Thursday, July 19, 2007

DAVID STAHR - PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER

THIS IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT MY SON CHARLES JACOBSON THAT WRESTLES UNDER THE NAME OF "DAVID STAHR" ... I WANTED ALL OF YOU TO READ IT...THANKYOU..
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DAVID STAHR - www.davidstahr.com

Friday night fight at Cypress VFW hall

By VALERIE L. CLIFTON, vclifton@hcnonline.com

07/18/2007

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Money--An Abstraction That Ensnares

July 14, 2007

By Henry Makow Ph.D.

Midsummer seems a good time to poll my readers on how they deal with the temptation to devote most of their energy to making money.

Beyond a certain modicum necessary for survival and security, money becomes an abstraction. In the words of Samuel Butler, "enough is always a little more than one has."

The material world literally is organized to steal our souls from God. Like spiders, the central bankers, who serve Lucifer, spin this money out of nothing in order to ensnare us in a web of debt. And like spiders, the ultimate plan seems to be to devour us, body and soul.

How much of your thought and energy is devoted to money?

Stock market trading on the Internet literally has placed a slot machine in every home or hand. Millions of people trade during their workday. As a result, millions obsess constantly about money.

There is a tendency to think stock trading is cool if you're making money but morally corrupt if you're losing it. It can’t be both. Is "good" defined by success?

The trader is ensnared as long as he is successful, and can only find peace when he is bankrupted. Eventually there will be a crash and we all will be liberated.

Making money by stock trading is very enticing. It's often easy. Latch on to an Apple, for example. Money is very empowering. It lets you do things. It gives you freedom. It's a rush.

Of course, losing money is very debilitating. It's a bummer. It's easy to get hooked on the highs and lows. But some experienced traders manage to take them in stride.

I made a lot of money from "Scruples" and lost much of it gambling on options. I really didn’t know what I was doing and was arrogant and slow to learn. People who are successful in one realm mistakenly think they can do anything.

When I came into money, I lost my identity. My money owned me. I became a money manager. Instead of using it to advance personal goals, my sense of self waxed and waned with my balance. When my broker asked, "How are you?" I'd say to myself, "You tell me."

I didn’t have clear goals, so it was easy to be sidetracked. I was a product of the male arrested development endemic in this culture.

In retrospect, I'd be laughing if I had just bought blue chips and forgot about them. I wish I could say I had that wisdom and character.

The stock market is the only real democracy left. By cutting the vast middle class in on their wealth, the bankers ensure their loyalty. People don't care about truth and freedom, war and peace, as long as they have comfortable houses, BMW's and jacuzzis.

Many people put their faith in Gold. They say money is paper but isn't gold just a stone after all? The market is manipulated. The bankers could demolish the price of gold simply by raising interest rates. Friday July 13, gold hovered around $666 all day. Coincidence?

We will do anything to avoid serving God, anything to avoid taking the ego out of gold (symbolized by the l.) God really means serving "ourselves" since I believe obeying God is the principle of our personal development. Worship is serving our ideal selves, the person God created us to be.

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU HAVE

When I was rich I found I didn’t appreciate having things as much as I did as a grad student. I used to live on about $10K and wanted for nothing. I actually saved. It's not what you have; it's how much you appreciate what you have. And if it comes too easily, you tend to appreciate it less.

My first car, a nearly new Mazda GLC, took all my savings ($7K.) It meant the world to me. I became nauseous when some kids sat on the hood and made a dent. My last car, purchased when I was rich, was an Infiniti J30. I wrote a cheque for $37K and thought, "what the hell, it's OK."

Money is an abstraction that ensnares. Beyond our necessities, it just steals our lives. How did Ted Turner manage when his $10 billion fortune was reduced to $3 billion (after AOL bought Time Warner?) Did it sting to go from the 12th richest man to the 48th? I bet it did. Did it affect his lifestyle? I doubt it!

We can't buy happiness but we keep on trying. Money makes us feel good and feeling good is what motivates us. Only, the feeling doesn’t last. I have a hunch that Love (God) is what provides the permanent feel-good experience. We have substituted money for love. As a result, we can't love.

Henry David Thoreau said, "A man is rich in proportion to the time he can devote to other things than money." In those terms, many people–especially the rich-- are poor. Those "other things" are what make us human.

I'd like to hear your concise comments on how much thought and energy you devote to money, and how you feel about it..

Articles >>

Henry Makow is the author of A Long Way to go for a Date. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto. He welcomes your feedback and ideas at henry@savethemales.ca.

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WEAPONS OF CHOICE

Work rules could blow up ammunition supplies
OSHA considering new requirements for handling 'explosives'

Posted: July 7, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

The federal government is considering a series of new rules that would apply to workplaces where "explosives" are handled, giving rise to a concern that the restrictions could be used to limit – or eliminate – reasonable access to firearms ammunition.

Among those raising the issue is the National Rifle Association, which is publicizing a request that firearms owners express their opinion on the issue before a deadline of July 12.

"The proposed rule indiscriminately treats ammunition, powder and primers as 'explosives,'" the NRA said in a published statement, which noted the plan would:

Prohibit possession of firearms in commercial "facilities containing explosives"—an obvious problem for your local gun store.
Require evacuation of all "facilities containing explosives"—even your local Wal-Mart—during any electrical storm.
Prohibit smoking within 50 feet of "facilities containing explosives."

The proposal by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration "would have a dramatic effect on the storage and transportation of ammunition and handloading components such as primers or black and smokeless powder," the group said.

OSHA's proposal would "revise" its standards for "explosives and blasting agents" to include ammunition.

"This revision … is intended to enhance the protections provided to employees engaged in the manufacture, storage, sale, transportation, handling, and use of explosives," the federal agency said.

The NRA noted that it is important to note the rule – at this point – still is "proposed."

"So there's still time for concerned citizens to speak out before OSHA issues its final rule. The National Rifle Association, National Shooting Sports Foundation, and Sport Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute will all be commenting on these proposed regulations, based on the severe effect these regulations (if finalized) would have on the availability of ammunition and reloading supplies to safe and responsible shooters," the NRA said.

One WND reader described the situation as the "backdoor elimination of firearms," noting that Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., all are on the OSHA oversight committee.

"If you want to keep your guns we had better raise more hell than the amnesty bill caught," the writer said. "Make sure your congressman hears about this or you won't have any ammo."

The NRA said those who are interested in commenting should go to the regulations.gov website and do a search for Docket Number OSHA-2007-0032.

Another reader suggested contacting firearms industry connections and ask them to contact the Department of Defense.

"My reasoning being if the arms industry loses its civilian market that will have a very large negative financial impact on them. This could negatively impact their ability to adequately meet the needs of DOD. So, DOD would have a very vested interest in telling OSHA to put a lid on it," he wrote.

The NRA even provided a sample letter for concerned citizens to complete and forward.

I am writing in strong opposition to OSHA's proposed rules on "explosives," which go far beyond regulating true explosives. These proposed rules would impose severe restrictions on the transportation and storage of small arms ammunition—both complete cartridges and handloading components such as black and smokeless powder, primers, and percussion caps. These restrictions go far beyond existing transportation and fire protection regulations.
As a person who uses ammunition and components, I am very concerned that these regulations will have a serious effect on my ability to obtain these products. OSHA's proposed rules would impose restrictions that very few gun stores, sporting goods stores, or ammunition dealers could comply with. (Prohibiting firearms in stores that sell ammunition, for example, is absurd—but would be required under the proposed rule.)

The issue was sparked by a petition several years ago from the Institute of Makers of Explosives and the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute to revise OSHA standards.

That requested a number of changes, including the exclusion of the manufacturers of explosives from various requirements that were duplicative.

"In response …, OSHA carefully reviewed the requirements," and concluded that "workplace hazards associated with explosives activities pose significant risks to employees."

Thus, the new list of rules. As substantiation, OSHA cited the April 16, 1947, explosion of the SS Grandcamp, which was docked in Texas City, Texas, when its cargo full of ammonium nitrate blew up. The explosion killed 581 and injured 5,000 others.

One of the more esoteric requirements would be for employers "to ensure that adequate precautions are taken to prevent sources of induced current, such as … snow storms, … from causing the accidental detonation of electric blasting caps."

A vast range of other requirements would address building requirements, distances between storage areas, vehicles used to haul any such material, and even the distance (two feet) required between shelves for small arms ammunition.

Gun advocates say it's just another in a long list of attacks on the American right to bear arms, provided under the 2nd Amendment.

As WND reported just a week earlier, the government has begun using paperwork errors as small as the abbreviation of a city name to shut down some of the nation's longest-serving gun shops.

Officials said while as recently as 15 or 20 years ago, there were 250,000 licensed gun dealers in the United States, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives today lists only 108,381.

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

PERSONAL COMMENTARY - PART II

DISCLAIMER: I have copied and pasted part of our history and nothing on this commentary is anything I have ever originated or said.
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Division & Structure of the Ten Commandments

This has been open to interpretation throughout history.

By Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs

Excerpted with permission from Every Person's Guide to Shavuot (Jason Aronson, Inc).

The division of the commandments themselves is not at all certain. There are 13 sentences in the accepted Jewish version of the Ten Commandments (17 in the Christian), but it is difficult to ascertain with certainty from the text itself what comprises the first commandment, the second, and so forth. For while there are 13 mitzvot [commandments] to be found in the text, their allocation to the Ten Commandments can be done in a variety of ways. Thus there are different traditions. The prevailing Jewish tradition appears to be as follows:

First Commandment (Exodus 20:2): I am the Lord Your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Second Commandment (Exodus 20:3-6): You shall have no other gods beside Me. You shall not make for yourself any graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord Your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Third Commandment (Exodus 20:7): You shall not take the name of the Lord Your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.

Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11): Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord Your God, in it you shall not do any manner of work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.

Fifth Commandment (Exodus 20:12): Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord God gives you.

Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:13): You shall not murder.

Seventh Commandment (Exodus 20:13): You shall not commit adultery.

Eighth Commandment (Exodus 20:13): You shall not steal.

Ninth Commandment (Exodus 20:13): You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:14):You shall not covet your neighbor's house, nor his wife, his man-servant, his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

Other Divisions

The above are the Jewish division of the Ten Commandments. However, such writers as [the ancient philosopher] Philo, as well as the Jewish Publication Society's translation of the Bible, the Greek Church Fathers, and most Protestant churches (except the Lutherans), consider the first of the Ten Commandments to be, "I am the Lord Your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me" (verses 2 and 3). That is to say, God's very existence, and God's relation to Israel in addition to the prohibition of worshipping other gods are seen as belonging together, while the prohibition of idolatry forms the second commandment.

Yet another division is used in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches. This follows the written text ofTorah scrolls and combines verses 2 through 6 into one commandment; that is, it includes the prohibitions ofidolatry in the first commandment. And further, it divides the last phrase (verse 14 in Jewish, verse 17 in Christian versions) into two parts:

Ninth Commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house…"

Tenth Commandment: "You shall notcovet your neighbor's wife…"

The Structure of the Ten Commandments

A dual structure can be seen in the Ten Commandments. Commandments one through four deal with human relationships to God. Commandments six through 10 deal with humanity's relation to humanity. The fifth command, that of honoring one's parents, forms a sort of bridge between the two.

While the Bible itself provides no indication of how the "words" of the commandments were distributed on the actual stone tablets, it is generally assumed that they stood five on one tablet and five on the other. Some commentators (Mekhilta, Yitro 8) have seen a correlationbetween the five commandments opposite each other on each of the two tablets. So, for example, murder is an injury to God whose image man is, apostasy is equivalent to marital infidelity, stealing will lead to a false oath, the Sabbath violator attests falsely that God did not create the world in six days and rest on the seventh, and the person who covets his fellow person's wife will end by fathering a child who rejects his true parent and honors another.

Some commentators speculate that the commandments range in a descending order from Divine matters to human matters, and within each group from higher to lower values. In this scenario, duties to God come first, the obligation to worship God alone precedes that of treating His name with reverence, and both precede the symbolic piety of Sabbath rest. Respect for parental authority naturally follows respect for God. The purely ethical commandments are arranged in a hierarchal form: life, the family, right of possession, reliability of public statements. The last commandment, the ban in desires arising from jealousy, deals with what is most ethically sensitive, and protects against the infringing of the other ethical commandments.

The philosopher Abraham ben Chiyya, after placing the first commandment apart as comprising all the others, divided the other nine according to the commands of thought, speech, and action, and according to relations between human and God, human and his family, and human and human, reaching the following classification:

Relations between:

Man & God

Human & Family

Human & Human

Thought

Second Command:

"Thou shalt have no other God"--fear of God.

Fifth Command:

"Honor thy father and thy mother."

Tenth Command:

"Thou shalt not covet."

Speech

Third Command:

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain."

Sixth Command:

"Thou shalt not murder," especially one's family.

Ninth Command:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness."

Action

Fourth Command:

"Remember the Sabbath Day."

Seventh Command:

"Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Eighth Command:

"Thou shalt not steal."

Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs is the spiritual leader of Temple Sholom in Bridgewater, New Jersey. He has served as the publications committee chair of the Rabbinical Assembly and written more than 60 books.

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Posted on: Monday, July 16, 2007

3.5% raise too much for Bush

By Tom Philpott

Talk about lousy timing. With President Bush's popularity scraping bottom in opinion polls, with U.S. casualties rising in Iraq in a force surge that has stretched tours to 15 months, the Bush administration has said it "strongly opposes" key military pay and benefit gains tossed into the fiscal 2008 defense bill.

Initiatives the administration opposes include:

A military pay raise for next January of 3.5 percent versus 3 percent endorsed by the White House.

Lowering the age-60 start of reserve retirement annuities for reserve component members by the length of their future mobilizations.

Expanding eligibility for Combat-Related Special Compensation to service members forced by combat disabilities to retire short of 20 years.

Directing pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide the Department of Defense with same-price discounts for Tricare retail pharmacy network that are provided on medicines dispensed from base pharmacies.

The administration also grumbled that the Senate intends to block for another year Tricare fee increases for under-65 retirees and dependents.

The objections appear in a "Statement of Administration Policy" from the White House's Office of Management and Budget delivered to Senate leaders as they opened floor debate on the defense authorization bill.

A day later, Senate Republicans, at White House urging, blocked amendments that would have shortened Iraq tours for U.S. ground forces and slowed the frequency of war deployments.

Here is more on provisions the White House opposes:

Pay raise: Like the House, senators favor a 3.5 percent military pay raise for 2008 versus the administration's proposed 3 percent to match private sector wage growth as measured by the government's Employment Cost Index or ECI. The White House calls the extra half percentage point unnecessary and notes that basic pay has jumped by 33 percent since 2001. The added cost of the bigger raise, $2.2 billion through 2013, is money "that would otherwise be available to support our troops," said the OMB letter.

Congress intends to approve the ninth consecutive military raise to be set at least .5 percent above private sector wage gains, continuing to close a perceived "pay gap" with civilians.

Tricare increases: Dr. S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health, has said he intends to work with Congress and service associations on more modest Tricare fee increases for under-65 retirees and their dependents than has been pushed so far by the administration. The OMB letter doesn't reflect that.

Reserve retirement: The Senate bill would lower the start of reserve retirement at age 60 by three months for every 90 days a reservist or Guard member is recalled after the change is enacted. The administration says this will "only marginally" improve career retention.

To comment, write milupdate@aol.com or Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA 20120-1111. Or visit www.militaryupdate.com.
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QUOTE

Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a damned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Capitol Hill Blue
Dec 9, 2005

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a ###damn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. "It’s just a damned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a damned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the s**t that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “damned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”

“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”

As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”

And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a damned piece of paper.”
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Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument. Here, in exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people. The political philosophy of the Declaration was not new; its ideals of individual liberty had already been expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers. What Jefferson did was to summarize this philosophy in "self-evident truths" and set forth a list of grievances against the King in order to justify before the world the breaking of ties between the colonies and the mother country. We invite you to read a transcription of the complete text of the Declaration.

The article "The Declaration of Independence: A History," provides a detailed account of the Declaration, from its drafting through its preservation today at the National Archives.

"The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence" by Stephen Lucas. By closely examining its language, this perceptive article sheds light on the Declaration as a work of literature and of persuasion. From Prologue, Spring 1990.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing the first part of the Declaration of Independence. It later provided the foundation for the Bill of Rights.

Learn about Our National Treasure, interesting and informative facts about the Declaration and its history.

Learn more about the Writing and Publicizing of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States by visiting the Independence National Historical Park (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) web site.

View documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, part of the Library of Congress' American Memory web site. This site also provides related manuscript, printed, and iconographic materials.

Choose a pen and add your name to the Declaration of Independence alongside our Forefathers

Displayed in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, these immense murals have been restored to their original beauty

(Click Image to Enlarge)


	Note: The above image of the Declaration is taken from the engraving made by printer William J. Stone in 1823 and is the most frequently reproduced version of the document. The original Declaration (pictured below), now exhibited in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom in Washington, DC, has faded badly—largely because of poor preservation techniques during the 19th century. Today, this priceless document is maintained under the most exacting archival conditions possible.