So Help Me God, Under God, By God.

The flap about Obama's oath and its reference to God brought to mind the Pledge of Allegiance. When I learned it in the first grade, the words "under God" were not in it. I was upset when Eisenhower changed it when I was in the second grade because I had to relearn it and besides he was a Republican. Looking back on it, I might have been a better Christian today if I hadn't wasted a whole year without saying "under god" every morning, though we did say the Lord's Prayer and a prayer at lunch I think. This all assumes that the God we're talking about is Baby Jesus. Shake & Bake.

Hank Williams Died Either On This Date in 1952 or January 1, 1953. We Miss Him.

The Munster Final of 1959 ... Ned Power gets the better of Ring, and Waterford are on on their way to an All Ireland crown

Camógaíocht & Iománaíocht

Goalkeeper Mags Darcy did well this year but
Wexford didn't make the finals. See, Camógaíocht & Iománaíocht at Virg n' Mary.

Dana Perino & President Elect Both Sporting Black Eyes.

Of course, Perino's is not nearly as bad as the permanent one she'll have for shamelessly spinning Bush's bobbles. Rick Warren is a big one for Obama, but if this is the worst he gets, he'll be ok.

Your Choice of Numbers Offers Insight Into The Person You Are.

WHO IS YOUR ROLE MODEL?
1) Pick your favorite number between 1 and 9.
2) Multiply by 3.
3) Add 3.
4) Multiply by 3 again. You will get a 2-digit number.
5) Add these two digits together.
Now with that number see who your ROLE MODEL is at Your Role Model Is at Virg n' Mary.

Both Virgil & Titanic Thompson Were Raised In Rogers. Virgil Was Conceived In Detroit, but Only a Titanic Thompson Can Save It.

This From Hizhonor:
Boy, talk about your bad attitude!! Now I know why one of the lead characters in Guys and Dolls (by Damon Runyon) was named Nathan Detroit. He was a consummate con man and gambler. (played by Old Blue Eyes hisself). Incidentally....for your edification....Marlon Brando played the lead character, Sky Masterson. Few Rogers folks know Runyon named him for the most famous, or infamous, citizen of Rogers, one "Titanic Thompson" who was born and raised in the Beaver Lake area and whose birth name was Alvin C. Thomas. He was born in 1892. He is considered the greatest con man, gambler, golf hustler, pool hustler in history. He once conned Al Capone and got away with it. His trade name of Titanic Thompson came from a card game in Joplin where he absolutely cleaned everyone out. Someone asked who that guy was and another responded, "I don't know, but he is sinking everyone like the Titanic". Runyon considered him the Master of his trade and the Sky was the limit on his bets. I've given talks about him and his escapades to service clubs and I have yet to find anyone who ever heard of him. I know that he and C. Jimmy Carter were "associates". But, I digress................... John
From Jim:
Yeroner, I’ve always wondered, if NOone else has ever heard of Titanic Thompson, just what circles you might have been in to have learned of his lore? NOT… to insinuate anything… of course. But I have enjoyed passing along one or two of his tales. I like the road sign and the golf drive wagers. Jim
From a Different Honor’s Joplin Friend:
Yes I am very aware of Titanic..........up here he was called Titanic Slim and was well know as a golf hustler. I think I have a book with some of his tales. If I am not mistaken there is a fella here that as a young boy was an outstanding golfer and Slim took him on as a protoge as part of the hustle. I did not know of his Rogers connection but the Ol timers up here still remember him..........I think Joplin was at least for a time his HQ
Cites to Titanic Courtesy of Orve & Mary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_Thompson

http://www.evansville.net/user/boneyard/jjeff12.html

http://www.titanicthompson.com/

http://www.jetcafe.org/npc/reviews/gambling/unsinkable_titanic_thompson.html

http://www.cardcheaters.com/thompson-titanic.htm

http://www.palmermagic.com/titanic_thompson.html

Muntadhar al-Zaidi and Those Like Him Owe Dogs an Apology.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush during a news conference in Iraq, called his shoe-throwing, “a traditional insult in Arab culture, a ‘farewell kiss’ to a ‘dog’ who launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq.” I’m outraged. Dogs are loyal, usually kind, honest, and never launched an invasion of anyone. Muntadhar and others of like mind of like mind should hang their heads in shame. That Arab culture was traditionally ignorant of the virtuous dog nature is no excuse.

On This Day In 1872 Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback Became Governor of Louisiana and the First Black Governor Of Any American State.

It took over a hundred years for another African-American to become a governor. Douglas Wilder was the second when he became governor of Virginia in 1990.

Happy 75th Birthday to the Twenty First Amendment.

WARNING-Consumption of alcohol can destroy brain cells, interfere with sleep, damage the liver, cause weight gain, and lower testosterone levels.

Suit Stops Salacious Siloam Springs Searches. Dom Deputy To Go Private.

“I always wanted to work in the private sector anyway,” says Siloam Deputy Hegona Spreadum.(pictured here) “They’ll have to pay for it now”she added. See, Siloam Springs Settles Strip Search Suit by Jonah in The Iconoclast.

Posts Plagerized from Patti

"With the Tax Cuts Extended, Top 1 Percent of Households Would Receive Almost $1.2 Trillion in Tax Benefits"

Congress can pass tax policy that benefits all of us -- not just the richest 1%. Bush's tax cuts, that mostly benefit the richest 1%, are set to expire in 2010. If Congress doesn't let these Bush tax cuts expire, then according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

"Nearly $1.2 trillion in tax cuts would go to the top 1 percent of households, a group with annual incomes above $450,000 in 2008. The highest income 1 percent of households thus would receive nearly one third of the tax cuts’ total value."

AND "Putting the Cost of the Tax Cuts in Context"

"When the tax cuts are fully in effect, the cost of the tax cuts going to the very highest income households will be greater, in today’s terms, than the amounts spent on various high-priority programs.

In 2007 terms, the cost of tax cuts for households with annual incomes above $1 million will exceed what the federal government spent last year on K-12 and vocational education. It similarly will exceed the federal resources dedicated to hospital and other medical care for veterans, as well the resources provided for medical research conducted by the National Institutes of Health (see Figure 1).

The cost of tax cuts for the highest-income 1 percent of households will exceed the entire 2007 budget of the Department of Education. It similarly will exceed the entire 2007 budget of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. And it will be greater than the combined budgets of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Energy, and State."

Read:Aviva Aron-Dine

THE SKEWED BENEFITS OF THE TAX CUTS

Why the rich are rich and the poor are poor

Or, Poor people wrecked the economy and now we have to spend all of this money bailing out Citigroup. Read Steve Clifford

“We finally found the W.M.D.” They were buried in our own backyard — subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them -- Thomas L. Friedman

Friedman warns us:

"...You should be saving your money. You should be home eating tuna fish. This financial crisis is so far from over. We are just at the end of the beginning. Please, wrap up that steak in a doggy bag and go home.”

Read Thomas L. Friedman

Fact Check: Dems claiming your IRA and Slugs Bite

Check out those chain e-mails: Are the Dems going to take over your IRA (or what's left of it)? NO. And the facts are HERE

& Of course, slugs don't bite. These have curled themselves into terrified slug fetus positions -- but they quickly recovered their confident manner.

Check out this stuff. Go to Factcheck.org for political fact checking.
You can, if you want, check out The European red slug, Arion rufus L at OSU

(No slugs were injured during the production of this photo.)

Faith Brings Out The Best & Worst In Us.

THE GOOD
A Public Prayer of Thanksgiving by Randy Woodley 11-25-2008

"This historic proclamation of “A Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer” was supposedly issued by George Washington during his first year as President. In keeping with that tradition, I offer a simple prayer:

Great Mystery, I am humbled that I will never know everything about you, but I am grateful that through the lives of the other I can know more of you. I thank you for those who are like me, but I especially thank you for those who are different than me. I thank you for those who are younger than me and those older than me; for those who have less than me and those who have more than me; for those more physically able than me and those less physically able than me; for those whose skin is of a lighter hue than me and those of a darker hue than me; for those of the opposite sex as me and those of the same sex as me; for those of a different worldview than me and those with a similar worldview as me.

Please help me to discard the old American Myth built on falsehood and justification of racism, sexism, individualism, materialism, greed, and an abuse of your good earth. These and other lies have kept systems of oppression in place—systems that you hate but I sometimes grow comfortable with. May we together discover a new story for our country where everyone has an equal voice—even those with whom we disagree and even with those who have no voice.

I am thankful for this place we indigenous people sometimes call Turtle Island and others call America. I am thankful that it is becoming a place where freedom can take hold and it is becoming a place where one day we will all be equal under the law, under the prevailing social structures, and in our own minds.

And I thank you for the land itself; may you work through us to revive it to your most beautiful intentions. May we work together to purify the land and live with it as well as on it. May all of your creatures, the four-legged, the flying things, the crawling things, and the two-legged creatures all be able to afford a home on your land. May we make the water sacred once again, the first medicine that provides life to all your creation. May it not be comodified so as to keep it out of the reaches of any of your creatures, and may it be kept in a way that shows the respect for it that you gave it when you made the water such an important part of this earth.

As I look around this circle we call mother earth, I am thankful to you that it is a sacred circle and in the circle no one is more, nor less, than the other. As I look around the sacred circle, I see that I am related to all your creation and that each one in the circle is as sacred as me. You have given us all stories to tell but in all our stories we find you. It is the you in the other that I most value Great Mystery. Please teach me about myself in this sacred circle so I may know you and reflect you more on this good earth. Thank you…" Rev. Randy Woodley is a Keetoowah Cherokee Indian teacher, lecturer, poet, activist, pastor, and the author of Living in Color: Embracing God’s Passion for Ethnic Diversity Thanks to Rev. Sandi

Though I'm trying to be thankful for "those of a different worldview than me" I don't appreciate insanity. Here's
THE BAD & UGLY
“Drawing on fear and ignorance to support his position, Rev. Cole seems milder than usual in his denunciation of the people and the Democrats in general. ‘While Barack Obama does share many traits with the coming antichrist described in the Bible, and while those who lived through the Jewish Holocaust are fearfully warning of striking similarities to 1930s Germany, we cannot say with certainty at this point that Obama amounts to anything more than just another leftist puppet who is controlled by the enemies of our Constitution . . .’” Jay Cole, Jr., and the Anti-Christ, by Jonah in The Iconoclast.