I was looking online at a story about British political campaign posters, and noticed something interesting. Their political parties seem better labeled than ours. Well, mostly. They have a "Conservative" party, and that makes sense. Conservative folks would probably fit in there. They have a "Liberal Democrat" party, and I'm sure Obama fans would fit in there. I don't know what the "Labour" party is, probably the "left-of-center" party, I guess. But anyhow, those other two parties leave no doubt as to their direction. I like the names.

Now look at us. We got a "Democratic" that's as statist as you can get. They should proudly wear red, but have blue instead. They do have the right animal, though. The Republicans, I'm not sure how they got the red. They'd be much better off in blue. Also, "Republican" best describes the smothering socialist juggernaut envisioned by those of the "D" persuasion.

I suggest we could make things easier for us and future demonstrations if the two parties simply traded places. Let the individual-rights limited-limited government pro-development folks be the blue "Democrats". Let the statists, the socialists, the "government knows best" crowd drape themselves in crimson and be the "Republicans" as they look to big government to be their savior.

With that done, we might have something close to the clarity of the "Conservatives" and "Liberal Democrats" of our distant relatives across the Atlantic.

I found this while browsing online, it's hilarious. www.frozengore.com, an ice sculpture done up in Fairbanks, Alaska. They even have a contest where you guess how many days and hours a huge Ford engine (460 c.i.d.) has to idle to equal the carbon emissions of a single Learjet flying to Copenhagen. Classic. They only have a box for guessing days and hours, so I'm assuming it must be less than a year.

From this article:

Sweden's famous "welfare state" spends only about 8.6 percent more per capita than the United States -- probably a much smaller difference than most would have guessed. France spends virtually the same amount as the U.S., just 1.6 percent more. Meanwhile, Finland spends 6 percent less. Countries such as Germany, Italy, and the U.K. don't even come close to the U.S. And our neighbor Canada spends 14 percent less per capita than the U.S. Japan spends 32 percent less.

This is like, oh, depressing. Um, where do you go with this? I can't believe we're outspending these hopelessly Socialist nations, and not even delivering the population-anesthetizing freebie benefits those nations have. None of the classic Socialist bennies. Cradle-to-grave income, a job for every warm body, free no-questions-asked healthcare. None of it yet. Well, the healthcare thing will come 'round soon enough, though.

But we outspend per capita more than the Socialists? That's just depressing.

I love watching Japanese movies. Old ones. Stuff from the 60's, 50's, and all the way back to the black and white silent movies. While most folks in the English-speaking world know who Akira Kurosawa was, few know who Yasujiro Ozu was. Ozu was a Japanese director, born in 1903, who made oceans of films. Most of his films were domestic family stories about fathers worried about their children, newlyweds trying to scrape by, and so on. No bombs, no gunfights, no Yakuza. Just people living their lives.

Now here's the odd part. Watching his pre-World War II films such as Tokyo Chorus or I Was Born, But..., I cannot help but wonder, "Did anybody living at the time see it coming?" You watch a movie, and there are people catching the bus to work, husbands needing to find work in a faraway town while wives fret about their homes and children, pushy bosses, nosy neighbors. Did they realize in a few years, their world would be torn apart by war? Did the actors sense the impending doom? How many children playing bit parts were appearing on film for the last time in their prematurely shortened lives? Did they see it coming?

I'm trying hard to not be bitter about the current state of our nation, but cannot help but imagine we're headed for a similar fate, where we'll remember what looks now like hard times as the good old days. I'm not blaming President Obama; he was elected just like every other U.S. President, and he has a following who thinks we can give free healthcare, free houses, free food, free washing machines, free insurance to everybody. Nothing in life is free. Nothing.

I'm sure all those folks in Japan thought the Emperor knew what he was doing when they went and invaded Manchuria, when they allied themselves with Nazi Germany, when they attacked Pearl Harbor. I'm sure they thought their nation was entering some tough times, but they could have avoided it all. How many lost their lives for nothing? How many families destroyed? Did they see it coming? Do we? Will the next decade smile on our nation as we turn our back on God and bow to worship the statues of Marx and Darwin? Do we see it coming?

Yesterday on TV I saw the announcement that the US Preventive Service Task Force recommended women not get mammograms until age 50, and then only every two years. This flies in the face of years of recommendations and public awareness campaigns aimed at early screening of all cancers, not just breast cancer.

Why the change? I would dare to suggest you are seeing a foretaste of Obama rationed healthcare. Think I'm alone? I'm not. Today on the way home, I heard Dr. Ilona Farr call in to the Dan Fagan radio show on KFQD 750 am radio. She said she has 25 women with breast cancer in her practice, and at least half of them had their cancer detected prior to age 50. Dr. Farr indicated this was basically the future, rationed healthcare and a lack of access to early screening.

I'd dare to take it a step further, wondering if Sarah Palin's comment about "death panels" might be coming true as we watch history unfold before us. Consider this: if you are not given access to cancer screening until age 50, and you end up being found to have an advanced cancer that might have been caught at age 45, do you really think doctors will recommend aggressive treatment, or go the cheap route and send you to a hospice to die?

Of all the things the government could be doing to provide Americans with affordable healthcare, I can't imagine a better value than doing early cancer screening, to stop a tragedy before it becomes unstoppable. I do hope and pray that if the socialist fantasy of universal healthcare comes to pass, at least it would air on the side of early detection and treatment, instead of yesterday's recommendation of what to this admitted total non-doctor appears to be "wait until it's too late."

I'm reading an article Ohio executions back on with 1-drug method. Very interesting reading. I forgot about it, but a few months back, there was a botched execution where techs were unable to find a vein in Kenneth Biros. Well, this time the State of Ohio prisons director Terry Collins has a one-drug injection method, which I don't see being any better since one still has to find a vein to inject, right? Anyhow, here is the nuttiest part of the article:

"Death penalty opponents hailed Collins' decision as making executions more humane but expressed reservations about using an untested method."

How do you test an execution method? Seems to me that conducting an execution is the test, ain't it?

Amazing. The socialist fifth-columnnist NBC news never once mentions Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft. Hood murderous terrorist, is a Muslim. They are instead doing a pondering on how this person could get access to handguns. They are going into more detail, perhaps they will mention Hasan is a Muslim? Oh, maybe they will now? They're giving a background on the guy. Nope. Now they're talking about the history of Ft. Hood.

Here, let me help you with what NBC refuses to say.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan is a Muslim.

There. News you can use.

I'm at home feelin' ill. Crawled outta bed. Turned on the TV. Decided to watch C-SPAN. Don't ask why, must be part of being ill. I'm watching the senator from Rhode Island, a Democrat, complaining about Republicans eating up time with filibusters. He spent a long time saying it, so he's pretty much a waster of time, too. It's a debate about unemployment benefits.

Mr. Democrat is saying the states hit hardest by unemployment are Rhode Island, Michigan, Nevada. Guess what? How do you say this politely? How's that Obama economics working out for ya? Enjoying your change? I thought not.

Now Sen, Lamar Alexandar (R) is on, and he's talking about how they are keeping the nation from becoming victimized by the Tyranny of the Majority. He's right. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona, Minority Whip) [what a short name! Makes it easy to campaign] chimes in, and they're tag-team blasting the Dems. Right on! His line? If the nation is suffering from unemployment, does more taxes on business make sense now?

This is what happens when you end up at home sick.

Sen. Jon Kyl is still going on about the debate on healthcare, rebuking the Dems in fine fashion, too. He asks, how much will the healthcare bill cost? Fine question, I think. Anyhow, this is now like a half-hour later, and on they go. I'm glad to see some Senators out there trying to keep our nation from descending into pure Marxism. Go on Senators Kyl and Alexandar!

I know I'm supposed to love my enemies. My wife and I read through the Beatitudes just last night. I kid you not, every time I set out to try to not loathe Barack Hussein Obama, it proves impossible!

So what is it this time? I can't blame Obama this time at all. He did nothing this time. And that's exactly the problem; he did nothing. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize. For doing nothing.

Nothing.

Did he bring peace to the Middle-East? Nope. In fact, he's probably, by his inaction, encouraging Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to go full-tilt nuclear and nuke Israel. While I'm glad President Obama has avoided the temptation to immediately cut and run out of Afghanistan and Iraq, I don't see how being Commander-in-Chief in the midst of a years-long war would engender any sort of consideration for a peace prize.

Perhaps it's the humanitarian angle. Did he unite people? I think not. Black and White America are more polarized than ever, with any disagreement with White House policy direction met with cries of "Racism!"

Economics? America has spent billions, no, trillions of dollars it does not have to produce the illusion of recovery. We are living the economic equivalent of enjoying the "honeymoon" period of maxing out all the credit cards before the bills come due.

According the the Nobel selection committee, they felt Obama has given people hope. Hope. Doesn't every scientist working on a cure for cancer, a cure for AIDS, a cure for diabetes, give people hope? Why not award them the Nobel prize? Well, perhaps it's bigotry, perhaps it's some class warfare thing, but folks expect scientists to deliver the cure before the accolades are handed out. Funny how that works.

What has President Obama done to merit the Nobel prize? What?