Spending Into Oblivion - Isn't Anyone Paying Attention?

Some months ago I was sitting in front of the television late one night when the foundations of my entire world were shaken beneath my feet. I watched as the President of the United States told all of us that our economy - the economy that drives the world - was on the verge of collapse. Since then I have heard story after story about the Great Depression part two. That should be enough to wake us up, shouldn't it America?
Honestly though, since then, what have we done? Have we tightened up our belts looking for ways to really improve our country or our economy? No. We have relied on politicians - some of the very people who got us in this damn mess in the first place - to discern a way out of this economic imbroglio. Am I the only one that has a problem with this course of action??
Instead of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, what do we do? Well, we borrow ourselves into oblivion on the belief that more money in the economy is going to save us - it won't. It will just make digging ourselves out of this hole all that much harder. We are borrowing our tomorrows to pay for today and so many as just marching on in quiet oblivion. How is this possible in my country?
So we just passed a 750+BILLION bailout. Great. Where is that money coming from? We are going to save the housing industry, the car makers, the airlines, and anyone else asking for a handout. Even the porn industry is trying to get in on the action.
If all of that weren't bad enough, we are now looking at ANOTHER $410 Billion in spending. That's an 8% increase over last year people. Just do the simple math - you are making less, your economy is on the verge of collapse but the admission of it's own leaders, and we are spending 8% more than last year??? The comment from one of my favorite movies comes to mind: " Go sell crazy somewhere else. We're full up here!" Part of said $410 BIllion bill is a program for a measly $500,000 for what is described as a Senate "pilot program" that will defray the cost of mass mail postcards to households notifying them of a nearby town meeting to be attended by any senator. Hello? Has anyone ever heard of a newspaper? How about the interent, it's free?
We are all in big trouble here people..... Buckle up, because it's going to be a very bumpy ride.

Animal Cruelty Laws Among the Faster Growing in the United States

Finally! There is some good news to be had when I read the paper this morning. After all, isn't it time that we FINALLY become a compassionate society? Why is it ok to torture animals because we deem them somehow less than ourselves? The answer is that it isn't, and anyone who would excuse such, does it merely for their own benefit.

Look at the sad case of Michael Vick. Not long ago, when the Vick debacle happened, Whoopi Goldberg had the incredible audacity to defend Michael Vick, the NFL football player arrested for abusing and murdering dozens of dogs. Whoopi said, " from where he comes from" in the South, dogfighting isn't that unusual".

"It's like cockfighting in Puerto Rico," she said. "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country." No matter how you slice it, this statement goes BEYOND ignorant!!!

This is what a bit bull puppy looks like. They are adorable, intelligent and fiercely loyal. They have a bad reputation because some ignorant people - like Michael Vick - train some dogs to be mean. Unlike a human being, it is not in a dog's nature to be cruel. What was Michael Vick's goal? I mean, did he really need more money??? Wasn't the MILLIONS that he was already making enough for him??

This is what one of Michael Vick's pit bulls looked like after a dog fight :



From Vick's indictment for these heinous crimes: "The 27-year-old Vick, whose nickname is listed as "Ookie" in the indictment, allegedly established the Bad Newz Kennels in early-2001 in Smithfield, Virginia. It was this property, for which Vick paid $34,000, that the star athlete and his codefendants used as the "main staging area for housing and training the pit bulls involved in the dog fighting venture and hosting dog fights." According to prosecutors, Vick and his cohorts began purchasing pit bull puppies in late-2001 and would eventually "sponsor" individual dog fights with purses as high as $26,000. In the indictment's most harrowing parts, federal investigators describe what happened to some Bad Newz Kennels dogs that either lost matches or did not perform well in test fights. After a March 2003 loss by a female pit bull, codefendant Purnell Peace, "after consulting with Vick," electrocuted the animal. In April, prosecutors allege, Vick, Peace, and Quanis Phillips, "executed approximately 8 dogs that did not perform well in 'testing' sessions." These animals, the indictment claims, were killed "by various methods, including hanging, drowning, and slamming at least one dog's body to the ground."

So Whoopi, I don't care what part of the "South" you are from - inhumanity and cruelty still look the same as they do in other parts of the country. Dog fighting is illegal and there is NO EXCUSE whatsoever - not your geographical origins as Ms. Goldberg suggests - not "Culture" as actor Jamie Foxx has suggested. There is NO excuse - PERIOD. Cruelty to animals is WRONG and those that engage in it - barely register as human beings as far as I am concerned.

One of my favorite books is "The Singer" by Calvin Miller. In it he recounts life in the Garden of Eden. God walks Adam through the Garden and introduces him to the animals. " And God called down the Sparrow from the Tree and said to Adam, 'Behold your Sister ~ a life not so great as yours but precious just the same."

All life is precious - human life - canine life - it makes NO difference no matter what part of the country you live in. Whoopi should be ashamed for defending this atrocity! To find out more about how you can help animals abused in this horrible way, please visit: the Animal Charities List . Don't sit idly by and let someone like Whoopi Goldberg continue to spew ignorance. Cruelty is never OK.

Now, thanks to laws changing all across the country, people like Michael Vick are no longer going to simply get away with murder because their victim is "just an animal". Thanks to conscientious and compassionate people everywhere, real change is happening. How can we suppose to live in a society that is cruelty free if that ideal does not extend outside of our own species?

The WORST Husband in America? Stephen Fowler this is for YOU....

I don't usually watch reality tv but this caught my eye on youtube. It's difficult to believe that one human being could so successfully malign our country, our mlitary and so many other human beings all at one time. I find just about EVERYTHING about this man offensive!

The worst part of watching this wife swap preview was watching the so-called perfect family. The "mother" actually talks about how spending too much time with her children makes her unhappy. How selfish and self invovled can one couple possibly be?? It was heart-wrenching to see how unhappy their children are.

Stephen Fowler claims that his IQ is 159 or something like that. I find that highly unlikely, after all hitting it out of the ball park when it comes to being a pompous ass doesn't exactly make him Einstein.

As an American, I find this couples' behavior to be absolutely repugnant. "We are training our children to be citizens of the world..." Can you feel my eyes rolling?? This family wouldn't even acquiesce to reciting the Pledge of Allegience. In the opinion of this American, for being such "smart" people, they certainly are not very commendable people. The man especially was an embarrassment to his children, his spouse, his country and his gender. It's hard to imagine a man more grossly odious than Stephen Fowler.

Worst of all was his obvious disdain for the military. It makes me absolutely nauseous to think of the good men and women in our armed forces who put their lives on the line everyday for this piece of human excrement to have his right to make an ass out of himself. I can't believe that Uncle Sam would even allow someone so imperialistic in their thinking to become a citizen. I say we throw him back over the pond and let the British proudly claim their native son.

In addition to the horrid affront this man continually made to the United States military, claiming we needed those with lesser IQ's to "feed it" etc... he was the worst example of masoginistic thinking that I have witnessed in a long time. I'm surprised that he even allowed his wife to leave the kitchen and his expectations of his children were clearly to be seen little and heard not at all. These two so-called Americans are not WORTHY of the name and should be ashamed of themselves, I certainly am embarrassed to have to call them my countrymen.