Memorial Day 2014: time for solemnity and outrage

The title says it all. This Memorial day is a time for solemnity and
outrage; solemnity in remembrance of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice
for our freedom and outrage over the treatment of our veterans by the VA.
What a contrast.

Memorial Day is a time to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for
our freedom. Without their sacrifice, we would not be free today. We would
not be able to express outrage at our government over treatment of our
veterans, advocate for special education services for blind and visually
impaired children, debate issues within an organization and much more. We
would be subject to absolute rule, something we are fortunate not to
experience; and it's thanks to our veterans that we are free. Please
remember them and what they did for us.

Now on to the outrage. We have the VA scandal which may have claimed lives
of our heroes, the ones who should be getting whatever they need, not being
put on a waiting list so bureaucrats can look good and get hefty bonuses.
How sickening.

This scandal has legs, even if not all Democrats speak out on it. People
generally don't like it when our veterans are denied what they deserve.
However, this country needs to do much better by them.

The ratio of doctors to veterans is 35 to 1 and there is a story out about
Gitmo that puts the ratio of doctors to prisoners at 1.5 to 1. What's wrong
with this picture? Plenty, if you ask me. When talking about Gitmo, we're
talking about terrorists who don't deserve better than our veterans. They
should be on the higher ratio IMO and our veterans should be on the lower
ratio. When will our priorities be fixed?
Unfortunately, that likely won't happen until Republicans take control of
Congress and then the White House as this administration sees only politics,
not human life and ramifications of its decisions in terms of that.

Then there is ObamaCare and our seniors. When they're not re-admitted, you
can thank the cuts to Medicare for this Again, where are our priorities?
More on this one at another time.

Our veterans deserve much better than they're getting. What does it say
about how we feel about those who gave the ultimate sacrifice? It doesn't
say much and VA Secretary Shinseki must go, preferably via the firing route,
as this is the only acceptable outcome for the VA scandal; but Obama is only
concerned about how things look for him politically. He doesn't care about
human life and that is evident. Look at Fast & Furious and Benghazi and
you'll see what I mean. Benghazi was all about winning an election, not the
4 men who lost their lives as a result of that terrorist attack. Fast &
Furious was about covering up a bad decision on handling gun runners, not
about the lives lost as a result of this hare-brained action. These are two
examples of the lack of priority placed on life by this administration and
the VA is the latest.

We need a culture in Washington that respects life not one that thinks life
is disposable for political purposes. Our veterans gave the ultimate
sacrifice and I have the freedom to say what I think and I thank all who
have fought and died to give me that right.

Thank you to all who have served. Your sacrifice is appreciated by me and
hopefully many others. I will pause to remember what this weekend is really
all about. Let's hope others will be forced to as well.

Weight loss and healthy eating: A work in progress

It's been a while since I've updated you on my weight loss and healthy
eating journey. I've lost about 20 lbs and want to keep it going. I have a
goal to get under a certain number by the end of June and am working on
that. Am I there yet? No, but I'll get there. It's a journey and you
never completely arrive as you're always working on it and trying to get
there.

Have I notice changes yet? Yes I have. For example, when we go out to
breakfast, I don't get the hash browns when I order eggs and bacon. I'll
substitute fruit for that, something I would not have done in the past.
However, I know how many calories I'm avoiding by substituting fruit for
hash browns and it's significant.

I don't eat at McDonald's as much and when I do, I get certain items which
don't include a medium or large fries any longer. I just get a small fries
when I get them which, unfortunately, is most of the time. When getting
chicken McNuggets, I don't get the sauce anymore. This saves some calories
right there.

When cooking at home, I only eat half of a baked potato most of the time.
This also cuts down on calories. We also don't eat potato chips at home for
the most part.

Do other changes need to be made? Yes but this will come with time and
effort. As I said, it's a journey and you must take it one day at a time.

Here's to continuing that journey to become the best I can be.

Eating my words re IOS 7.1

Well sometimes there comes a time when one must eat their words. Such a
time has come for me with regard to IOS 7.1 and the warning I put out. I
said last night that one should not upgrade due to a bug with entering
information when using a wireless keyboard. Well, such is not the case; and
there is a work around for the known bug.

What is that work around? It is releasing the control key before you
release the option key. In other words, release the option key after or at
the same time as the control key. If I release the option key after the
control key, then there is no problem. I can type in the information and
work as usual.

Again, eating words is not pleasant but sometimes it must be done.
Hopefully it'll be a long time before I have to do it again; but sometimes
frustration can and does get the better of a person. This is exactly what
happened to me and it's not pretty when this happens.

Well, all is right with the world for now which makes me a happy person..

Earning about IOS 7.1

This is a warning about IOS 7.1. If you use a wireless keyboard for
anything, DO NOT upgrade at this time. I Really, really wish I had not done
so. The reason is that you cannot search for anything in an app. When
going out of quick nav, letters you type are not recognized and when you
turn quick nav back on you will be prompted to enter a search term. This is
annoying and irritating and causes me to have to go on to the website of the
site that makes the app where I found the bug. That website has issues of
its own which I will not go into here.

It's likely produceable elsewhere but haven't found it yet; and I tried
using the keyboard for a text message. Haven't tried with E-mail yet. I
can tell you that the bug shows up in two different versions of the app in
question as my husband is running a higher version of the app.

For those who are interested, it's the spark people app.

Again don't upgrade to IOS 7.1 if you use a wireless keyboard unless you
really,really want to lose your ability to search for anything in an app as
I don't think the above-mentioned app is the only one that presents this
bug.
I seriously don't know if this bug shows up on Braille displays as well.

Community Service: A Good Feeling

Last Saturday I had an opportunity through my Lions Club to perform some
community service at our local food pantry. It was a good feeling to be
able to participate in a community service project; thus giving back rather
than taking from the community.

Why is this such a big deal? Well as someone who is blind and also Hard of
Hearing (HOH), I have not had a lot of opportunities to give back in the
mainstream community and this was a chance to do so. What I did was take
some mini butter finger bars and put them into small sandwhich bags. I felt
good after doing this; and this work is just as important as checking for
codes on products; checking for expiration dates, etc. it is something that
needs to be done and needs someone to do it.

My husband and I were able to educate those who staff the pantry as to our
capabilities and willingness to serve and the staff was happy to have our
help. Hopefully it will lead to future opportunities.

If you have a chance to give back, I would strongly urge you to take that
opportunity as you will feel good afterwards. I know I did.

MY JOURNEY TO A HEALTHIER ME

My journey to a healthier me began last may 2013 when I joined the Healthy
People Class here at HTSW. I knew it was time to do something about my
weight and wanted to lose the excess weight so I could be healthier and
happier. I also want to avoid so many issues I've seen in others; issues
such as diabetes, colon cancer and more. Watching someone die from this
disease, even at a distance, is not fun.
I also wanted to stop hearing about it from my parents; and doing
something about the problem would accomplish the solution I wanted.

I want to live a healthy lifestyle so that I am here for my nieces, nephews
and great niece. I don't want my life cut short because of choices I've
made. I have the power to do something about these things and want to take
that power into my own hands now, before it's too late.

It will take time and persistence because no one ever arrives at the
destination but they are constantly on a journey and must be persistent in
order to get there. Without persistence and the will to get there, you will
never get far on this journey.

Being blind means finding creative ways to do things; like obtaining recipes
from spark recipes and downloading them to my computer so I can access them.
It also means using technology to get information off of packages so I know
what I am eating and what nutrients it contains. It means using the I-phone
app for tracking where I can and the website where I must in order to know
how I am doing. It means being persistent in order to accomplish what I
want to accomplish.

Will I accomplish this tomorrow? Definitely not. It took a long time to
put it on and it will take a long time to get it off. But I will get there.
It won't be tomorrow but it will come and my goal is to get to a healthy
weight by early next year. I know it can be done because I want to do it
for me.

Looking ahead to 2014

Well now that the celebrations are over, it's time to look ahead to 2014.

First some personal goals:
1. Continue to take off the weight. I've gotten a good start and need to
keep this going. This means eating right, exercising and getting my water.
2. Don't procrastinate. Things I might not like doing need to get done as
well and getting them done sooner rather than later will get them over with.
3. Make time to talk with family more often. This just must happen as we
don't know how long we will be here.
4. Do house cleaning on a weekly basis and more general cleaning every
couple of weeks.
5. Take care of mail at least weekly which will keep other matters humming
along.
6. continue to work on my leadership skills.

Now I will focus on more general predictions both nationally and at the
state level.
1. ObamaCare will continue to be a train wreck affecting the personal
finances of millions.
2. Republicans will take control of the U.s. Senate and retain their
majority in the House.
3. Iran's nuclear program will cause tension and things will come to a head
this year on two fronts. First, sanctions will be extended and toughened.
The second will be Israel taking action of the type they took in 1982 when
they blew up a reactor in Iraq. They did the world a favor then and will do
it again.
4. In Illinois, Gov. Quinn will finally be kicked out of office and Kirk
Dillard will be elected. I, however, am not sure that control of the
General Assembly will change but I hope I am surprised on that one for the
sake of the people of Illinois.

These are some of my predictions and goals. I hope all who read this have a
safe, happy and prosperous 2014.

2013 in review

Well, like everyone else I will look back at 2013 for the good and the bad;
both personally and in general.

Personally there were some good things. I have decided to lose some
significant weight and have started on that journey. I have lost about
15-20 lbs already and plan to lose more in the coming year. I have already
noticed better energy and just a better feeling about myself.

How have I done this? I have changed my diet, gotten more exercise and have
been drinking more water. I've also learned that weight loss is a life-long
journey, not just something you do to get to a certain goal and then
abandon. I belong to a health club and sought out resources there and found
their Healthy People class. The instructor is willing to work with me which
makes this a pleasurable experience. I also have a support network through
other members of the group. Tracking calories and macro-nutrients such as
carbs, fat, and protein also give me a picture of how I am eating and where
I need to make changes.

Another achievement is being elected as secretary of the Illinois Council of
the Blind (ICB), something I had not considered in the past due to
challenges I did not think I could overcome. One challenge was removed
which made this a more interesting option for me.

I continue to work on controlling my emotions in leadership and other
situations. This is definitely a work in progress and something that will
take time to build upon.

As for general good things, I still have a job which is something a lot of
people cannot say. My family is also healthy, something which is also a
blessing.

Are there bad things? You bet. One of these for me personally is seeing
the effort to form a statewide organization for Illinois' Deaf-Blind
community go down due to lack of involvement and other factors. The
handwriting was on the wall and I finally saw it and made the tough decision
to end the effort. It was not a decision I wanted to make; but it was a
necessary decision. This was a lesson in leadership that not all decisions
are easy to make nor are they always the ones you as a leader want to make.

Some of the bad things in general include the acquittal in the Zimmerman
case which aroused the gun nuts and said to young black men that you had
better stay in your own neighborhood because if you are caught in a place
where you "don't belong", bad things are going to happen to you.

Other bad things include ObamaCare which should be called the Unaffordable
Care Act rather than the Affordable Care Act. The website was the first
disaster for this law but was not the only disaster; and there are more
disasters coming for 2014. If a private company did even half of the things
that have been done in the name of ObamaCare, they would be out of business
at the very least. When will people learn that government cannot be trusted
to take over 1/6 of the economy?

We also had the Navy Yard shooting where once again signals were missed by
the military. When will they learn to weed out mental misfits who have
potential for violence?

We also had the stonewalling on Benghazi; The IRS intimidation of
conservative groups; The Syria debacle where Pudin of Russia played Obama
like a drum and more. It was not a good year in Washington for sure.

Springfield was not much better as there were no initiatives to grown the
state economy and any attempt to fix the pension problem will be tied up in
court for years due to the state Constitution. When will we elect
politicians who have a basic knowledge of economics and how business works?

My look at 2014 will follow in a couple of days. Happy New Year to all.

Washington idiots and idiocy

My head is about to explode over the government shut down. Do these
politicians think about the impact their decisions will have on the
workforce and others? Likely, that answer is no.

Yes, liberals, both parties own this one. The House Republicans started with
a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government that contained defunding
of ObamaCare, then went to delay of the mandate for a year and we will see
what they do next. Keep in mind that Obama has already delayed the mandate
for business. What has the response been from President Obama and the
Democrats? Nothing short of craptacular. They won't do anything at all.
For Harry the fossil Reid, it's all or nothing as far as government funding
is concerned even though separate appropriations have been taken up in the
past. Also fossil Reid forgets how appropriations are to be handled
according to the Constitution. A reminder that appropriations must
originate in the House of Representatives.

Obama has said he won't negotiate until the government is reopened and the
debt limit is raised. This is no way to negotiate. Negotiation involves
compromise on the part of both parties to it. Obama and Reid are showing a
huge unwillingness to compromise on anything. Are TEA party conservatives
being unreasonable here too? You bet they are. They need to see the
reality of the situation and not singularly focus on one thing such as
defunding of ObamaCare. Idiots like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texs need to have an
end game if they're going to play with the big boys. Cruz doesn't have an
end game and doesn't know what he is doing.

Also fossil Reid cannot be trusted to carry out the terms of any compromise.
Just remember this. In 2011, he said that the senate would take a vote on
repeal of ObamaCare. This was part of the 2011 budget negotiations. This
has yet to happen. One thing the GOP ought to ask for is a vote by a date
certain on this topic. Is Reid afraid this will pass? I'll bet he is.

Is this having an impact on real people? Yes it is. I am attending the
Illinois Council of the Blind convention this weekend and several of our
members who are loyal to ICB and would be here if they could are not here
for all or part of the event due to the shutdown. They likely have to stay
close to home in the event this gets solved and also I understand that leave
is not being paid during the furlough. This has real impact on real people.

Politicians of both parties must be held accountable for their actions; and
this means tossing them out of office if they won't do the people's
business. It's time to get reasonable people elected and that means
reasonable people on both sides of the isle.

Benghazi proves cost of Obama is too high

I'm still boiling over the attack on our consulate in Benghazi on 9/11/12
that killed 4 people, including our Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. The
others were Sean Smith chief Information officer I believe and Tyrone Woods
a former Navy seal who had something to do with security. There was a
fourth person whose name I have forgotten at the moment but his sacrifice
shall never be forgotten.

For two weeks after this horrible attack, the Obama administration kept
insisting the cause was a spontaneous mob outraged over an old Youtube video
even as there is now mounting evidence that they knew at least two hours
after the attack that this was a terrorist act and that an El-chieta (not
sure of spelling) sympathizer was responsible for it. There is also the
outrageous decision not to send in a military rescue and this is just coming
out now.
What the hell did Penetta and the rest of the military need before they
would consider themselves to have enough information to send in a rescue
unit? Did the whole damn thing need to be laid out in front of their noses?

Charles Woods, Tyrone Woods' father, spoke of the insincere apology from
both Obama and Clinton. The fact that Obama could not look Mr. Woods in the
eye says it all. How despicable on the part of both of them. Have they no
fucking regard for life? No they don't because they have blood on their
hands and will never, ever be able to get rid of it. And then there's the
latest Biden gaff about cue balls which is fucking outrageous. You don't
question someone's bravery unless you're Joe Biden and he's an outrage to
this country IMO.

There were E-mails that suggest that Obama knew two hours after that this
was a terrorist attack and we as voters need to be outraged about the
administration's handling of this matter. Does Obama's world view have
something to do with this? I don't know but his action makes me wonder.

For the sake of this country, this affair had better cost Obama the
election. We can't have a commander-in-chief with blood on his hands from
what I would consider an impeachable offense.

Requests for increased security were repeatedly ignored by this
administration and this was exposed by Brett Bayer on Fox News. How the
hell could they ignore these requests when even Ambassador Stevens had
warned about increased terrorist activity in Libya.
The more that comes out, the more this fucking administration is exposed
for the decisions it did or did not make. They need to come clean before
the election, not after. Please seek out alternate media because the lapdog
media won't expose everything on this one.

Obama wanted to stick to a narrative and they would do anything to do it
even at the cost of American lives. Remember these four lives were bumps in
the road to Obama and the damn lapdog media doesn't even question him on
that one..

Woods and the rest of the families demand answers and so do the American
people.

Benghazi had better prove that the cost of keeping Obama in office is way
too high. How many lives will be lost if Obama is re-elected? I shudder to
think about the answer to that one.

The bottom line is Obama lied and people have died.

Obama administration has blood on its hands

The title means exactly what it says and below I will outline why I make
such a statement.

First of all, there's Fast & Furious, the ill-conceived, incompetently run
gun walking operation responsible for the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian
Terry. Attorney General Eric Holder is involved in this one and also has
blood on his hands.

Keep in mind that Obama is protecting Holder by claiming executive privledge
over many documents that Congress is seeking in this investigation; and this
has earned Holder a contempt of Congress citation. There are also
discrepencies regarding dates so there is a question of what the
administration knew and when it knew it.

Univision has recently come up with more information which may well show
that Obama and Holder rhave more blood on their hands. There may have been
other operations across the Texas border as well.

Then we have the more shocking situation in Libya that claimed the life of
Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 others. Oama kept insisting that the
incident in Benghazi was the result of a video that had been on Youtube
since July. This is not true, especially in light of the fact that the
State Department withdrew security from the consulate in Benghazi. This
means that Secretary of stte Hillary Clinton has blood on her hands as well.
She may try to escape it but the GOP cannot and must not allow her to do so.
Her political future is tied up with Obama's demise; and I sure hope it's
Obama's demise for the sake of this great country.

How much more blood will be on the hands of this administration before they
are stopped? It is at least 5 people and counting. In my opinion, Obamas
handling of Benghazi is impeachable and I wish that process could move
forward. However, we as voters have a responsibility to this great
country; and that responsibility is to remove this incompetent thug from
office before more lives are lost as a result of his tenure in office.

Lives depend on it and so does the future of this country. Please vote on
November 6 and send a message that Obama's actions will not and must not be
tolerated.

NFL needs to replace replacement officials immediately

Well the NFL got what it didn't want last night; a blown call that costs a
team the game. It happened to the Packers, a team I support.

It was bound to happen given the fact that the replacement officials are way
in over their heads. They can't manage a game if their lives depended on it
and it showed last night.

What does the NFL need to do? They need to get the real refs back and soon
or the integrity of the NFL will be questioned as it should be. If the NFL
wants to salvage the season,then they'll get a deal done with officials, for
the sake of the game.

The time is now and Goodell needs to get off his ass and get it done. The
refs need to be reasonable too but somehow this has got to get done.

No more Division III officials in NFL games!

Taking back our country

Tonight I listened to the speeches from the GOP convention. I liked what I
heard there too. No I didn't listen to the talking heads as I can figure
out for myself what it means to me.

Everyone talked about the problems of the day with the economy and the like.
The message for entrepreneurs is that you did build that. Obama thinks you
didn't and claims that line was taken out of context but it wasn't and is
much worse when heard in full context.

Ann Romney was gracious and classy yet firm in her convictions. She talked
of what it was like when they were young and what realities families face
today. She spoke to the women of the country while speaking to the whole
country. She spoke about rising prices, women struggling to keep their
families together and thriving and what it's been like in these economic
times. She spoke simple truths and spoke about Mitt as a man who has been
there for her and will be there to lead the country

Chris Christie followed that with the keynote address and spoke of wanting
respect rather than love. He spoke about the ballooning debt, the
ballooning size of government and an education system that is in need of
reform. We need to deal with our problems now so that our children and
grandchildren will have a future. He spoke of supporting teachers,not
teachers' unions. He cid things in New Jerseyt hat people said couldn't
be done and said now that the country needs this to happen at the national
level..

What does this mean in practical terms for the disability community? It
means that as the GOP looks to cut spending, rehabilitation needs to be
looked at. We will have to accept some reforms and some outcomes that are
expected of this program. We need to think in terms of equality of
opportunity, not equality of outcomes. We need to think in terms of working
hard for what we want or need and not expecting that the government will
hand us everything. Is there a role for government? Yes there is and that
role is to provide opportunities for us to better ourselves. If that's done
through a public-private partnership then so be it as long as we have the
opportunity to succeed. Do standards need to be set for those who provide
service? Yes they do and that is a role for government. Is it proper for
government to deal with someone who provides bad service? Yes as this might
be a result of violations of the law.

I could go on but won't as I think you get the idea.

All I can say is this truth-loving American is waiting to hear more from the
GOP about how they will take back our country.

It makes no sense

I came home from a great weekend only to find out about yet another mass
shooting, this one in Oak Creek WI at a Sikh Temple in that community.
Right now we know that there are 7 dead including the gunman and 3 or 4
injured including an Oak Creek Police officer. More will be known tomorrow
but this one is especially nasty because a local incident meets the world
stage; and for that reason is being investigated as a possible domestic
terrorism incident. We'll know more on that tomorrow.
All I have to say is that it makes no sense at all. Why must people express
their anger or hatred at the point of a gun? Why can't people just live
together in peace? That's a difficult one and I surely don't have all the
answers. But it's getting to the point of unreal to hear these stories all
the time.

There were warning signs in the Aurora CO incident that likely were ignored.
More will come out on that for sure. Was the same true here? Only time
will tell. People may not like to confront the fact that there is evil out
there but it is there and needs to be confronted when it rears its ugly
face. Is today such an incident? It looks like it to me but only time and
a thorough investigation will tell.

Meanwhile my prayers to the families and the community. May you have peace
and healing from God above. May all religious and civilian leaders speak as
one in condemning this outrageous violence against a peaceful community.

Now the penalty has been administered: Thoughts after the fact

Well now the penalty has been administered. It is in part as follows:
Loss of revenue for this year equaling $60 million which will be paid as a
fine and go into a trust fund for victims of child sex abuse.
Vacating of wins from 1998 thru 2011 which means the loss of 111 wins which
takes disgraced coach Joe Paterno out of the record books as winningest
coach in NCAA history.
Bowl ineligibility for 4 years.
Reduction from 25 to 15 scholarships a year for the next 4 years.
Further possible individual sanctions on individuals after the criminal
investigations are over.
5 year probation for the entire athletic department with Academic Integrity
Monitor of NCAA's choosing appointed.
Players allowed to immediately transfer without losing a year of eligibility
if they do so.
Mention of compliance with Section 5.0 of the Free Report but not sure what
this means.

What do I think? This will definitely hurt them for years to come and I
don't think they'll recover real quick after the 4 years are up on bowl
ineligibility and scholarship loss; but the death penalty would have been
fitting for a program as corrupt as this football program was under Paterno.
Yes some innocent athletes would have gotten hurt but they knew something
could happen when they chose to go there, especially within the last year.

This school should not even have a football program until it can prove that
it has cleaned up its act and that will be a tall order for them to do that
to everyone's satisfaction. It took SMU about 20 years to recover from the
death penalty and hopefully it will take Penn State as long to recover from
this one post penalty. We'll just have to see though.

Suffice it to say, the only way to root out corruption of this kind is to
demolish and rebuild from the ground up and this was not done here. Only
time will tell if the penalties administered were harsh enough. I wonder if
it was even though some of this stuff was severe.

My thoughts before the bombshell that is Penn State

I won't speculate here about what will happen to Penn State and its badly
tarnished, irreparable football program. We'll find out about that tomorrow
morning early. What I would like to talk about are my thoughts headed into
this huge announcement.

I think whatever Penn State gets they will deserve. Whatever they get in
the way of punishment will be Joe Paterno's legacy. From what I am hearing,
he died at the right time because he might have ended up in prison as well.
E-mails can get you into trouble years after they are written even if you
think they are gone permanently. Let that be a lesson to us all to be
careful what we say in cyber space.

Do I think a lot of football programs will be mad at Penn State? Yes I do,
especially in the big 10 as they may not be able to have a conference
championship due to possibly only 4 teams being eligible in the leaders
division. This would mean they would have to go back to the old format.
Since everything in college sports seems to be about the money, there are
programs that might lose some money and they won't be happy.

There's speculation that Penn state will be kicked out of the Big 10. It
would serve them right if this were to happen and quite frankly I hope it
does. They deserve it as that program has ruined so many lives. At least
some of the kids in the program now are being allowed to transfer out with
eligibility prohibitions being waived by the NCAA. That's a good thing
because at least they will be able to salvage something from this mess that
they did not create.

I will have more thoughts in about 8.5 hours when the announcement comes
out.

The $16 million temper tantrum

Well part one of the $16 million temper tantrum in Wisconsin is under way.
How did we get here? Well it's simple.

The Democrats and their union supporters did not like the reforms that Gov.
Scott Walker put into place. These reforms curbed the power of the public
unions and gave local government tools they could use to save money; and
many local units of government used these tools to their advantage. They
were able to save money, lower health insurance costs and lower property
taxes for their taxpayers. Walker did not cave to the unionistas and the
whiny brats who call themselves Democratic party officials.

For putting these reforms in place, bringing certainty to the economy and
business Walker is faced with a temper tantrum from the unionistas in the
form of a recall, one which is being held for all the wrong reasons. The
little children known as Democrats want a redo because they didn't like how
the 2010 election turned out. Well the children need to learn that
electiosnhave consequences.

Well they need to learn to live with the results and I think this tantrum
will show them that. Barrett's craptastic record will lose him and the
whiny children this recall election. Wisconsin needs to decide between two
futures. One is the path of prosperity, lower taxes, job growth and
certainty for business. The other choice is one of higher taxes, job loss
and over regulation of business. In other words do they want to move
forward or go back to the bad old days of Doyle?

Barrett's craptastic record includes high unemployment, high crime and high
infant mortality including a high number of infant murders called
co-sleeping by the liberal establishment in Milwaukee. As Barrett is the
likely winner of the primary, does Wisconsin want someone who will lead or
do they want someone who is an empty suit? His idea of creating jobs is the
green economy and we've seen where that's gotten us. Then there's the
environmental disaster known as MMSD's dumping of shit into the lake.
Barrett has failed miserably to stopthe the dumping of shit into the lake;
and we're talking about millions of gallons of shit too.

Once this is over, the bill ought to be sent to the national Democratic
Party and the public unions, giving them 30 days to pay the bill prior to it
going to collection. Maybe that will teach the children that temper
tantrums have consequences.

What future will they choose? I can sure say one thing. I wish we had a
leader like Scott Walker here in Illinois. Maybe our taxes would be lower
than they currently are and we would have pension reform. One can hope and
pray.

Milwaukee: call it what it is, murder!

As many of you know I do listen to some radio out of Milwaukee WI. As a
result of this, I hear about some of the issues that are going on in that
area and one of them is what they are calling co-sleeping. As the title
indicates, it's not what I call it. This behavior is defined as aninfant
sleeping with an adult in an adult bed or worse, on a couch. They seem to
have a lot of these incidents, far more than we hear about in northern
Illinois.There's got to be a reason for that and I have a theory as to what
one of those reasons might be. They're not calling it what it really is,
murder.

Murder is defined as the killing of someone by another person. While this
is likely not the strict legal definition, it will suffice for this
discussion. There were two more of these "co-sleeping" or what I call
murders, this past weekend; and they were about five hours apart.

What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and
expecting a different result. Well in this case, not calling something for
what it really is means you will get more of it. I truly believe that not
calling this murder diminishes the seriousness of the crime so that they get
more of it. Besides that, leaders in the community don't speak out against
it either, especially in the African-American community where most of these
seem to happen.

This community has some serious issues and this is but one of them and it
points to larger issues such as drug abuse, alcoholism and children
havingchildren. It also points to lack of leadership when no one speaks out
and says,"hey this is wrong."

How many infants must die before theMilwaukee community calls so-called
co-sleeping for what it really is, murder?

Come up with a candidate GOP

As the title indicates, the GOP needs to come up with a candidate; one who
can beat Obama. This country can't afford another four years of Obama and
Stewart Barney from Fox Business News said tonight on, I believe, the Hanidy
Show that if Obama gets another four years, this country will be bankrupt.
Is that a future the GOP wants to see for our country? I know it's not a
future this Republican wants to see. We don't need to be more like Europe
in that regard.

Several candidates have come and gone. Herman Cain was once the flavor of
the day and has thankfully exited the scene. Rick Perry has taken a dive
after showing that he is not ready for prime time. Bockman and Paul both
need to exit as they're too extreme. What we're left with is Romni,
Gingrich, Santorum and Huntsman. For these last four, Gingrich has what I
believe are insurmountable problems and would do the party and the country a
favor by exiting the race now.

As for the other three, I have problems with Romni on health care. I need
to find out more about the other two but Santorum is a conservative who I
wish would catch fire. Huntsman is one who Obama will have trouble
attacking as Obama appointed him Ambassador to China. That says something
for how they get along. It also gives Huntsman some credible foreign policy
experience.

It comes down to electability and Romni is probably the most electable but
stranger things have happened. I urge all who read this to do as I plan to
do and explore the issues and look at the candidates you are interested in.
become an educated voter. The future of the country is at stake.

9/11 ten years later`

As I write this, many things are going through my head. It's the tenth
anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. It happened ten
years ago in three different locations; New York City, Washington D.C. and
Shanksville PA. A total of 4 aircraft were used as weapons and somewhere
around 3,000 people lost their lives just doing what they usually did on any
given day. The World Trade Center towers collapsed, the Pentagon was hit
and passengers on United flight 93 became the first soldiers in the war on
terror.

I'll never forget that day and what I was doing. My husband and I had a
habit of talking early in the morning after he left for work and I got up as
he went in earlier than I did. We had our conversation on the morning of
Tuesday September 11, 2001 as we always did. We hung up and I turned on the
radio only to find out that something awful was happening in New York city.
I immediately called my husband and told him to turn on the radio as WBBM
was taking feed from New York City for reasons I did not fully understand
when I called him. It would not be long before we understood what was going
on. It was also not long before we realized that this great nation was
under attack.

It was a cool clear morning that day. I went to the YMCA that morning and
it was quiet in the exercise room. Needless to say the T.V was on with the
coverage from New York City and other locations. It was there I think that
I found out about the Pentagon. It was definitely there that the towers
fell. It was there or later that I found out about the brave passengers on
United flight 93.

There was a national unity that had not been seen before in my lifetime and
sadly won't likely be seen again. People were thought of as Americans, not
Democrats and republicans. How I wish we had that today rather than the
hyper partisanship we have today.

We have not one but two wars as a result of that day. One I supported and
one I did not. Afghanistan was clearly related to 9/11 while Iraq was not.
We have many casualties as a result of both of these wars.

Earlier this year president Obama achieved something that eluded President
George W. Bush and that something was the killing of Osama Bin laden. That
was a wonderful thing and something that offers some closure for the
families of 9/11.

We have tighter security in airports, although not as tight as it could be.
Just look at Israel for that. There is so much we could learn from them on
the subject of airport security.

We've had some attempts at blowing up aircraft since 9/11 but fortunately
those were not successful due to vigilance and luck on our part. There was
the underwear bomber on a flight headed to Detroit on Christmas Eve 2009.
There was the shoe bomber as well.

There've been other plots that were foiled such as the one involving ink
cartridges and UPS shipments internationally. The Brits helped foil that
one.

This country has changed but I hope we never ever forget those who gave the
ultimate sacrifice that day to help those in need, our first responders. We
lost too many of them on that horrible day. You will never be forgotten.

I close with the words of Darryl Whirly from his song "Have You Forgotten?"
"Have You forgotten when those towers fell, we had neighbors still inside
going through a living hell and we vowed to get the ones behind Bin Laden.
Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten? Some went down like heroes in that
Pennsylvania field. Have you forgotten about our Pentagon, all the love
ones that we lost and those left to carry on. ...."

No and I never will.