Always On Watch Two

This Site Has Moved

2010-11-29T10:19:00.005-05:00

Please go HERE, then update your blogroll to the new URL.

Comments here are now closed.

I'm moving my site because I'm fed up with the Echo comments system, and Blogger and Echo don't offer a way to divest this site of the Echo system. In addition, Echo has increased its subscription service by over %1000! I refuse to pay that much money for a comments system that is giving me problems.

I have transferred over the following recently-published posts: "Meanwhile In New Jersey," "What Next From The Department Of Homeland Security?," and "Quantitative Easing Explained (Video)."

Apologies to all those commenters whose words here may be lost because I will be discontinuing my license with Echo comments next month.

Thanks to Warren his help in accomplishing this move.

[END OF THIS POSTING]

Meanwhile, In New Jersey

2010-11-29T08:21:00.001-05:00

A Muslim girl gets a non-Muslim boy suspended for saying "Taliban." Details from Creeping Sharia, citing this source (dated November 12, 2010), below the fold.

WAYNE — On one side, a Wayne Valley High school student claims that his use of the word “Taliban” was innocent, mentioned in a conversation about a video game, according to his mother.

But to a Muslim student who overheard it at school on Thursday, it was upsetting. And she had perceived that he had looked at her when he said it, Principal Robert Reis said.

Now the boy is facing a one-day suspension on Monday, because, Reis said, he continued to talk about the incident and it got back to the girl and upset her. Reis said she felt the boy was boasting that he’d gotten away with something.

“This has nothing to do with the fact that the boy used a word,” Reis said. “This has everything to do with the boy hurt a girl’s feelings.” And after the boy was told by administrators not to discuss what happened, Reis said, “He went back and hurt her feelings a second time.”

But the boy’s mother, Rosa Giordano, said the incident “is totally being blown out of proportion” and she plans to fight the disciplinary action.

[...]

Giordano claims her son was embarrassed by the incident. She said he told a friend “nothing happened” because he didn’t want to talk about it, not to brag that he got away with anything.

So, do you believe the principal's explanation?

And what about the Muslim girl's perception? Are going to discipline students because they "perceive" something, whether or not an incident, in this case a glance, actually occurred?

I've been trying to find more information about the context of the boy's use of the word "Taliban," but have so far not found more details. Commenters are encouraged to leave any such information.

What Next From The Department Of Homeland Security?

2010-11-28T18:40:00.002-05:00

(Hat tip to Bob Mack for the graphic and the link below)

Look at how the Department of Homeland Security is overreaching its original parameters:

The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE has launched a major crackdown on websites enabling copyright infringement or selling counterfeits of trademarked goods. In just the past few days ICE has seized at least 12 domains, TorrentFreak reports.

[...]

...[T]he sites were seized before the site’s owner heard any charges or had the chance to submit any counter evidence in court. The owners of the sites had their property seized without being allowed to defend themselves.

[...]

In the aftermath of 9-11, when the creation of DHS was being debated, would your opinion have been swayed if you knew that, within just a few years, the proposed agency would be seizing websites peddling fake purses? Did you imagine that the proposed agency would soon demand to take naked photographs of randomly-selected U.S. citizens? Or, insist on its authority to physically grope children?

Now, ask yourself this: What will the Agency be doing 10 years from now? Or, 20? In a little more than half a decade, DHS has morphed from protecting us from terrorists to protecting us from fake merchandise. Who is going to protect us from DHS?

Immediately following 9/11, I cheered the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. Most Americans felt the same way.

But just think of the department's powers now in the hands of an administration which is ever trying to grab more power.

Quantitative Easing Explained (Video)

2010-11-27T23:00:00.000-05:00

Hat tip to Mustang of Social Sense:

A not-so-funny Sunday funny.

So, how can we prepare for the coming economic storm?

More Whining From Moslems

2010-11-26T16:02:00.004-05:00

Note: Another recent post (of a few minutes ago) below this one. Please scroll down.

The following (hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance) shows how insane this Muslim whining has become:

My brief commentary below the fold:

So, enforcing safety regulations is now racism and religious discrimination?

Multiculturalism has led to a descent into madness!

And the Moslems keep pushing, pushing, pushing.

Who Cares What Cher Thinks?

2010-11-26T16:00:00.002-05:00

Via Weasel Zippers:

After Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, a former student and I were sitting around talking about how plastic surgery and other futile pursuits of lost youth make people into cartoon figures and caricatures of themselves.

Yes, Cher's name came up in the conversation.

Her idiocy in Cher's pursuit of youth is surpassed only by the stupidity that spews from her mouth.

This Week On The Gathering Storm

2010-11-26T04:00:00.004-05:00

(This post is a weekly announcement. Please scroll down)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, hosted by WC and Always On Watch. The show broadcasts live every Friday beginning at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is 646-915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Our scheduled guests this week are IQ al Rassooli and Warren.

-----------
Listen to the November 26, 2010 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, live or later, by >CLICKING HERE.

UPCOMING SHOWS
December 3: Dr. Andrew Bostom
December 10: IQ al Rassooli
December 17: Midnight Rider
December 24: Christmas Eve - no broadcast.
December 31: Guest(s) to be announced.
January 7: Mark Alexander

Thanksgiving Blessings

2010-11-23T23:00:00.003-05:00

This year, Thanksgiving falls on November 25. A year ago, November 25 marked the day before Thanksgiving, the day that I brought Mr. AOW home after he had spent ten long weeks in two hospitals and a skilled nursing facility as a result of the brain hemorrhage he suffered on September 15, 2009.

I had to move heaven and earth to get Mr. AOW released from that nursing home. And life in this household was difficult in the extreme for the next several months. If not for The Merry Widow, who came up for six weeks to help us, I think that I would have collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

Yes, Mr. AOW has made phenomenal progress. Our living room is less like a hospital room now although we still have the hospital bed and the bedside potty chair in place. Mr. AOW simply cannot get out of bed without lift assistance, nor can he make the trek to our bathroom in time. Our new normal certainly is much unlike our previous normal. The isolation problem continues for both Mr. AOW and me.

As I think back to a year ago, however, I realize that I can count many blessings, only a few of which you can find listed below:

1. Mr. AOW is no longer incontinent. No more five loads of laundry a day! And let me tell you that I simply cannot handle "heavy" diaper changes well at all. I literally don't have the stomach for it.

2. Both of us get a full night's sleep every night since August.

3. Mr. AOW can use his cell phone with consistency and accuracy. Furthermore, his speech issues have resolved.

4. Mr. AOW can travel! Provided that he has assistance, particularly with getting his affected left leg inside the vehicle, he can get into and out of the car.

5. Eating across the table from Mr. AOW is no longer a nasty experience. He has certainly learned to use his one good hand, not his dominant hand taken way by the stroke, to feed himself without slopping up the entire eating space.

6. Mr. AOW is no longer a Weeble that falls down. In fact, these past few months, Mr. AOW has almost completely regained sitting balance and is getting close to achieving perfect standing balance. Balance is a big thing! It allows for him to do his own own scrubbing in the shower once I get him in there and turn on the water.

7. Mr. AOW's thinking processes and memory skills are his original normal. For example, if I need to fix a little something on the car, he can tell me how to accomplish the task, no matter how many steps are involved.

Certainly, Mr. AOW and I were thankful last Thanksgiving when he came home after those long ten weeks. During that time and the hardest days following his return home, we learned just how much we love each other. After over three decades of marriage, we had been taking each other for granted. We take nothing for granted now.

Mr. AOW and I are even more thankful this Thanksgiving as we count our many blessings from the Lord. We await more of His blessings.

A blessed Thanksgiving to all who stop by this site. And may you count your blessings! Believe me, even during the most trying of times, we truly do have bountiful blessings.

What If This Happened To Your Child?

2010-11-22T07:10:00.010-05:00

As one in my late 50s, I'm able to tolerate most any kind of examination of my body. That said, I think that the TSA has gone way over the line, particularly in the following video:

From the person who filmed the above video:

Lets get the facts straight first. Before the video started the boy went through a metal detector and didn't set it off but was selected for a pat down. The boy was shy so the TSA couldn't complete the full pat on the young boy. The father tried several times to just hold the boys arms out for the TSA agent but i guess it didn't end up being enough for the guy. I was about 30 ft away so i couldn't hear their conversation if there was any. The enraged father pulled his son shirt off and gave it to the TSA agent to search, thats when this video begins.

At Infidel Bloggers Alliance, Midnight Rider said the following:

America is becoming so cowed by government intrusiveness and invasion of our lives that we no longer even defend our children from what is tantamount to assualt, and sexual sssault at that. Afraid of what they might do. We're not even recognizing it as wrong. Numbed down and dumbed down to thinking THIS is the new normal and it's ok even though unsavory.

Thus far, Obama has deemed the TSA procedures necessary.

I say: Give the TSA a pass on doing this kind of thing for a few years, and many young people won't know that anything else was ever the norm.

Here's some snarky truth from Pastorius: we're having to endure all this
for the pleasure of living with all the nice Moderate Muslims we get the joy of sharing our lives with here in the USA.
So what do we do? Not take family vacations by air anymore? Not attend family funerals or other family gatherings in distant states or travel with our families to overseas destinations?

And what about this incident, in which a TSA search left the passenger soaked in urine? Again, the TSA was way over the line. Will the ADA step in on that case?

I Couldn't Resist Posting This Turkey

2010-11-21T09:30:00.002-05:00

Don't let it ruin your appetite for the coming day of Thanksgiving:

Hat tip to Ron Russell who commented as follows at his blog:

It will soon be that time again, the time to pardon the White House turkey; but the biggest turkey at 1600 Pennsylvania ave will not be pardoned by the American people for him its the chopping block in 2012!!!! We've had quite enough of his arrogant strut!!!

Note: This is not my Thanksgiving-holiday post.

Pat Condell: Human Rights Travesty

2010-11-20T08:00:00.009-05:00

Hat tip to Mark Alexander of A New Dark Age Is Dawning:

Another video below the fold.

Pat Condell's no-nonsense commentaries are not broadcast on the mainstream media.

Can you imagine how the world would change if all the major news networks in the West would broadcast Pat Condell's political commentaries?

Our Porous Southern Border

2010-11-19T14:00:00.001-05:00

More at Creeping Sharia.

The phrase "Asking for it" springs to mind.

Peace In The Middle East

2010-11-18T04:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, things really ARE simple (hat tip to Z):

All my life, I've heard detail after detail about how to achieve peace in the Middle East. I'm sure that you've had that same experience.

Yes, details are indeed important. But sometimes details overwhelm the bigger picture and the concepts themselves.

Do not be fooled! Israel DOES desire peace. It is the Arabs who won't stand for that peace.

This Week On The Gathering Storm

2010-11-17T02:00:00.001-05:00

(This post is a weekly announcement. Please scroll down)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, hosted by WC and Always On Watch. The show broadcasts live every Friday beginning at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is 646-915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Our scheduled guest this week is Midnight Rider.

-----------
Listen to the November 19, 2010 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, live or later, by >CLICKING HERE.

UPCOMING SHOWS
November 26: IQ al Rassooli and Warren
December 3: Dr. Andrew Bostom
December 10: IQ al Rassooli
December 17: Midnight Rider
December 24: Christmas Eve - no broadcast.

Here's Your Daily Dose Of Insanity

2010-11-16T06:59:00.003-05:00

"Obama Advisor: He is Bored To Death And Just Too Talented to do What Ordinary People Do," via Weasel Zippers, citing the Pittsburgh Review-Tribune:

In his biography of Obama, “The Bridge,” David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, quotes White House senior adviser and longtime Obama friend Valerie Jarrett: “I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. … He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. … So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. … He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”

There's no reaching those fully immersed in the Cult of Obama.

The comments at Weasel Zippers are priceless. Warning! Strong language!

More ObamaKare Waivers

2010-11-15T06:04:00.006-05:00

Also see THIS at Michelle Malkin. Brief excerpt:

Make no mistake: Team Obama isn’t granting the waivers out of bleeding-heart compassion for the affected workers, but out of a panicked urgency to avoid a public relations disaster.

Read it all!

So much for "liberty and justice for all," huh?

A little personal perspective on the above....

Back in January 2008, Mr. AOW lost his full-time job after nearly twelve years of working for that particular employer. In part, Mr. AOW's job loss was due to the economic slowdown. But something else played a larger part in the job loss, namely, the company's policy about employees carrying employer-based health insurance: enrolling in the health-insurance plan was optional. The result: only those employees with significant pre-existing conditions enrolled in the health plan, thereby making the plan more and more expensive.

As most of my readers must know, I do not support ObamaKare. That said, the realities of insurance involve having both low risk and high risk insureds in the same pool. Indeed, that very concept of a diversified-risks pool is the basis of all insurance.

So, just how is ObamaKare going to function with only higher risk insureds in the plan?

My Computers And I

2010-11-14T04:00:00.005-05:00

The woes are getting fewer and weaker, but I'm still having them.

This commercial sums up my agony over the past several weeks:

If only Travelers Insurance could do something about ALL of my woes, including but not limited to my never-ending computer woes!

Anyway, a homeschool dad has graciously been helping me with my laptop, the computer in the worse shape (as compared to my desktop). He's installing Ubuntu, so I'll have to learn a new interface.

Warren has been helping me with my desktop: teaching me how to disable unwanted toolbars, trimming down the applications running on start up, etc. But now that I've installed AVG 2011, that program is having some kind of conflict with my firewall. **sigh**

As the song in the video says, "Trouble, trouble, trouble" and "Worry, worry, worry."

FEATURED QUESTION: Our Economy

2010-11-14T02:00:00.001-05:00

(This FEATURED QUESTION stuck here for few days. Please scroll down for other postings)

HERE in the Washington Post you can read the highlights of the deficit-reduction proposals. They include the following:

-Overhaul individual income taxes and corporate taxes. For individuals and families, eliminate a host of popular tax credits and deductions, including the child tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction.Significantly reduce income tax rates, with the top rate dropping to 23 percent from 35 percent.

-Reduce the corporate income tax rate to 26 percent from 35 percent, and stop taxing the overseas profits of U.S.-based multinational corporations.

-Increase the gas tax by 15 cents a gallon to fund transportation programs.

Read this link to see the entire list.

On the list is a hot-button issue for every American I know. Maybe more than one hot button.

No matter how we look at this problem, the solution is going to be painful:

Voters who last week sent Washington a message to wrestle the spiraling debt under control have gotten a message back from the leaders of a White House budget commission: It'll hurt.

A proposal released Wednesday by the bipartisan leaders of President Barack Obama's deficit commission suggested cuts to Social Security benefits, deep reductions in federal spending and higher taxes for millions of Americans to stem a flood of red ink that they said threatens the nation's very future.

Interest groups on the right and the left squealed, predictably, about the plan, which would cut total deficits by as much as $4 trillion over the next decade - much of it from programs long considered all but sacred.

Besides Social Security, Medicare spending would be curtailed. Tax breaks for many health care plans, too. And the Pentagon's budget as well in a plan that attaches $3 in spending cuts to every $1 in tax increases.

For all the pain, the deficit still would approach $400 billion in 2015 under the proposal...

Surely, we all realize that something must be done about our deficit! If nothing is done, our entire economy could well collapse.

FEATURED QUESTION (in two parts): (1) How can the deficit be substantially and effectively reduced? (2) What will be the consequences for us as individuals and families if various methods of deficit reduction are put into place?

Musical Interlude

2010-11-13T04:00:00.000-05:00

Hat tip to Pastorius:

Information about Jason Reeves below the fold.

HERE at Wikipedia and HERE at Jason Reeves's official web site.

This Week On The Gathering Storm

2010-11-12T04:15:00.000-05:00

(This post is a weekly announcement. Please scroll down)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, hosted by WC and Always On Watch. The show broadcasts live every Friday beginning at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is 646-915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Our scheduled guest this week is IQ al Rassooli.

-----------
Listen to the November 12, 2010 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, live or later, by >CLICKING HERE.

UPCOMING SHOWS
November 19: Midnight Rider
November 26: IQ al Rassooli and Warren
December 3: Dr. Andrew Bostom

Veterans Day

2010-11-11T06:41:00.006-05:00

Photo of soldiers in the United States Army taken in Afghanistan in 2005 and on display at our local VFW post:

These four soldiers are home now!
The sonnet below the fold was written a few years ago by then tenth-grade homeschool student "A.M."

A Soldier’s Farewell

Belovéd, do not weep for me today,
Nor sigh on the morrow when I depart.
For though I am from thine eyes far away,
My thoughts dwell on thee as the battles start.
Death’s cold embrace might appear a relief
From this hellish battlefield’s roiling sand,
Yet then I dream my death writ on a leaf
And with renewed spirit protect my land.
I shirk not my duty to my country
And will strive to bring liberty to all;
When peace and hope shine through the night ‘round me,
Homeward shall my steps delightedly fall.
For one’s heartstrings in his own country lie
And calls him with more force than battle’s cry.
--Contributed by A.M.
More poetry, some old and some new, for this solemn day

On this Veterans Day 2010, remember to thank a veteran for his service to our nation.

The Obamas And Diplomatic Etiquette

2010-11-10T05:12:00.011-05:00

Tifatul Sembiring shook Michelle Obama's hand. A "pious" Moslem shook the hand of a woman not his wife. Huge no-no!

She forced herself on him! Yeah, right.

The Obamas are hardly strangers to breaches of diplomatic etiquette:

Don't the Obamas listen to their coaches in diplomatic etiquette?

I'm no defender of Islam and its weirdo traditions and legalisms. That said, I see a bigger problem with the Obamas and their flaunting of protocol.

Furthermore, if a Republican First Family were making these mistakes, the mainstream media would excoriate the entire GOP.

Note: Michelle Obama did manage to conform to the dress code so as to visit Istiqlal Mosque (Click directly on the image to enlarge it):

More photos HERE at Weasel Zippers.

Prophetic Video

2010-11-09T04:00:00.006-05:00

Especially since the firing of Juan Williams by NPR (hat tip to Creeping Sharia) and the recent blacklisting of science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon, as well as the case of U.S. cartoonist Molly Norris:

The above video was made in 2007.

Check out this story about "Asian" sexual redators (hat tip to Karen). Mustn't use the word "Pakistanis" in the headline!

How far down the slides of dhimmitude and political correctness we have gone!

Obama The Orator

2010-11-07T06:05:00.005-05:00

Obama doesn't really qualify as an orator, of course. He needs the technological version of Dean Martin's cue cards. Of course, Dino never pretended to be an orator.

From the Hindustan Times:

Obama to use teleprompter for Hindi speech

...Obama will make history for more than one reason during the Nov 6-9 visit. This will be the first time a teleprompter will be used in the nearly 100-feet high dome-shaped hall that has portraits of eminent national leaders adorning its walls.

Indian politicians are known for making impromptu long speeches and perhaps that is why some parliament officials, who did not wish to be named, sounded rather surprised with the idea of a teleprompter for Obama.

"We thought Obama is a trained orator and skilled in the art of mass address with his continuous eye contact," an official [said]...

Pathetic.

Embarrassing.

I teach public speaking at the high school level and won't allow my students as much reliance on note cards as the President of the United States relies on the teleprompter's scroll.

Why Me?

2010-11-06T04:00:00.000-04:00

Verizon will have to pay yet another visit to get FIOS to work properly here at my house.

For whatever reason, the router-recognition software will not operate consistently for my desktop machine. One minute, the router is recognized; the next minute I have no Internet access. **sigh**

My laptop, a wireless-ready Toshiba Satellite, is having no problems whatsoever.

Verizon should have hardwired my desktop to the router in the first place! In fact, such was the plan, but the technician who did the installation didn't want to be bothered. He's leaving Verizon in a few weeks, anyway.