Austyn's guiter teacher showed up

at studio to give a lesson to one of our signed artist with parking ticket on windshield...

from Trisha

from Trisha - she went to Red Cross

fund raiser at Tumbleweeds last night

Fallen treasure in our own backyard...

Happy Birthday Randi....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDI....


AND MANY MANY MORE...

WE LOVE YA....

ANN AND STAN

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY....

Opinion

Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic

By Gabor Steingart

AFP

President Barack Obama's Tuesday speech left a bad taste in many mouths.

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool.

One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearingObama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.

Just in Time for the Campaign

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.

The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the "world's great religions." He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai -- a government which he said was "corrupt." The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But "America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars," he added.

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

Obama's Magic No Longer Works

But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama's magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.

It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives -- their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.

Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners -- particularly those with a talent for oration -- are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called "Hope."

In his speech on America's new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.

The American president doesn't need any opponents at the moment. He's already got himself.

To realize the value of a sister/brother,

                  Ask someone who doesn't have one.

To realize the value of ten years:

                  Ask a newly divorced couple.

To realize the value of four years:

                   Ask a graduate.

To realize the value of one year:

                    Ask a student who has failed a final exam.

To realize the value of nine months:

                    Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize the value of two months:

                    Ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of one week:

                    Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

 To realize the value of one minute:

                    Ask a person who has missed the train, bus or plane.

 To realize the value of one-second:

                   

  Ask a person who has survived an accident.

 To realize the value of a day:

 Try missing one!

To realize the value of a friend or family member:

                    LOSE ONE.

"The last suit that you wear, you don't need any pockets."
— Wayne Dyer: Self-development author and speaker

WRONG FROM THE START: TOP 10 OUTRAGEOUS CLAIMS ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS’ TRILLION-DOLLAR ‘STIMULUS’ WASHINGTON DEMS HEAD INTO TOMORROW’S “JOBS SUMMIT” WITH A SERIOUS CREDIBILITY PROBLEM

December 2, 2009 | House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) | Permalink The White House will convene a “jobs summit” tomorrow against a backdrop of rising unemployment, soaring debt, and declining public confidence in the Obama Administration’s economic program.  Washington Democrats staked their credibility on a nearly trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ that was supposed to be about putting people back to work, but has instead produced countless examples of wasteful government spending while more than three million Americans have lost their jobs.  Even the accounting methods designed to keep track of ‘stimulus’ dollars have been widely discredited.  Given the last 11 months of outrageous ‘stimulus’ claims, the American people are right to wonder whether Washington Democrats can be trusted to create jobs and cut the deficit:  1. UNEMPLOYMENT "AT EIGHT PERCENT OR BELOW" CLAIM: “Just 10 days before taking office, Obama’s top economic advisers [Christina Romer & Jared Bernstein] released a report predicting unemployment would remain at eight percent or below through this year if an economic stimulus plan won congressional approval.” (Associated Press, 6/14/09) FACT: The nation’s unemployment rate now stands at 10.2 percent.  The President and several members of his economic team explicitly stated that the ‘stimulus’ was needed to avert double-digit unemployment. 2. IMPACT FELT "IMMEDIATELY" CLAIM: “Q: If the president gets his way and gets this package approved, he signs it into law, how soon before -- the American public starts to feel results, the creation of jobs?  NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR LAWRENCE SUMMERS: You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately.” (CNN, 2/9/09)  FACT: The U.S. economy has lost more than three million jobs since the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ became law.  One House Democrat this week referred to the ‘stimulus’ as the “jobless American Recovery Act.”  A recent survey found that fewer than one in ten Americans believe the ‘stimulus’ has helped create jobs.  3. "90 PERCENT ... PRIVATE SECTOR" CLAIM: “More than 90 percent of the jobs created by this plan will be in the private sector.” –President Obama (News conference, 2/9/09)  FACT: “Although President Obama initially said that 90 percent of the jobs created by the stimulus program would be in the private sector, the data suggests that well over half of the jobs claimed so far have been in the public sector.” (The New York Times, 11/4/09)  4. "NO EARMARKS OR PET PROJECTS" CLAIM: “There will be no earmarks or pet projects in this bill.” –House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Floor statement, 2/13/09)  FACT: The trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ has produced countless examples of wasteful government spending, including repairs to a bridge that reportedly carries about 260 cars per day, many to a place called Rusty’s Backwater Saloon in Wisconsin, and in North Carolina, where ‘stimulus’ funds were reportedly used by one town to hire a new worker whose job is to apply for more ‘stimulus’ funds from Washington.  5. "A VERY FISCALLY SOUND PACKAGE" CLAIM: “We must make sure the public understands this is a very fiscally sound package.” –Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Talk Radio News Service, 3/10/09)  FACT: With the help of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus,’ the Obama Administration spent more in its first 100 days than all previous presidents have combined.  The national debt has topped $12 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.  The federal government is now operating on a budget that doubles the national debt in five years and triples it in ten.  6. "A LOT MORE JOBS CREATED" CLAIM: “The second hundred days you’re going to see a lot more jobs created.” –Vice President Joe Biden (ABC’s This Week, 7/5/09) FACT: The U.S. economy lost roughly 930,000 jobs in June, July, and August.  It was during this period that the President proclaimed he could “see a light at the end of the tunnel.”  7. "A LOT MORE AMMUNITION LEFT"  CLAIM: “There is a lot more ammunition left in the stimulus package.” –Jared Bernstein, the Vice President's chief economist (CNNMoney.com, 10/30/09)  FACT: “The government’s economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won’t contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday.” (Associated Press, 10/22/09)  “An interesting tidbit from Dr. Christina Romer’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee.  Citing economic analysts she says the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009. (Editor’s note – those quarters are now behind us).” (ABC News, 10/22/09) 8. MORE WORK, NOT MORE JOBS CLAIM: “I think we got the Recovery Act right. … It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that’s not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work.” –National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers (The Washington Post, 11/8/09)  FACT: The Obama Administration’s attempt to suddenly make job creation seem like a lesser goal of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ flies in the face of numerous public statements made in the days before the bill was passed, including the President’s statement that creating jobs was his “bottom-line number one.” 9. RAISES SAVE JOBS  CLAIM: “If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job.” –Department of Health and Human Services spokesman (Associated Press, 11/4/09)  FACT: This is one of several attempts by the Obama Administration to define a job “saved or created” by the ‘stimulus.’  In this particular case, the AP found “more than 9,300 existing employees in more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren’t saved.”  In a newly released report, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office states that “it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.”  10. "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN WASTEFUL SPENDING"  CLAIM: “We’ve been in business seven, eight months. You haven’t seen wasteful spending. No one has said we spent $2 million on things that didn’t exist.” –Vice President Joe Biden (The Daily Show, 11/17/09)  FACT: “Stimulus jobs reported in non-existent congressional districts. … Of all the problems found in the latest round of stimulus reporting, add another one: congressional districts that don’t exist.  ABC News reported yesterday that White House officials have found 700 mistakenly credited congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/18/09)  “The reports on jobs created or saved by the $787 billion economic stimulus package are ‘riddled with inaccuracies and contradictions,’ the federal watchdog overseeing the spending acknowledged Thursday.” (USA TODAY, 11/19/09)  BONUS. REPUBLICAN SOLUTIONS CLAIM: “Vice President Biden offered an impassioned defense of the Obama administration’s policies on the economy, health care, and energy this morning… He chastised administration opponents for not offering alternatives to solve the problems of the nation.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/23/09)  FACT: “House Republicans Press Obama on Job Creation.  House Republicans sent a letter to President Barack Obama today, pushing the administration to seek more business tax breaks as a way to boost the number of new jobs. … Republicans say in their letter that they’re hoping to work with the White House toward a bipartisan jobs plan.” (WSJ Washington Wire, 10/7/09)  The proposals contained in the October letter, some of which were presented to President Obama as early as his first week in office, were developed by House Republicans' Economic Recovery and Health Care solutions groups.  Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), who heads up the Economic Recovery Solutions Group, will discuss additional proposals to spur job creation in a speech today at the Heritage Foundation.

Heather and Paul gave us these two Bradford Pear trees for Mom for Mothers Day years ago... and wow, wow wow.. the gift that keeps on giving...

What's this in our front yard... several others too....

How my day started... not sure who was in ambulance...

http://MoffatFamilyBlog.dotphoto.com


dotphoto has more photos.... 


quit a bit of excitement for the neighborhood...  had many neighbors stopping and checking on me..  but alas .. twas not me... 


here is movie of it taking off to Tulsa...   the old field was a landing strip for a few more minutes.. like in it's past... 

Andrew Paul with his Dad's record book Buck....

Grandma Ann got a neat note today from.....

Grandma received a note through my email from a dear friend of hers from days gone by, but as many know... she is a military brat...   so here is a piece of the note...

"Stan,

   We have never met, but I went to school with Ann, David, and Ward and knew Mike in Germany. I hope you will say hi to her and them all from me.  I  just wanted to tell  everyone  Happy Thanksgiving.

Best Wishes,

Darian Sutton Daries"

How great it is to find out friends from the days of yore... still remember... and how sad memories sometime fade when not intended...  but thank God for the fresh start that comes with each day...

and to Darian, thank you for getting in touch, we hope your holiday of Thanksgiving was very wonderful with many great memories created, and tummies full.... and now the excitement of the most joyous season of all, Christmas, is fast arriving... so Merry Christmas to you all... may your Christmas be full of cheer and wonderment in celebrating the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Stan and Ann

If you received a music cd from Great Grandma with songs of Bob Duke...

Great Grandma asks you to please send a note thanking Bob for recording those songs for us. It is an honor to have those songs in his voice... He has sang with most of the famous quartets and in most southern gospel and gospel acts of the day and is still singing his praises to God...  He was a personal friend of Albert Brumley and his son... "I'll Fly Away", "Turn Your Radio On", "I'll Meet You In The Morning", "He Set Me Free" are among a host of favorites written by Albert E. Brumley. He wrote over 800 songs. 

His address is

Mr. Bob Duke
1423 Cedar Drive
Stillwater, OK 74074

Great Grandma thanks you very much for doing this..

7 stories Obama doesn't want told By: John F. Harris  November 30, 2009 05:45 AM EST

Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds. No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008 election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. The pro-Obama narrative featured an almost mystically talented young idealist who stood for change in a disciplined and thoughtful way. This easily outpowered the anti-Obama narrative, featuring an opportunistic Chicago pol with dubious relationships who was more liberal than he was letting on. A year into his presidency, however, Obama’s gift for controlling his image shows signs of faltering. As Washington returns to work from the Thanksgiving holiday, there are several anti-Obama storylines gaining momentum. The Obama White House argues that all of these storylines are inaccurate or unfair. In some cases these anti-Obama narratives are fanned by Republicans, in some cases by reporters and commentators. But they all are serious threats to Obama, if they gain enough currency to become the dominant frame through which people interpret the president’s actions and motives. Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about: He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money Economists and business leaders from across the ideological spectrum were urging the new president on last winter when he signed onto more than a trillion in stimulus spending and bank and auto bailouts during his first weeks in office. Many, though far from all, of these same people now agree that these actions helped avert an even worse financial catastrophe. Along the way, however, it is clear Obama underestimated the political consequences that flow from the perception that he is a profligate spender. He also misjudged the anger in middle America about bailouts with weak and sporadic public explanations of why he believed they were necessary. The flight of independents away from Democrats last summer — the trend that recently hammered Democrats in off-year elections in Virginia — coincided with what polls show was alarm among these voters about undisciplined big government and runaway spending. The likely passage of a health care reform package criticized as weak on cost-control will compound the problem. Obama understands the political peril, and his team is signaling that he will use the 2010 State of the Union address to emphasize fiscal discipline. The political challenge, however, is an even bigger substantive challenge—since the most convincing way to project fiscal discipline would be actually to impose spending reductions that would cramp his own agenda and that of congressional Democrats. Too much Leonard Nimoy People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.” The reality, however, is that Clinton’s dozen years as governor before becoming president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions — he viewed them in terms of actual people he knew by name. Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles. Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He’ll announce the results on Tuesday. The speech’s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the name of nuance. That’s the Chicago Way This is a storyline that’s likely taken root more firmly in Washington than around the country. The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by brass-knuckled pols. It does not help that many West Wing aides seem to relish an image of themselves as shrewd, brass-knuckled political types. In a Washington Post story this month, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, referring to most of Obama’s team, said, “We are all campaign hacks.” The problem is that many voters took Obama seriously in 2008 when he talked about wanting to create a more reasoned, non-partisan style of governance in Washington. When Republicans showed scant interest in cooperating with Obama at the start, the Obama West Wing gladly reverted to campaign hack mode. The examples of Chicago-style politics include their delight in public battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (There was also a semi-public campaign of leaks aimed at Greg Craig, the White House counsel who fell out of favor.) In private, the Obama team cut an early deal — to the distaste of many congressional Democrats — that gave favorable terms to the pharmaceutical lobby in exchange for their backing his health care plans. The lesson that many Washington insiders have drawn is that Obama wants to buy off the people he can and bowl over those he can’t. If that perception spreads beyond Washington this will scuff Obama’s brand as a new style of political leader. He’s a pushover If you are going to be known as a fighter, you might as well reap the benefits. But some of the same insider circles that are starting to view Obama as a bully are also starting to whisper that he’s a patsy. It seems a bit contradictory, to be sure. But it’s a perception that began when Obama several times laid down lines — then let people cross them with seeming impunity. Last summer he told Democrats they better not go home for recess until a critical health care vote but they blew him off. He told the Israeli government he wanted a freeze in settlements but no one took him seriously. Even Fox News — which his aides prominently said should not be treated like a real news organization — then got interview time for its White House correspondent. In truth, most of these episodes do not amount to much. But this unflattering storyline would take a more serious turn if Obama is seen as unable to deliver on his stern warnings in the escalating conflict with Iran over its nuclear program. He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe That line belonged to George H.W. Bush, excoriating Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. But it highlights a continuing reality: In presidential politics the safe ground has always been to be an American exceptionalist. Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country — because of its power and/or the hand of Providence — should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world. On this score, the reviews of Obama’s recent Asia trip were harsh. His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications. On the left, the budding storyline is that Obama has retreated from human rights in the name of cynical realism. On the right, it is that he is more interested in being President of the World than President of the United States, a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize and then in Copenhagen for an international summit on curbing greenhouse gases. President Pelosi No figure in Barack Obama’s Washington, including Obama, has had more success in advancing his will than the speaker of the House, despite public approval ratings that hover in the range of Dick Cheney’s. With a mix of tough party discipline and shrewd vote-counting, she passed a version of the stimulus bill largely written by congressional Democrats, passed climate legislation, and passed her chamber’s version of health care reform. She and anti-war liberals in her caucus are clearly affecting the White House’s Afghanistan calculations. The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude — as some already have — that Pelosi’s achievements are more impressive than Obama’s or come at his expense. This conclusion seems premature, especially with the final chapter of the health care drama yet to be written. But it is clear that Obama has allowed the speaker to become more nearly an equal — and far from a subordinate — than many of his predecessors of both parties would have thought wise. He’s in love with the man in the mirror No one becomes president without a fair share of what the French call amour propre. Does Obama have more than his share of self-regard? It’s a common theme of Washington buzz that Obama is over-exposed. He gives interviews on his sports obsessions to ESPN, cracks wise with Leno and Letterman, discusses his fitness with Men’s Health, discusses his marriage in a joint interview with first lady Michelle Obama for The New York Times. A photo the other day caught him leaving the White House clutching a copy of GQ featuring himself. White House aides say making Obama widely available is the right strategy for communicating with Americans in an era of highly fragmented media. But, as the novelty of a new president wears off, the Obama cult of personality risks coming off as mere vanity unless it is harnessed to tangible achievements. That is why the next couple of months — with health care and Afghanistan jostling at center stage — will likely carry a long echo. Obama’s best hope of nipping bad storylines is to replace them with good ones rooted in public perceptions of his effectiveness.

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC

Happy Birthday Dylan Scott Moffat....

A short three years ago, you were held entirely in the hands of Mom and Dad... now you are sitting on your Dad's lap.

The world is yours for the taking...  My how you have grown!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DYLAN AND MANY MANY MORE...

WE LOVE YOU....


GRANDMA AND GRANDPA MOFFAT

Austyn blowing out his candles ... all 10... Happy Birthday, Austyn

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Paul ... got'er dun!

Yelp.. this is one happy camper...

Congrat's Paul...  way to go!

from Trisha

what an amazing night...

We celebrated Phillip's big 40th birthday and Ann and I's 37th anniversary.
Tammy made some awesome bread and some wonderful lasagna ummmmm good....
Thank you Tammy

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Look what flew overhead while I was walking today..

Renters...

humm.......















outside of the skips in the field... bunches, and the volunteer wheat and tons of Cheat coming up.....

I think there is a weee bit of Wheat coming up too...
but come harvest time.. there will be a field full of cheat that no one will want to buy... and it will be yet another year wasted...

Shame they don't slow down and do it right. I bet Dad is having a fit right now looking down from on high at how bad these boys farm!!

oh well, another day ....

if you see the pretty green in this picture all over the field, you see all the problems.. should be a brown field trying light colored with dirt in-between the rows and easily see the wheat in the ROW... that's all.... and no skips in between rows...

the ole hangie downie tree looks cool, even in fall...

afternoon sun doing it's magic on some of the grass Ann put out last spring...

Josh Morris has new baby

photos on facebook....  

later.. congrats Josh on new 'family' addition....