A television tower that’s a must see

This is a website you have to see. I can’t understand what the artist is trying to convey in these sculptures, aside from the creepiness of them. And boy, are they the creepiest looking babies I’ve ever seen.

I just noticed that the link does not work. Maybe this will do it:

http://aasid.parsons.edu/decorationascomposition/content/zizkov-television-tower-prague-czech-republic

Does this not sound familiar?

From Reuters: The government [of France] has been forced to redraft a proposed bill to levy a temporary 75 percent tax on earnings over 1 million euros, which had been one of Hollande’s campaign pledges.

The Constitutional Council has judged such a high rate of taxation to be unfair, leaving the government to rehash it to hit companies rather than individuals.

Here we go again. Tax the corporations like that won’t effect the individuals.

When will these socialists (here and in Europe) realize that when you tax a company —– THEY DON’T PAY THE TAXES!!!!

We (the consumer) do!

Who’dda thought I’d be saying this?

Certainly not my kids. They know how much I hate the French.

But the French are onto something that I’ve been preaching about for over 20 years. They have a 5% rate of ADHD in their kids. We have over 9%. They don’t treat their kids with drugs like we do. They don’t see ADHD and other disorders as biological in basis that requires chemical medications (Ritalin) to treat, like we do. We are quick to look for a pill to cure all our problems.

The French see ADHD as an external situational disorder and they treat the underlying psychosocial causes with family therapy. They don’t resort to finding a pill to fix this. Might be the reason that the French have fewer kids going berserk at school and blowing classmates away. (Well that, and I guess guns aren’t as plentiful in socialistic France as they still are here.)

Also, the French raise their children differently than Americans do. They believe (as do I) that kids need boundaries and structure to feel safe. I also believe (as do the French) this gives kids the ability to learn patience and self discipline. The French still believe that a judiciously applied spanking is not child abuse, either. Good Lord, try telling one of your neighbors that you spank your kid and then prepare for a visit from CPS.

If you want to read more on the differences between American and French parenting, as well as the mental disorders of our respective children, you can read it here. It’s short.

So, on the same topic, if you read Drudge you’ve read this head line: According to CDC, 1 in 5 children have a mental disorder.

According to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up to 20 percent of American children are suffering from mental disorders such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, depression and autism.

Think about that for a minute. For every 50 kids your child knows and ends up going to school with, 10 of them have a mental disorder. And in America, we treat mental disorders with drugs. Many of the drugs we treat our children with have never been tested on children.

An issue of privacy?

I love reading about art and this morning one story on drudge caught my eye.

There’s an artist in NYC who has an exhibition going on there. His name is Arne Svenson and he takes photos from his apartment, inside the apartments across the street. Interestingly enough (LOL) the show is called The Neighbors. All the subjects have their faces obscured or not completely shown but their bodies are. Needless to say, the neighbors in that building are more than a little upset.

(As an aside, I love this particular picture.)

The building that he’s shooting into has ceiling to floor windows. The question is, when you live in a building like that, how much privacy do you expect to have? And in this day and age, with everyone who has a cell phone or an iPad with a camera, can we expect any privacy – ever? How about all the CCTVs in this nation now – like the ones that caught the Boston Marathon bombers?

I think that privacy is a thing of the past. Americans don’t have that right anymore. We’ve sacrificed it for safety – and for the look of a fancy building.

PBS on the Constitution

I encourage you all to go watch the first episode of PBS’s series on the Constitution. I just watched it on my computer – here – and the next episode is Tuesday night on tv. Or you can wait and watch it online later in the week.

I want to share some things that really stood out at me.

Hoover Dam, which I’m intimately familiar with. The host of this program, Peter Sagal, brags on what a great engineering miracle Hoover Dam is (and I agree, it is), how it made Las Vegas, Phoenix and Southern California into the great areas they are today, how this could not have been done without the federal government. Of course no mention of that fact that there were no unions, no EPA, no impact studies that alone take 10 years to complete BEFORE any construction can begin. So yes, it was done in less than 5 years.

I’m going to tell you a story about the new road they built over that dam. Originally the construction sign said that completion date of this highway was 2005. Then they changed it to 2008. Then they took the date completely off the sign. The completion wasn’t until 2010 or 11. And they had little black fenced off areas between the highways to protect the endangered whatever it was.

Peter talked to a black lady who was one of the original Little Rock children who were escorted into the high school when President Eisenhower nationalized the state’s National Guard. No mention of the fact that the Arkansas governor who originally opposed this and who sent out the state’s National Guard to prevent these children from going to school in the first place, was a democrat.

Then Peter travels to Montana and talks to a guy who is a big gun rights advocate. I’ve forgotten his name but that’s immaterial. Peter asks him why he needs so many guns. uh Peter, why do you need 6 bicycles? They go out shooting targets and he makes fun of the fact that they are shooting “imaginary cardboard invaders.”

And then they show a clip of Senator Rand Paul taking on a lady from the EPA and telling her that he is really unhappy with his toilet and all the other government regulations that the EPA has forced on Americans. She is smirking at him the whole time and tells him at one point that she can find him a toilet that will work for him. His retort? Are you going to pay for me to refit it too? The segment was a complete mocking of Senator Paul.

So all in all, there is no comparison to what Hillsdale has been doing on the Constitution. None.

Battle for the Constitution

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a couple of weeks but just haven’t gotten to it. So today’s the day.

As you all know, Hillsdale College has been offering a free Constitution course for the last couple of years. I’m not sure how many of people have taken it but I know it’s into the hundreds of thousands. People are really hungry for the facts and the truth about our founding and our sacred documents – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The approach that Hillsdale is taking is one that most of us find comfortable and in common with our own beliefs. God gave us the rights we have – not government. Only God can take them away – government cannot. Government has no rights except those that we confer onto it. And we the people, hire (elect) those people to represent us and our interests. In other words, they work for us.

Seeing the popularity of the Hillsdale course and not to be outdone by a conservative college, PBS has started their own 4 part series on the Constitution, airing throughout May. Of course, it’s a secular approach with no mention of God in the opening statements on rights. Natural rights or common rights but no mention of God given rights.

From PBS. org on the Constitution:

What is a right, and where does it come from? A right is a power or privilege that is recognized by tradition or law. Natural or human rights are inherent to human nature; they are not given by government, but neither does government always protect them.

PC police on parade at PBS. (Man, I love alliteration!)

No mention of God at all. But there are (if my memory serves me) 4 references to God in the Declaration of Independence. I still believe, maybe erroneously and maybe not, that most Americans believe in God and believe in the uniqueness and exceptionalism of our nation. And we believe that because of our strong belief in a higher power.

Who will win the battle for the Constitution? Will it be the God-loving conservatives or the secular and relative moralists on the left? I intend to watch this series just so I can see what we are up against.

Quote of the day – Jonah Goldberg

The White House is determined to be a great friend (i.e., servant) to the unions, so everything from the stimulus to the automaker buyout to the Gulf spill must first pass union muster. Remember those vital, “shovel-ready” weatherization jobs the stimulus was supposed to pay for? The Labor Department delayed them for nearly a year while trying to figure out how to comply with pro-union “prevailing wage” rules for each of more than 3,000 counties.

Liberalism has become a cargo cult to the New Deal, but many of the achievements of the New Deal would be impossible now. Just try to get a Hoover Dam built today.

President Obama likes to say that “if we could put a man on the moon,” we can do anything, from socializing medicine to abandoning fossil fuels. That’s nonsense on stilts for a host of reasons. But it’s also ironic, given that we can’t even put a man on the moon anymore. Not when NASA’s foremost priority is boosting the self-esteem of children and Muslims. Jonah Goldberg