A Special Edition of Home School Carnivals

My blogging buddy, Heather, home schoolmarm par excellence, has spared no time and effort as hostess of this week's Carnival of Homeschooling. She's utilized a Yearbook Theme to highlight the activities. She did a great job getting old yearbook pics of all those involved in the event.

Give Sprittibee and her friends a visit and see why homeschoolers are head and shoulders above the pack.

Nix the Law of the Sea Treaty

Hat tip to Mark Levin for making note of this piece in the American Spectator about the horrific Law Of The Sea Treaty which I've blogged about several times in the past.

It's an abysmal treaty as are most international treaties ramrodded by the corrupt U.N. This sovereignty robbing treaty is in the Senate right now and there aren't too many media outlets, talk radio or otherwise, who are talking about this. Pity!

Sadly, no, tragically, President Bush is pushing for ratification of this treaty which would give the U.N. unprecedented powers of taxation via mining and/or drilling as well as jurisdiction over who and where ships could sail.

Which means that anything we, the sovereign United States of America, wished to do on the high seas would be subject to the scrutiny of the International Courts. Hello New World Order!

Contact your senators now to let them know you absolutely disapprove of this Law of the Sea Treaty.

Be sure to read the above linked American Spectator piece to learn more about this treacherous treaty which is being kept under raps and raise more than just a little hell over this debacle.

Today's Common Sensical "Must Read"

Author Charles J. Sykes surely is a man after my own heart. He has a piece in today's American Thinker titled, I Have Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance Policies. In it he illustrates the dearth of common sense among educators who simultaneously profess to be in the business of teaching critical thinking. Go figure!

...in South Carolina, high school student Amber Dauge faced expulsion for accidentally taking a butter knife to school. She says that she ran out of the house to meet the bus while making a sandwich and when she realized she had the knife, she put it in her bookbag, and later left it in her locker at. A few weeks later, the butter knife fell out, fellow students saw it, a teacher intervened, and the over-reaction commenced. The knife was seized, Amber was suspended, and the process of expelling her from high school began.

It is not clear precisely what threat is posed by a butter knife, except to a sandwich. Even a dull pencil is a more dangerous weapon; the forks in the school cafeteria are more lethal. But once "zero tolerance" kicks in, educrats refuse to draw such fine distinctions: a butter knife becomes indistinguishable from a samurai sword.

Of course, after Columbine, educators do have legitimate reasons to be concerned about student safety, but the low-grade hysteria and hyper-bubble-wrapping of children in the name of zero-tolerance is really about something else: the refusal of adults to use their common sense.

Some years ago four kindergarten boys in New Jersey were actually suspended for playing cops and robbers -- using their fingers as guns. In Texas, a high school baseball player was busted for having an 8-inch long souvenir baseball bat on the front seat of his car, after officials decided it met the written definition of a "weapon."

But here's the money quote of the entire piece:

"Nature," as H.L. Mencken once observed, "abhors a moron." The same obviously cannot be said of school boards, who often hire them as principals.

Ya gotta love that quote! If you're put off by the "zero-tolerance" policies in government schools, then you'll want to read this piece.

The UN's Eco-Socialist Agenda

If you want to know what's really behind the global warming fiasco, you need to read an extremely important piece written by Joseph Klein in today's FrontPage Magazine. Here's a portion of it:

The United Nations has just issued yet another scaremongering assessment of the world’s environment. It was put together by the UN’s principal environmental agency, known as the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The best way to engineer transformation of the current legal system to global governance of the environment, under the auspices of the UN, is for its “experts” to first create the mass perception of an imminent cosmic cataclysm if humanity continues on its present course.[1]

The UNEP report, known as “Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development (GEO-4)”, covers not just global warming. It covers all dimensions of environmental deterioration that UNEP claims are imminently putting “humanity at risk”. The report warns that we are in mortal danger of passing “unknown points of no return” on climate change, the rate of extinction of species, loss of fertile land through degradation, unsustainable pressure on resources and the challenge of feeding a growing population.

UNEP’s GEO-4 report places primary blame on over-population and the “the rising consumption of the rich”. The solution, according to the authors of the report, requires “fundamental changes in social and economic structures, including lifestyle changes.”

UNEP is serving up repackaged socialism, which one could call eco-socialism. Essentially it is saying that we have to choose between the capitalist free market or a habitable planet.

Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma put it more bluntly during the United Nations meeting on Climate Change in New York last month:

'I think that capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity and if we do not change the model, change the system, then our presence, our debate, our exchange, and the proposals that we make in these meetings at the United Nations will be totally in vain… Where does this pollution come from? It comes from, and is generated by, the unsustainable development of a system which destroys the planet: in other words, capitalism.

I feel that it is important to organise an international movement to deal with the environment, a movement that will be above institutions, businesses and countries that just talk about commerce, that only think about accumulating capital. We have to organize a movement that will defend life, defend humanity, and save the earth.

I think that it is important to think about some regions, some sectors and some countries repaying what has often been called the ecological debt.'

The UNEP report adopts the Bolivian president’s eco-socialist philosophy. Its authors have little faith in free market technological solutions to environmental problems, or what they call “the technology-centred development paradigm". They are bringing back to life the long discredited economic theory of Thomas Robert Malthus, who predicted in the late eighteenth century that population growth would outstrip the growth of the world’s food supply, leading to a catastrophe of subsistence-level living conditions.

Please be sure to read the rest of this article. It's crucial that America wakes up to the real reason behind the global warming agenda as well the destructive and corrupt nature of the United Nations.

Too many people assume, because of it's ineptitude and corruption, that the UN is irrelevant. It is not irrelevant because we have a congress and a White House that goes along with much of what the UN wants.

The UN is antithetical to everything America was built upon and it now actively seeks our wealth and our sovereignty.

Burn a Baby, but don't Hang a Witch...

How is it that hanging a witch in effigy in Massachusetts sparks allegations of a "hate crime," but no such allegations occur when the depiction of a baby being sacrificed over a fire is displayed in Ohio?

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A Halloween display with gruesome images of human decapitation and a baby being grilled on a barbecue has some Ohio residents horrified.

Starr Chesebrough and his girlfriend, Laurie Brown, of West Chester, Ohio, are responsible for the display, which has led to numerous complaints to police and zoning officials.

"Having a baby in a grill, that's kind of vulgar," one area resident told Cincinnati's WLWT-TV.

Another said, "You've got to think about what the kids' reactions are gonna be to that. How do you explain that to a little child?"

The complaints to police have been anonymous, and Brown says she was surprised to learn there was any concern, as she and her boyfriend have had similar displays up every year.

"Nobody has ever come, knocked on the door," she said. "Nobody left a note saying they're not happy with it."

Despite the outcry from some, Chesebrough says the display is staying.

"This is Halloween. It's just meant to be scary," he said. "I don't mean to offend anybody. I'm having fun."

What could be more uproarious than sacrificing a baby over a fire? What fun! These people really know how to party!

Here's the video clip from Breitbart.tv:



Who could ever be offended by such festive celebrations? Burn a baby doll, just don't hang mannequin dressed up like a witch. That could get you in trouble!

That in itself speaks volumes about the dark origins of Halloween.

Your Constitutional Right to not be Offended

By now we all understand that it's "against the law" to offend certain individuals or groups. Not all individuals or groups, mind you, just those whose numbers are in the minority, because, it may be reasoned, we dare not offend someone who's in the minority. Why's that, you might ask? Because it might be construed as prejudicial and therefore "unfair" for anyone in the majority to offend anyone in the minority.

Because the majority has graciously allowed the minority to run roughshod over them for so many politically correct years, this bogus "right to not be offended" has taken root to the point where far too many people really do believe that offending others is against the law.

Many realize that it's not a matter of actually being against the law, but rather the fear of being taken to court. Who needs the aggravation and high court costs. Even huge organizations like the Military are quick to concede to the caterwauls of so-called offendees.

The latest flap over politically correct "offenses" involve the words spoken during the flag-folding ceremonies at military funerals. It seems there was ONE (1) person who complained about the 11th fold which “glorifies the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob:”

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Flag-folding recitations by Memorial Honor Detail volunteers are now banned at the nation’s 125 veterans graveyards because of a complaint about the ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery.

During thousands of military burials, the volunteers have folded the American flag 13 times and recited the significance of every fold to survivors.

The first fold represents life, the second a belief in eternal life, and so on.

The complaint revolved around the narration in the 11th fold, which celebrates Jewish war veterans and “glorifies the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

The National Cemetery Administration then decided to ban the entire recital at all national cemeteries. Details of the complaint weren’t disclosed

It's so sad to think that one person, for no good reason, and with no legal ground on which to stand, could effect such change.

One person's self-absorption caused (for now, anyway) The National Cemetery Administration to do away with this time honored Flag-Folding Ceremony.

What on earth would possess a person to do such a thing?

Maybe the The Church Lady was on to something!

Quote for All Times (Especially Now!)

By Theodore Roosevelt in 1907:

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag.. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

One hundred years later, President Roosevelt would be deemed an intolerant bigot by intolerant ignoramuses who haven't a clue what America's motto is (E Pluribus Unum) or what it means.

If we only had leaders of this magnitude today!

Don't be distracted by the "Liberal Meltdown"

Monica Crowley wrote a good piece at Human Events about the ongoing
"Liberal Meltdown" happening before our very eyes. If you haven't been paying attention, be sure to read it.

But she doesn't even mention the now infamous, abuse of power Harry Reid Smear Letter, meant to silence Rush Limbaugh, which was signed by 41 democrats, three of whom are running for president. Rush brilliantly auctioned the letter off for a record $2.1 million and then proceeded to match that amount himself. This letter exemplified the arrogance and corruption of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the 41 democrat signees and will serve as historical testimony to their abuse of power.

Nor did Crowley mention the embarrassing Pelosi resolution "that labeled the 1915-1923 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire a genocide." That non-binding resolution, had it been passed, would have severely damaged our relationship with Turkey, thereby threatening our military supply lines into Iraq (which many will argue is precisely what Pelosi and her ilk wanted, since they want to disrupt the Iraq War in any way they can).

All the amusing failings of the leftist Congressmen and the overt campaigning charades of Hillary; how warm and lovable she is and how women will universally want to vote for her because "she's a woman," make the casual conservative observer feel all warm and fuzzy, because of the left's ineptitude.

All that being said, now is not the time to be distracted by the inanity of the left.

It would be a dangerous thing to sit back and think that Americans are far too intelligent to not be able to see through the vacuous shenanigans of the left and their media pimps.

Again, I exhort the reader to not be distracted.

We still have a wide open border! We have politicians on both sides of the isle wanting ever more socialism; can you say Hillary Health Care or expanded SCHIP care?

We have a president and secretary of state who want to ratify The Law of the Sea Treaty; a treaty which would put the U.N. in charge of the oceans and strip us of our sovereignty!

How about the concept of International Law? Do you want The Hague to be the law of our land? At the very least, the Law of the Sea Treaty would swamp the U.S. Legal System.

America isn't paying attention! Even people who ARE paying attention, aren't really paying enough attention!

What could be more important than our borders or some sovereignty robbing treaty put forth by the most corrupt and inept institution in modern history (the U.N.)?

We can't afford to be distracted by pusillanimous politicos who make daily buffoons of themselves when life (as we know it) threatening treaties are looming over our heads.

Wake up, people!

A Plethora of Pumpkins

These pics were taken at the Dallas Farmers Market this past weekend.

(All photos taken by Rich Glasgow...all rights reserved)

A Gaggle of Gourds

I made a trip to the Dallas Farmers Market this weekend to see if could get some good fall harvest shots. There were gourds, pumpkins and mums galore.

(photos by Rich Glasgow....all rights reserved)

Chuck Norris endorses Huckabee

See why Chuck Norris has endorsed Huckabee for president. He (Huckabee, that is) is starting to catch on with conservatives. He's not getting media attention, but can that be a surprise to anyone? He may not be electable (at least at this point), but he sure as hell could cause the rest of them to swerve rightward, which they desperately need to do!

Pray for Army Spc. John Austin Johnson and his family

What a horrific story! While Army Spc. John Austin Johnson was being treated from Iraq War injuries and waiting for his family to reunite with him at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he was informed that two of his children had been killed in a car wreck as they were on the way to visit him:

DALLAS - Two children of a Fort Bliss soldier flown back from Iraq with combat injuries are dead and a third is on life support following a car accident on the way to visit their father in the hospital, Army officials said.

Army Spc. John Austin Johnson was waiting for his wife and three kids to visit him at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio Oct. 13 when another soldier told him his family's car had rolled over four times on Interstate 10 about 12 miles east of Ozona on the gusty West Texas plains.

"He said, 'Two of my children are dead?'" Army Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Schmidt told The Dallas Morning News. "And we started crying."

Schmidt said Johnson's wife, Lisa, overcorrected the steering in her sport utility vehicle after encountering a blast of wind on the drive from El Paso. The couple's youngest children, 2-year-old Logan and 5-year-old Ashley, died at the scene.

Tyler Johnson, 9, suffered massive head injuries and remains on life support at Children's Medical Center in Dallas. He was listed in critical but stable condition Sunday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

"He's a fighter. Even the doctors are amazed he's still alive," said Schmidt, who says the family is too grief-stricken to speak publicly. "We're praying."

Stuff happens at the worst possible time. It's that "time and chance" deal that no one has control over. If you're a praying person, please pray for this family. They need the peace and comfort that only Almighty God and His comforting Holy Spirit can give at such a horrific time. May God bless and comfort Army Spc. John Austin Johnson, his wife and their entire family.

More: Army Spc. John Austin Johnson survived five improvised explosions...

Cox & Forkum bowing out of the blogosphere

Having been offline and out of the internet loop for the better part of the last three weeks, I was sad to learn that my favorite editorial cartoonists, Cox & Forkum, have taken their final bow, as illustrated above.

In Allen Forkum's own words:

With mixed emotions I announce: John and I will no longer be producing editorial cartoons. John will continue posting his work at his blog, John Cox Art, and he and I will continue working together on various projects, but there will be no more regularly scheduled editorial cartoons. The Web site will remain running indefinitely, as a means to market our books and as an archive of our work.

Forkum had some other things to say with which I can relate:

For better or worse, I've always had to approach the editorial cartoon work as a "part time" career. I never quit my "day job" as co-owner of a small newspaper publishing business. The editorial work, though intellectually rewarding, is not very rewarding financially. Furthermore, researching the cartoons, writing/designing them, managing the blog, publishing the books, marketing them, and running the business side all take an enormous amount of time.

All of that comes with the territory, of course, and John and I have done pretty well over the last six years. We're fairly well known on the Internet, we have a few newspaper and magazine clients, we've self-published four books, and we've made some money, if not a living. But lately, for reasons I won't go into here, I can no longer afford to divert so much time and attention away from my publishing business and other personal concerns, such as my family.

I also want to stop focusing so much of my creative energy on negative aspects of daily life. There's still an ideological battle to be fought, not to mention an actual war, and I will stay engaged in some form and medium. But at this point, anything seems more appealing than immersing myself in the sewer of daily politics.

That said, I imagine we won't be able to resist creating an occasional editorial cartoon. And if we do, we'll post it here.

I'm going to miss these guys, but as you will see when you visit their site, they're not going into seclusion...they're just refocusing.

God bless both of you, Allen Forkum and John Cox. You all are major talents and I hope you make a ton of money with your books.