This is a video of Steve Rupp and I covering an Alice In Chains song at a Soundtracks performance.




(I like that little lick I did at the end...that was nice!)

this is from a non-partisan economist....

The 'Public Plan' Delusion

By Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON -- In the health care debate, the "public plan" is all things to all people. For supporters, it would discipline greedy private insurers and make health coverage affordable. For detractors, it's a way station on the path to a single-payer insurance system of government-run health care. In reality, the public plan is mostly an exercise in political avoidance: It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn't.

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A must for everyone's Christmas list this year! AK-47 included!

(click picture to enlarge)

"I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as promised by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose. I can find no warrant for such appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people.

The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character; while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of common brotherhood."

-President Grover Cleveland in response to a bill passed by Congress in 1887 that would have given Federal aid to farmers suffering through a drought.

(if only the politicians of today held themselves to the same principles)

How This Ex-Liberal Found Fortitude and Her Way Home

by: Anita MonCrief

Putting political ideology aside for a moment, I will tell anyone that there has been a certain amount of inner peace that I have never had before and I have noticed more harmony in my family. For the first time in my adult life I can honestly say that I am not at war with myself or the world. I never knew that by changing my political beliefs that I would find my faith, change the course of my life and end a self destructive pattern of victimhood.

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So, now that she's no longer a liberal, will liberals call her a racist (even though she's black)?

my favorite guitarist showing off his gear

If You Are Not Healed, Do You Lack Faith?
by Hank Hanegraaf

A social media question via Facebook from Frieda recently got my attention. She wrote, “How do you answer people when they tell you, you are lacking faith? My brother is a paraplegic since he was three years old and has prayed all his life to walk. He knows he will walk one day with the Lord but people in the church feel it necessary to comment to him that he doesn’t have enough faith. It has caused him at times to question God on why he cannot get his healing but he does understand that God uses him because of his disability. So what should his answer be to these people?” So imagine this scene you have a paraplegic in the church, and people are telling the paraplegic he doesn’t have enough faith because if he had enough faith he wouldn’t be a paraplegic.

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(if you ever encounter someone who makes the claim that someone was not healed because they lack faith, then run away from them as fast as you can

something to look forward to

The Right to Everything

by: Doctor Zero

Advocates of the Democrats’ socialized medicine program often speak of the “right” to health care, or more specifically the right to affordable health care or health insurance. This notion of rights bestowed by government is one of the basic tenets of modern liberalism, which is the mirror image of classical liberalism. It is a foundation that should be attacked by the defenders of liberty at every opportunity, because if one concedes this principle, the remaining logic of “soft” tyranny becomes inexorable. This is an argument that conservatives must never grow weary of having, because there will never come a day when it’s unnecessary to make it.

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Jack Webb Schools Barack Obama on Healthcare...

one of my former guitar teachers playing at the King of the Blues competition in Knoxville...

The Truth About the Health Care Bills
by Michael Connelly

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

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Obama’s Renewable Two-Minute Hate Fest

by: Roger Kimball

In his inaugural address in January, Barack Obama promised to put “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

I hope you’ve noticed how free from petty grievances, false promises, recriminations, and worn out dogmas public discourse has been since that glorious new dawn, 20 January 2009.

What, you haven’t noticed the promised political metanoia? Confidentially, I haven’t either. And I suspect at least part of the reason was dramatized by Orwell’s dystopian novel. The Obama administration and its PR enablers are addicted to blaming others for their own difficulties and failures.

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all you need to know about socialized medicine...

   "Never say it," Tuck rebuked gently.  "We are not alone-for the Lord of Hosts is on our side and stretches out His mighty arm against our enemies."  The little friar smiled, his round face beaming simple good pleasure at the thought.  "If the Almighty stands with us, who can stand against us, aye?"  Tuck prodded Scarlet in the chest with his stubby finger.  "Just you answer me that, boyo.  Who can stand against us?"
     "The friar had a point, Scarlet confessed, that no one could stand against God-then added, "But there does seem no end o' folk that'll try."

(from Tuck  by Stephen R. Lawhead)

ah yes...BBS. I remember them fondly. It's amazing how far we've come since then.