March 31, 2009

Dr. Hope-and-Change, or "How I Learned to Love the New Socialism"

As promised, I'm back to the one thing I know a little about- politics. Here's a look at our world from my kitchen table.

Buying bad merchandise:


We need to stop buying Chinese products. From lead painted kids' toys to biohazardous plant matter in vitamins to defective handles that fall off when hot coffee in poured into their mugs, the Chinese are not making quality products. And check your vitamins for country of origin- even whole foods has found tainted Chinese ginkgo biloba on their shelves.

There are so many reasons to buy America, the best being that your money spent goes back into your economy (well, theoretically at least). What are those other countries doing with your money once they've got it? China has been building its military. That's something to think about.

source: CrossTalk America.com


Marriage threatened, yet supported:

The National Organization for Marriage has a new ad out, warning citizens that the advancement of a homosexual agenda will effect everyone, including our children (click here to listen to the ad on NOM.com). Meanwhile Prop 8 is (again) gaining support in CA. Almost 50% support the initiative statewide, which makes it a lot harder to keep anti prop 8 demands going. Yes!


"The last thing we want is to run this company...":

Obama has purchased GM. GM's CEO, working there for 31 years, will be barred from receiving severance pay, but he'll still get nearly $20 mil in a retirement/pension package.

Call it another case of anti-capitalism on behalf of our President. Why is GM's CEO being punished? Because our current administration believes that being a CEO is merely representative of one's being inherently evil. Why? Because, in their minds, wanting to succeed by making money and gaining power is evil. Never mind the freedom to do just that is why so many people immigrate to this country from socialist countries elsewhere. Never mind the fact that power is earned by these hardworking CEOs, not usually bestowed on them by insider conspiracy or familial relationship (a common socialist/class war misconception).

Looming in the near future is exactly what I said would happen if the government bought the car companies; only government-approved cars will be made readily available, other options will disappear. You love your mini-SUV? That's too bad, because unless it's a partial hybrid it's warranty is about to expire.

Welcome to cold war-era Russia folks. Stand in line for your own special Obama edition Prius (comes with four years' supply of gas!).



On the issue of Life:

It was red-envelope day yesterday (click here to read faq about the event). I sent 9 envelopes declaring my intent to support pro-life legislation and abortion alternatives, such as adoption and abstinence education, and urged the President to do the same. He won't, but it's a symbolic gesture on my and others' behalf, to flood the White House mail bags with red in effigy for those needlessly aborted babies. At last count over 150,000 envelopes were pledged to be sent, but the total end count is estimated to be over 1 million. I'll keep you posted.

(*My apologies for not getting the word out on this one. I really messed up there. I meant to post it, then I forgot, and by the time I remembered it was the day of... too late to send anyway. But we can all do it next year.)

AND... pop quiz! Who said, "The argument that women who become pregnant have in some sense consented to the pregnancy belies reality... and others who are the inevitable losers in the contraceptive lottery no more 'consent' to pregnancy than pedestrians 'consent' to being struck by drunk drivers?" Or, how about this one: "Statutes that curtail her abortion choice are disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the 13th Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest?"

Give up? They're all the words of staunch pro-choicist Dawn Johnson, the recent Obama appointment to the office of legal counsel in the Department of Justice! Gee, doesn't she sound like a nice, objectively moral lady? I'm sure she'll make a real fine defender of pro-life advocates. After all, being "for life" is a choice, isn't it? That means this fair lady will defend all the choices equally, right?

Follow this link to go to the Susan B. Anthony List website, to contact your congressmen to oppose embryonic stem cell research, and more.



Dim wits unite! :
With equal parts equivocation and pathetic sentimentality, 250 American cities and 88 countries worldwide participated in the "lights out" night this past Saturday, to symbolize (I think) how effective it would be in lowering the amount of power used if everyone turned off their lights for an hour.

But how rudimentary that logic is! Think about it; if you and I both turn our lights on, we are using x amount of power. If you turn your lights off, together we are using 1/2 x the power. If we both turn them off, we are using no power. That's fine.

However, when you turn yours off and then back on again, you are using 1 1/2 times more power in the surge required to bring them on from a flat line. Multiply that on a scale of, say, 1 million participants in the "lights out" campaign. It's not hyperbole folks, the power grids of those cities showed a huge spike in the power used just after the designated hour ended. So, they used the same amount as they would have if they just left them on (amount used went down below average, then up above average, then back to average usage).

Of course, true to form, participants interviewed said it was, essentially, the "thought that [counted]." But what is a symbolic gesture without a successful real-world application? It is meaningless, outside of its making the participants feel good. (The U.N., for example, revealed that the lights off stunt would only save $102 in energy in the U.N. headquarters in New York.)

Aha! you say, but what about your symbolic red envelope campaign? Did that do anything outside of being representative?

No, it didn't, but the difference is that the causes I support (such as pro-life legislation) do not depend on the symbolic gestures; rather, they have participatory actions attached to them which do get results. Picketing and writing to congressmen has kept Planned Parenthood out of neighborhoods; financially supporting the Susan B. Anthony List helps keep embryonic stem cell research from being promoted; letters to the editor of newspapers voicing concern for sex ed being taught in local schools are read by local representatives and brought to school boards.


Lastly, What is being done to the Least of Us?

Do you have kids ages 10-18? Pretty soon the state will have them for upwards of 100 hours a year in a "community-building" training camp (bill HR-1388, aka the "GIVE act"). The scariest part about it? Wording of the bill that just passed states that while the children are engaged in the government's activism courses, they are barred from participating in any form of religious worship, and cannot be provided any type of religiously-affiliated instruction or worship. Nor can they "engage in any form of religious prosthyletization" (direct quote from the bill, section 125).

It's already passed the the House and Senate, is being rewritten and expected to pass the second time around. Hang on to your kids tight.

Check out http://www.worldviewtimes.net for more information.


Until next time, this is Victoria... and that's about all I know...


10 comments:

Stephanie said...

I need to digest this more before I comment. My head is spinning. That last bit of information blows me away. (not that the others don't, but this is new to me and absolutely insane.

-Stephanie

Parisienne Farmgirl said...

I just skimmed this because we are just sitting down to start the season of Lost - you know Im up on all this stuff but I want to read your words - I did read that last part and you can imagine my reaction - OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!
I swear I'm gonnna go Amish if I have to to keep my kids.

Stephanie said...

Regarding Chinese products. Recently in the news here, it has been learned that a certain drywall made in China is emitting sulphur fumes. It corrodes all metal finishes in the home including pipes, fixtures and jewelry. Lots of people here had to re-drywall their entire houses from the ceilings on down and now they are going to have to rip it all out and start over. There really is no quality control in their products. I'm going to start paying more attention to labels of origin.

I distinctly remember the power usage example you state from middle school physical science class. I think it's hilarious that this was promoted as saving energy when it did not.

Victoria said...

Stephine- You are the in the south, right? I have heard also that bad drywall from China was used to rebuild homes destroyed by hurricanes last year. Within months of moving in, families are experiencing rashes, asthma-like symptoms and respiratory infections from the toxic dust! So far no one knows if Home Depot, etc have Chinese imports, but I urge everyone to check origins regularly, and pass that info along to any contractors you know.

--Victoria

Victoria said...

Whoops- I meant "Stephanie"

Stephanie said...

Victoria -

I live in Metairie, LA which is about 5 minutes from downtown New Orleans. Yes, huge amounts of people here had to re-sheetrock their entire homes and a lot of them unknowingly put in chinese drywall and the damage is just now starting to show up. I don't know how they can go through that again. Could you imagine having to rip it all out again and start over? Gah!

Stephanie

Stephanie said...

Oh and one more thing, if you do have to by drywall and it is from China it will have "made in china" in big letters on the back of the drywall. Look before you buy.

Victoria said...

Thanks for the update Stephanie! I can't believe after losing their homes to horrible weather, some people are losing large parts of their homes again. What a headache and, evidently, a rash as well. :(

Unknown said...

The official red envelope count is 2.25 million sent on March 31 (confirmed by the White House mailroom). I am pretty sure 1 million were sent before the 31--that amoounts to about 20,000 a day for the two months before March 31.

Thanks for sending!

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