martins need to apply!
Moffat Park open for the Martins!
Moffat Park open for the Martins!Lookie who caught fish....... yesterday at our pond.....
Heather brought her kiddos over for a picnic and fishing at our pond yesterday along with Madison's friend Madison. Our friend Kristen joined them and they had a ball. Then they stopped by the house and visited with us and the kiddos played in "Moffat Park" for some time.
There are many more photos from their trip online at RedDirtDiaries.com, Heather's blog.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Norman Music Festival Downloads (and schedule)
(Click image for the full poster.)
Hundreds of musicians and tens of thousands of fans converge on downtown Norman this Saturday for the second edition of Norman Music Festival.
I will be there with Mrs. OklahomaRock. I hope to see many of your faces there as well. (This event is totally FREE!)
To get your ears ready, here’s some FREE mp3s from NMF 2009 artists:
DOWNLOADS:
Ali Harter - “Grandpa”
Crocodile - “August is Over”
Early Beat - “Maybe I Love You”
El Paso Hot Button - “Hot As Fuck”
The Gunship - “Lost”
Hush Hush Commotion - “The One That Got Away”
I Resign - “Indoctrination”
Jabee - “One”
Other Lives - “End Of The Year”
Psychotic Reaction - “Steppin’ Stone”
Rainbows Are Free - “Are You Dead?”
Stardeath And White Dwarfs - “Springtime In Martha Stewart’s Head”
Starlight Mints - “Pumpkin”
Student Film - “Whirling Dervish”
The Uglysuit - “…And We Became Sunshine”
After the jump, get your hour-by-hour band schedule, which should come in handy.
Oklahoma bands are in bold.
11am
Welcome the Silence @ Jägermeister Second Stage
Ford Chastain @ Sooner Theatre
Black Colt @ Studio 360 Stage
Popstar Karaoke @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
11:30am
Maggie McClure @ The Red Room
11:45am
Resident Funk @ Jägermeister Second Stage
11:55am
El Paso Hot Button @ Main Stage
Noon
Here is There @ Sooner Theatre
The Gunship @ The Opolis
Sooner Studio Kids @ The Little Rocker Stage
Susan Herndon @ Coaches Brewhouse
Supreme U-Gene @ Studio 360 Stage
Bungalouski @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
12:30pm
Traindodge @ The Red Room
The Nghiems @ Sonder Music
12:35pm
Camille Harp @ Jägermeister Second Stage
12:50pm
Student Film @ Main Stage
1pm
Lemma @ Sooner Theatre
Dead Sea Choir @ The Opolis
Buffalofitz @ The Little Rocker Stage
Richard Daddy Love @ Coaches Brewhouse
Mary Tyler Morphine @ Studio 360 Stage
Hollywood Homicide @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
1:15pm
Anthony Cavasos (comedian) @ The Red Room
1:30pm
Psychotic Reaction @ The Red Room
Perpetual Motion Modern Dance Oklahoma @ Sonder Music
1:40pm
The Lily Guild @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
1:45pm
The Absolute @ Main Stage
Blue Turtle Seduction @ Jägermeister Second Stage
2pm
Galapagos @ Sooner Theatre
Gentle Ghost @ The Opolis
Jahruba Drums @ The Little Rocker Stage
Meredith Meyer @ Coaches Brewhouse
I Resign @ Studio 360 Stage
Austin Hartel Dance Group @ Sonder Music
2:15pm
Spencer Hicks (comedian) @ The Red Room
2:30pm
Willie Vanilli @ The Red Room
Edgar Cruz @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
2:40pm
The Lee Boys @ Jägermeister Second Stage
2:45pm
Sherree Chamberlain @ Main Stage
3pm
Gabriel Marshall @ Sooner Theatre
Mayola @ The Opolis
Balcum Rancum Puppetry @ The Little Rocker Stage
Depth and Current @ Coaches Brewhouse
Matthew Hart @ Studio 360 Stage
Ivan Peña Trio @ Sonder Music
3:15pm
James Nghiem (comedian) @ The Red Room
3:30pm
Author Charles Martin (reading of The Dominant Hand) and Wayward Poets @ Winans Fine Chocolates & Coffees Stage
Stevedore @ The Red Room
3:40pm
Travis Linville @ Jägermeister Second Stage
3:45pm
Other Lives @ Main Stage
Glowbead @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
4pm
The Ike Lamb Band @ Sooner Theatre
Locust Avenue @ The Opolis
Various Young Musicians @ The Little Rocker Stage
Kristen Stehr @ Coaches Brewhouse
Puzzle People @ Studio 360 Stage
4:15pm
Leah Kayajanian (comedian) @ The Red Room
4:30pm
Ali Harter @ Winans Fine Chocolates & Coffees Stage
8bit Cynics @ The Red Room
4:45pm
Stardeath and White Dwarfs @ Main Stage
Brandon Jenkins @ Jägermeister Second Stage
5pm
Hush Hush Commotion @ Sooner Theatre
Penny Hill @ The Opolis
Sugar Free Allstars @ The Little Rocker Stage
The Workweek @ Coaches Brewhouse
Vandevander @ Studio 360 Stage
Proprietors of the Earth @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
5:15pm
Cameron Buchholtz (comedian) @ The Red Room
5:30pm
The Non @ The Red Room
6pm
Sugar and Gold @ Main Stage
Billy Joe Shaver @ Jägermeister Second Stage
Mama Sweet @ Sooner Theatre
Early Beat @ The Opolis
Michael Bendure @ Coaches Brewhouse
The Mean Spirits @ Studio 360 Stage
6:15pm
Rainbows are Free @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
Derek Smith (comedian) @ The Red Room
6:30pm
Jabee @ The Red Room
7pm
The Uglysuit @ Sooner Theatre
The Separation @ The Opolis
John Fullbright @ Coaches Brewhouse
Zébre @ Studio 360 Stage
7:15pm
BradChad Porter (comedian) @ The Red Room
7:30pm
Man Man @ Main Stage
Todd Snider @ Jägermeister Second Stage
Love Is A Story @ The Red Room
Dorian Small @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
8pm
Crocodile @ The Opolis
Pretty Black Chains @ Coaches Brewhouse
9pm
Starlight Mints @ Main Stage
Tea Leaf Green @ Jägermeister Second Stage
10:30pm
Of Montreal @ Main Stage
11pm
DJ Rent @ Dreamers Concepts Stage
VIDEO: Other Lives - “AM Theme”
Here’s Other Lives‘ music video for “AM Theme”.
The song appears on the band’s full-length, self-titled debut.
Monday, April 20, 2009
A note from Missy this afternoon... and oh my God...
Her photos....
look at the photos... sigh.. are we in the Ozarks??? hehe....
Her note:
Hi Stanley,
Craig took these the other day. I let the horses out around the house a lot, but this is the first time Pawnee ever got on the porch. It was almost a disaster but kind of a long story so I'll tell you at Clicks.....soon!
look at the photos... sigh.. are we in the Ozarks??? hehe....
Her note:
Hi Stanley,
Craig took these the other day. I let the horses out around the house a lot, but this is the first time Pawnee ever got on the porch. It was almost a disaster but kind of a long story so I'll tell you at Clicks.....soon!
Susan Boyle
FAIRYTALE ENDING By MAUREEN CALLAHAN
April 18, 2009 -- By now at least 30 million people worldwide (roughly the same number who view the Oscars, or the Super Bowl) have watched an extraordinary clip from a popular UK show called "Britain's Got Talent." A dowdy, 47-year-old virgin named Susan Boyle takes the stage, wearing her low heels and her Sunday best. The crowd laughs at her, and Boyle - how devastating - laughs along. She says she wants to be a professional singer; people laugh harder and louder. They point. It's grammar school and the Roman coliseum combined. Simon Cowell - panelist and show creator - rolls his eyes. And then Susan Boyle sings.
In the past five days, Susan Boyle has been invited to appear on Oprah, interviewed on all three network morning shows and covered by news outlets all over the world - many of which have descended on her hamlet, where she lives alone with her cat, Pebbles. She is the favorite to win the competition and it's likely she'll sing for the Queen. Cowell will probably sign her to his record label.
But there is something disturbing about the collective rejection-embrace-elevation of Susan Boyle. There is the element of self-congratulation in the viral spread of this link around the Web, the idea that we, the secondary viewers, the judges of those who are judging, are far more evolved. There is the clip itself, suspiciously ready-made for online consumption: A 7-minute movie, slick and pithy in its perfect execution of the underdog narrative. (That something like "Rocky" took two hours to tell now seems antediluvian.) There is the classic David vs. Goliath subplot, the primal satisfaction of seeing the bully (Cowell) slain by such a seemingly inferior force. And there is the profound desire for this entire thing to be authentic, which in and of itself suggests that it probably isn't. Not since P.T. Barnum has there been a show business master of the trompe l'oeil like Simon Cowell.
This isn't to suggest that Boyle herself is a hoax (though she does seem a bit too comfortable on that stage, parrying with Cowell, to be a complete naif). But the notion that Cowell was unaware of Boyle's existence, let alone discordant looks and talent level, before she ever took the stage, is flatly ridiculous. And the song Boyle chose - if she, in fact, chose it - so seamlessly provides the meta-narrative that it's easy to miss how calculated it is. From "Les Misérables" ("the miserable," the way we are meant to perceive Boyle), she sings "I Dreamed a Dream." Boyle opens on the second stanza: "I dreamed a dream in time gone by/When hope was high/And life worth living." In "Les Misérables," it's sung by a lonely, unemployed character on the fringes - just like Boyle, who sang with the undignified descriptor "unemployed, 47" slung across the bottom of the screen.
In a week that saw a good chunk of the nation losing its mind for days over the presidential puppy (just how bad are things?), it seems cynical, churlish even, to speculate about the machinations behind this phenomenon. But it remains true that this clip, and Boyle's rendition, would not be so compelling without the contradictions: the beautiful voice possessed by this defiantly unglamorous woman, who can somehow fully inhabit and interpret a love song without ever having been in love.
Most disturbing of all, perhaps, is that not since Saturday has Susan Boyle been Susan Boyle. It's a permutation of the Heisenberg principle: That 30 million people have heard her, seen her, embraced her has already changed who she is. The shy churchgoer who said that her recently deceased mother encouraged her to "take the risk," who admitted in her audition that she has never been kissed, who has forever lived as something of an accidental outcast - she now seems too much of this world. "I've been for a meeting with Sony BMG, but I can't say much about it," she said this week. "It's early days." Susan Boyle is now one of us. And that is really a shame.
April 18, 2009 -- By now at least 30 million people worldwide (roughly the same number who view the Oscars, or the Super Bowl) have watched an extraordinary clip from a popular UK show called "Britain's Got Talent." A dowdy, 47-year-old virgin named Susan Boyle takes the stage, wearing her low heels and her Sunday best. The crowd laughs at her, and Boyle - how devastating - laughs along. She says she wants to be a professional singer; people laugh harder and louder. They point. It's grammar school and the Roman coliseum combined. Simon Cowell - panelist and show creator - rolls his eyes. And then Susan Boyle sings.
In the past five days, Susan Boyle has been invited to appear on Oprah, interviewed on all three network morning shows and covered by news outlets all over the world - many of which have descended on her hamlet, where she lives alone with her cat, Pebbles. She is the favorite to win the competition and it's likely she'll sing for the Queen. Cowell will probably sign her to his record label.
But there is something disturbing about the collective rejection-embrace-elevation of Susan Boyle. There is the element of self-congratulation in the viral spread of this link around the Web, the idea that we, the secondary viewers, the judges of those who are judging, are far more evolved. There is the clip itself, suspiciously ready-made for online consumption: A 7-minute movie, slick and pithy in its perfect execution of the underdog narrative. (That something like "Rocky" took two hours to tell now seems antediluvian.) There is the classic David vs. Goliath subplot, the primal satisfaction of seeing the bully (Cowell) slain by such a seemingly inferior force. And there is the profound desire for this entire thing to be authentic, which in and of itself suggests that it probably isn't. Not since P.T. Barnum has there been a show business master of the trompe l'oeil like Simon Cowell.
This isn't to suggest that Boyle herself is a hoax (though she does seem a bit too comfortable on that stage, parrying with Cowell, to be a complete naif). But the notion that Cowell was unaware of Boyle's existence, let alone discordant looks and talent level, before she ever took the stage, is flatly ridiculous. And the song Boyle chose - if she, in fact, chose it - so seamlessly provides the meta-narrative that it's easy to miss how calculated it is. From "Les Misérables" ("the miserable," the way we are meant to perceive Boyle), she sings "I Dreamed a Dream." Boyle opens on the second stanza: "I dreamed a dream in time gone by/When hope was high/And life worth living." In "Les Misérables," it's sung by a lonely, unemployed character on the fringes - just like Boyle, who sang with the undignified descriptor "unemployed, 47" slung across the bottom of the screen.
In a week that saw a good chunk of the nation losing its mind for days over the presidential puppy (just how bad are things?), it seems cynical, churlish even, to speculate about the machinations behind this phenomenon. But it remains true that this clip, and Boyle's rendition, would not be so compelling without the contradictions: the beautiful voice possessed by this defiantly unglamorous woman, who can somehow fully inhabit and interpret a love song without ever having been in love.
Most disturbing of all, perhaps, is that not since Saturday has Susan Boyle been Susan Boyle. It's a permutation of the Heisenberg principle: That 30 million people have heard her, seen her, embraced her has already changed who she is. The shy churchgoer who said that her recently deceased mother encouraged her to "take the risk," who admitted in her audition that she has never been kissed, who has forever lived as something of an accidental outcast - she now seems too much of this world. "I've been for a meeting with Sony BMG, but I can't say much about it," she said this week. "It's early days." Susan Boyle is now one of us. And that is really a shame.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
We just learned that Jackie "Jack" Hayes died. More later..
Patriotic Quilt Contest & Exhibits
Benefit Wounded Soldiers
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jack Hayes, 405-341-8193, 2601 Portofino Pl, Edmond, Judy Howard, 405-751-3885, BuckboardQuilts@cox.net
Re: Wounded Vietnam Veteran Honored with American Eagle Quilt on His Birthday
Setting up a cannon to defend an airstrip, Edmond resident Jack Hayes turned around to return fire when North Vietnam Regulars burst out of the rubber trees twenty yards away shooting. A K47 bullet pierced Jack’s stomach and exited through his back. The Medvac airlifted him to the Saigon Field Hospital where they immediately honored Jack with a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and V for valor, not expecting him to live.
Only by God’s grace did Jack survive that injury that fractured his back along with the Agent Orange that poisoned his organs. Forty-one years later after undergoing thirty-five major abdominal operations to remove his stomach, appendix, pancreas, abdomen and gall bladder, Jack nonetheless radiates the joy of the Lord and praises him each morning for the blessing of life.
For his birthday October 17th, Jack received a replica of a Civil War American eagle quilt top with olive branch in its beak that Kristen Chenoweth’s great-great-great grandmother Mary made for her soldier son Benjamin Franklin in 1862. Benjamin brought that eagle quilt top in a covered wagon in the Land Run of 1889 to homestead in Hinton Indian Territory where it was quilted.
That Civil War eagle quilt now adorns the cover of Oklahoma Heritage Quilts book and is featured in Centennial Stitches—Oklahoma History in Quilts. A smaller version of the quilt is featured in Buckboard Quilt’s God Bless America Quilt exhibit that is touring the U.S. for three years with all profits from the $100 rental fees going to provide quilts for wounded soldiers like Jack. See patriotic quilt exhibit photos and rental information on www.HeavenlyPatchwork.com
“How do I love America? Let me quilt the ways” is the theme of Buckboard Quilts "God Bless America 22” Quilt Contest for children and adults. All quilts will tour the U.S.A. in several exhibits for three years to unify and support our great nation.
These pictorial quilts capture the essence of “America the Beautiful”,
Stars and Stripes Forever" by paying tribute to our American Heroes, Troops, Presidents and depicting “Liberty and Justice for All,” or expressing flag-waving loyalty to our “One Nation Under God.”
With your help, we can blanket the nation with patriotic fervor and love of God and Country in these troubled times.
All profits from the $100/week-end rental fee and possible publication of the quilts go to provide quilts for wounded soldiers— those most in need of the touch of love that quilts represent. See www.HeavenlyPatchwork.com/centennial for photos, entry forms, rental contracts and updates. Reserve your exhibit today by emailing BuckboardQuilts@cox.net or calling Judy Howard at 405-751-3885.
Please mail each quilt to 12101 N. MacArthur, #137, Oklahoma City, OK 73162, preferably to arrive by March 26. Quilts will be accepted through December, 2008 for touring. , “cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the U.S.A.”
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Posted 04/15/2009 ET
Updated 04/15/2009 ET
Updated 04/15/2009 ET
I had no idea how important this week's nationwide anti-tax tea parties were until hearing liberals denounce them with such ferocity. The New York Times' Paul Krugman wrote a column attacking the tea parties, apologizing for making fun of "crazy people." It's OK, Paul, you're allowed to do that for the same reason Jews can make fun of Jews.
On MSNBC, hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have been tittering over the similarity of the name "tea parties" to an obscure homosexual sexual practice known as "tea bagging." Night after night, they sneer at Republicans for being so stupid as to call their rallies "tea bagging."
Every host on Air America and every unbathed, basement-dwelling loser on the left wing blogosphere has spent the last week making jokes about tea bagging, a practice they show a surprising degree of familiarity with.
Except no one is calling the tea parties "tea bagging" -- except Olbermann and Maddow. Republicans call them "tea parties."
But if the Republicans were calling them "tea-bagging parties," the MSNBC hosts would have a fantastically hilarious segment for viewers in San Francisco and the West Village and not anyplace else in the rest of the country. On the other hand, they're not called "tea-bagging parties." (That, of course refers to the cocktail hour at Barney Frank's condo in Georgetown.)
You know what else would be hilarious? It would be hilarious if Hillary Clinton's name were "Ima Douche." Unfortunately, it's not. It was just a dream. Most people would wake up, realize it was just a dream and scrap the joke. Not MSNBC hosts.
The point of the tea parties is to note the fact that the Democrats' modus operandi is to lead voters to believe they are no more likely to raise taxes than Republicans, get elected and immediately raise taxes.
Apparently, the people who actually pay taxes consider this a bad idea.
Obama's biggest shortcoming is that he believes the things believed by all Democrats, which have had devastating consequences every time they are put into effect. Among these is the Democrats' admiration for raising taxes on the productive.
All Democrats for the last 30 years have tried to stimulate the economy by giving "tax cuts" to people who don't pay taxes. Evidently, offering to expand welfare payments isn't a big vote-getter.
Even Bush had a "stimulus" bill that sent government checks to lots of people last year. Guess what happened? It didn't stimulate the economy. Obama's stimulus bill is the mother of all pork bills for friends of O and of Congressional Democrats. ("O" stands for Obama, not Oprah, but there's probably a lot of overlap.)
And all that government spending on the Democrats' constituents will be paid for by raising taxes on the productive.
Raise taxes and the productive will work less, adopt tax shelters, barter instead of sell, turn to an underground economy -- and the government will get less money.
The perfect bar bet with a liberal would be to wager that massive government deficits in the '80s were not caused by Reagan's tax cuts. If you casually mentioned that you thought Reagan's tax cuts brought in more revenue to the government -- which they did -- you could get odds in Hollywood and Manhattan. (This became a less attractive wager in New York this week after Gov. David Paterson announced his new plan to tax bar bets.)
The lie at the heart of liberals' mantra on taxes -- "tax increases only for the rich" -- is the ineluctable fact that unless taxes are raised across the board, the government won't get its money to fund layers and layers of useless government bureaucrats, none of whom can possibly be laid off.
How much would you have to raise taxes before any of Obama's constituents noticed? They don't pay taxes, they engage in "tax-reduction" strategies, they work for the government, or they're too rich to care. (Or they have off-shore tax shelters, like George Soros.)
California tried the Obama soak-the-productive "stimulus" plan years ago and was hailed as the perfect exemplar of Democratic governance.
In June 2002, the liberal American Prospect magazine called California a "laboratory" for Democratic policies, noting that "California is the only one of the nation's 10 largest states that is uniformly under Democratic control."
They said this, mind you, as if it were a good thing. In California, the article proclaimed, "the next new deal is in tryouts." As they say in show biz: "Thanks, we'll call you. Next!"
In just a few years, Democrats had turned California into a state -- or as it's now known, a "job-free zone" -- with a $41 billion deficit, a credit rating that was slashed to junk-bond status and a middle class now located in Arizona.
Democrats governed California the way Democrats always govern. They bought the votes of government workers with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries and benefits -- and then turned around and accused the productive class of "greed" for wanting not to have their taxes raised through the roof.
Having run out of things to tax, now the California legislature is considering a tax on taxes. Seriously. The only way out now for California is a tax on Botox and steroids. Sure, the governor will protest, but it is the best solution ...
California was, in fact, a laboratory of Democratic policies. The rabbit died, so now Obama is trying it on a national level.
That's what the tea parties are about.
On MSNBC, hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have been tittering over the similarity of the name "tea parties" to an obscure homosexual sexual practice known as "tea bagging." Night after night, they sneer at Republicans for being so stupid as to call their rallies "tea bagging."
Every host on Air America and every unbathed, basement-dwelling loser on the left wing blogosphere has spent the last week making jokes about tea bagging, a practice they show a surprising degree of familiarity with.
Except no one is calling the tea parties "tea bagging" -- except Olbermann and Maddow. Republicans call them "tea parties."
But if the Republicans were calling them "tea-bagging parties," the MSNBC hosts would have a fantastically hilarious segment for viewers in San Francisco and the West Village and not anyplace else in the rest of the country. On the other hand, they're not called "tea-bagging parties." (That, of course refers to the cocktail hour at Barney Frank's condo in Georgetown.)
You know what else would be hilarious? It would be hilarious if Hillary Clinton's name were "Ima Douche." Unfortunately, it's not. It was just a dream. Most people would wake up, realize it was just a dream and scrap the joke. Not MSNBC hosts.
The point of the tea parties is to note the fact that the Democrats' modus operandi is to lead voters to believe they are no more likely to raise taxes than Republicans, get elected and immediately raise taxes.
Apparently, the people who actually pay taxes consider this a bad idea.
Obama's biggest shortcoming is that he believes the things believed by all Democrats, which have had devastating consequences every time they are put into effect. Among these is the Democrats' admiration for raising taxes on the productive.
All Democrats for the last 30 years have tried to stimulate the economy by giving "tax cuts" to people who don't pay taxes. Evidently, offering to expand welfare payments isn't a big vote-getter.
Even Bush had a "stimulus" bill that sent government checks to lots of people last year. Guess what happened? It didn't stimulate the economy. Obama's stimulus bill is the mother of all pork bills for friends of O and of Congressional Democrats. ("O" stands for Obama, not Oprah, but there's probably a lot of overlap.)
And all that government spending on the Democrats' constituents will be paid for by raising taxes on the productive.
Raise taxes and the productive will work less, adopt tax shelters, barter instead of sell, turn to an underground economy -- and the government will get less money.
The perfect bar bet with a liberal would be to wager that massive government deficits in the '80s were not caused by Reagan's tax cuts. If you casually mentioned that you thought Reagan's tax cuts brought in more revenue to the government -- which they did -- you could get odds in Hollywood and Manhattan. (This became a less attractive wager in New York this week after Gov. David Paterson announced his new plan to tax bar bets.)
The lie at the heart of liberals' mantra on taxes -- "tax increases only for the rich" -- is the ineluctable fact that unless taxes are raised across the board, the government won't get its money to fund layers and layers of useless government bureaucrats, none of whom can possibly be laid off.
How much would you have to raise taxes before any of Obama's constituents noticed? They don't pay taxes, they engage in "tax-reduction" strategies, they work for the government, or they're too rich to care. (Or they have off-shore tax shelters, like George Soros.)
California tried the Obama soak-the-productive "stimulus" plan years ago and was hailed as the perfect exemplar of Democratic governance.
In June 2002, the liberal American Prospect magazine called California a "laboratory" for Democratic policies, noting that "California is the only one of the nation's 10 largest states that is uniformly under Democratic control."
They said this, mind you, as if it were a good thing. In California, the article proclaimed, "the next new deal is in tryouts." As they say in show biz: "Thanks, we'll call you. Next!"
In just a few years, Democrats had turned California into a state -- or as it's now known, a "job-free zone" -- with a $41 billion deficit, a credit rating that was slashed to junk-bond status and a middle class now located in Arizona.
Democrats governed California the way Democrats always govern. They bought the votes of government workers with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries and benefits -- and then turned around and accused the productive class of "greed" for wanting not to have their taxes raised through the roof.
Having run out of things to tax, now the California legislature is considering a tax on taxes. Seriously. The only way out now for California is a tax on Botox and steroids. Sure, the governor will protest, but it is the best solution ...
California was, in fact, a laboratory of Democratic policies. The rabbit died, so now Obama is trying it on a national level.
That's what the tea parties are about.
| Ann Coulter |
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