Something To Think About

PERCEPTION

. . . Something To Think About . . .

THE SITUATION

In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.


About 4 minutes later:


The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.


At 6 minutes:


A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.


At 10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.


At 45 minutes:


The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.


This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

This experiment raised several questions:

*In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

*If so, do we stop to appreciate it?

*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?


One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made . . .

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?

Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal

Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal

Here are two families headed by: "Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal".
Both families have two parents, two children, and live in California .

Joe Legal works in construction, has a Social Security Number and

makes $25.00 per hour before taxes.

Jose Illegal also works in construction, NO Social Security Number,

and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".

Ready?

Now pay attention...

Joe Legal: $25.00 per hour x 40 hours = $1,000.00 per week, or

$52,000.00 per year. Now take 30% away for state and federal tax;

Joe Legal now has $31,231.00.

Jose Illegal: $15.00 per hour x 40 hours = $600.00 per week, or

$31,200.00 per year. Jose Illegal pays no taxes.
Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00.


Joe Legal pays medical and dental insurance with limited coverage

for his family at $600.00 per month, or $7,200.00 per year.

Joe Legal now has $24,031.00.

Jose Illegal has full medical and dental coverage through
the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year.
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.


Joe Legal makes too much money and is not eligible for food

stamps or welfare. Joe Legal pays $500.00 per month for food,

or $6,000.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $18,031.00.

Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for food
stamps and welfare. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.


Joe Legal pays rent of $1,200.00 per month, or $14,400.00
per year. Joe Legal now has $9,631.00.

Jose Illegal receives a $500.00 per month federal rent subsidy.

Jose Illegal pays out that $500.00 per month, or $6,000.00 per

year. Jose Illegal still has $ 31,200.00.


Joe Legal pays $200.00 per month, or $2,400.00 for insurance.

Joe Legal now has $7,231.00.

Jose Illegal says, "We don't need no stinkin' insurance!" and

still has $31,200.00.


Joe Legal has to make his $7,231.00 stretch to pay utilities,

gasoline, etc.

Jose Illegal has to make his $31,200.00 stretch to pay
utilities, gasoline, and what he sends out of the country
every month.


Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part
time job after work.

Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his
family.


Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same

school. Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while Jose

Illegal's children get a government sponsored lunch. Jose Illegal's

have an after school ESL program. Joe Legal's children go home.


Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same police and
fire services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not.

(…and, of course, the "freebies" that Jose Illegal gets are

paid by all American taxpayers.)


Do you get it, now?


If you support any politician that supports illegal aliens...
You are part of the problem!

It's way PAST time to take a stand for America and Americans!

The One Way Street

I have taken a little time off from blogging and sending out my daily quota of Email funnies. The National Precinct Alliance has really taken off and I have been swamped with requests for information. But this is very important information and worth the read.

Why the Tea Party Groups won't hold hands with the GOP and prefer to take them over.

We hear this all time — conservatives in the GOP have to play nice with the moderates.

We never hear the other, that moderates should play nice with conservatives. Why is that? Consider the facts:

In Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, conservative Tim Walberg challenged the very liberal Joe Schwartz in the 2006 Republican Primary and won. Walberg went on to win the general election.

In 2008, Schwartz endorsed Democrat Mark Schauer and Shauer used that endorsement to squeak out a win in this +2 Republican District.

In Maryland 1, conservative physician and state senator Andy Harris ran in the Republican Primary against Wayne Gilchrist. Harris defeated Gilchrist only to see Gilchrist throw his support to Democrat Frank Kratovil, who won with 49.12% of the vote.

In Arizona 5, conservative David Schweikert won the Republican nomination, but then lost to liberal Democrat Harry Mitchell. Why? Schweikert’s primary opponent refused to help him and sat on his hands rather than help Schweikert pick up his opponent’s primary support.

In Alabama 2, Jay Love beat Harri Anne Smith in the Republican Primary and ran against Bobby Bright in an R +16 district. Smith endorsed the Democrat and Bright went on to win 50.23% of the vote.

In New York 23, the liberal Dede Scozzafava drops out and instead of supporting the guy the GOP crawls on bended knee to, she endorses the Democrat.

All the time we hear “conservatives can’t win the general” and “conservatives should play nice with moderates.” Oh really? That's bullshit! The record shows that the moderates cannot take losing and conservatives don’t win the general because the moderate GOP stabs them in the back. We are tired of bending over and taking it up the kazoo.

If we are to work as a team, it can’t just be the conservative players in trouble for not passing the ball. The RINOs will be warming the bench very soon.

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/02/16/the-one-way-street/

The Lawyers' Party

The more you know...

This is very interesting! I never thought about it this way.. Perhaps this is why so many physicians are conservatives or Republicans..


The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers’ Party.
Barack Obama is a lawyer.
Michelle Obama is a lawyer.
Hillary Clinton is a lawyer.
Bill Clinton is a lawyer.
John Edwards is a lawyer.
Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer.
Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate).
Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.
Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress:
Harry Reid is a lawyer..
Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.


The Republican Party is different.
President Bush is a businessman.
Vice President Cheney is a businessman.
The leaders of the Republican Revolution:
Newt Gingrich was a history professor.
Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist.
House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer.
The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.

The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.

The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.

The Lawyers’ Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America . And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers’ Party, grow.

Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.

This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers.
Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become “adverse parties” of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.

Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

We cannot expect the Lawyers’ Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

The United States has 5% of the world’s population and 66% of the world’s lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as “spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you” and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!

Good Grief!

OBAMA CUTS SPENDING? THE JOKE IS ON YOU!

While you weren't looking, Obama and his Socialist Butt Buddies ramned it up Yours!

"Spending your money wisely," Obama says. WHAT A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT!

"Red ink keeps me awake at night." What? Obama thinks it needs to be Florescent RED?

Discretionary spending under President Obama has increased 84%. But more importantly, notice how eagerly the President attempts to make it seem like he had no choice in the matter by shifting the blame for our nation's deficits to other administrations.

Earlier in that same Q&A, the President said he did not want to "re-litigate the past" (BLAME BUSH) O.K. fair enough. Our focus should be on our future policies, and the budget the Obama administration released yesterday is a great place to start. Heritage Foundation fellow Brian Riedl has completed an analysis of the budget released yesterday, and this is what President Obama's policies would do:

• Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over 2007 pre-recession levels;


• Raise taxes on all Americans by more than $2 trillion over the next decade (counting health care reform and cap and trade);


• Raise taxes for 3.2 million small businesses and upper-income taxpayers by an average of $300,000 over the next decade;


• Leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion in as late as 2020; and


• Double the publicly held national debt to over $18 trillion.

Spending Freeze? Spending Cuts? Does anyone but a frigging Damned Idiot really think this amounts to anything more than a headlong dive into Socialism and Bankruptcy?

DRAWING THE LINE BETWEEN THE RINO AND THE REPUBLICAN

Note: Click Image To View Larger Size

WHEN DOES A REPUBLICAN CROSS THE LINE AND BECOME A TAX & SPEND RINO?

Most States have taxpayer groups that make the State politician's voting records public and ranks them accordingly with a "SCORE." Nobody scores 100% and a score of 50% is still considered to be citizen friendly.

In the case of Nevada, this was quite an eyeopener! Some so called conservatives had voting records worse than the admitted democratic Socialists.

When this report became public in Clark County Nevada (Las Vegas) you could hear the pigs screaming all the way from Carson City.

"HOW DARE THEY MAKE MY VOTING RECORD PUBLIC?"

"WE WILL DESTROY THE CLARK COUNTY GOP!"

And yes, they have tried and are still trying. In their failed effort to keep this out of the news and public view, lawsuits against individuals have been threatened. The State Party can impede the County Parties every effort to clean house and run efficiently. Political penalties will be paid by any candidate who dares to mention this and point-out the incumbents miserable voting record on raising taxes and fees. You see, the State GOP holds the purse strings to a considerable amount of MONEY. This is the darker side of politics one never sees unless they are on the inside. This is what goes on behind the closed doors of Executive Sessions.

As Mark Twain pointed out, the worlds two oldest professions have allot in common. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong, because the State GOP has the big bucks and can break an individual by filing lawsuit after lawsuit. Do we have a few rotten eggs in Carson City? Yes we do and you can smell them from miles away.

source: http://npri.org/