Say Anything Blog

Citizens stunned as school board walks out of meeting
Students, supporters of reassigned teachers protest to empty chairs

A crowd of students and citizens of Guilderland, N.Y., gathered last week at a public school board meeting to protest the questionable reassignment of two teachers, only to look on in disbelief as the school board stood up and left the room.

Matt Nelligan, Reassigned Teacher

As WND reported, two former teachers at Guilderland High School, Matt Nelligan and Anne Marie McManus, were informed on the last day of the 2008 school year that they would be involuntarily reassigned to the Farnsworth Middle School for reasons neither teacher fully understood.

School officials have said that the move was designed to address problems with the cultural climate of the social studies department, but Nelligan believes he was transferred because of his outspoken, conservative viewpoints and criticism of the teachers’ union leadership.

“It’s a witch hunt and a punishment,” he told the Altamont Enterprise. “Everybody knows it’s punishment.”

Yes, the school board had a reason for leaving:

After the board finished organizational matters, board President Richard Weisz explained the board’s policy about open discussions of personnel decisions: “If you refer to someone by name,” he said, “we take that in executive session. I’m supposed to gavel you if you talk about a personnel item.”

It is understandable in normal circumstances that the School Board would not discuss personal, personnel matters in public. I would want them to be that sensitive. However, everyone on the School Board knew that the issue was about whether or not these teachers were transferred as a form of punishment because they held conservative views and whether or not that was because the School Board wants to promote a liberal political agenda.

In this case, IMO, the School Board demonstrated an arrogance of power, a desire not to be responsive to the genuine concerns of the taxpayers, parents and students about the political nature of their decisions. The School Board could have spoken to that issue and refused comment or discussion if the debate wandered from the central issue into other more personal matters; but the plain truth is, they were found with their hands in the Liberal Educational Cookie Jar and they feared the truth might jeopardize their positions of absolute power over the children in their school district.

This school board deserves en masse to be recalled for their dictatorial style and their refusal to be open about their political agenda.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=68995

‘Obama will immediately birth Palestinian state’
Top PA official, former Communist Party head, hopes Democrat wins

Samir Abdullah

First note that the guy endorsing Obama is both a Palestinian and a Communist. Does he know something about Obama we need to know more about?

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority is hoping Sen. Barack Obama wins the presidential election in November and expects the Illinois Democrat to immediately set out to create a Palestinian state once he takes office, a top PA official said.

“We would like to see Obama elected. If he is elected, an agreement about the foundation of a Palestinian state (would be) reached,” PA Planning Minister Samir Abdullah told reporters in Tokyo this weekend.

Abdullah, who is the former head of the Palestinian Communist Party, said the PA expects Obama to win in November. He said once Obama takes office, “he will immediately study the Palestinian cause and will try to push it forward.”

“Obama promised he will not wait until the last period of his office to relaunch negotiations ... he will begin doing this since his first day in office unlike President Bush, who waited until his last period of power.”

We cannot know what Obama will do about Israel and the so-called Palestinians, as he takes every side on every issue. One thing is certain, if he is not careful and in his naïveté he is heavy handed with Israel, this appeasement minded man could easily start WW-III in the Middle East.

Next, another uncomfortable relationship is involved in this matter, and that involves Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi, a pro-Palestinian activist and harsh critic of Israel who has been described as a friend of the senator.

Rashid Khalid

Obama tries to make light of this relationship, as he has all the other of his unsavory relationships. “I do know him, because I taught at the University of Chicago. And he is Palestinian. And I do know him, and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisers; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy.”

In his piece, “Palestine: Liberation Deferred,” Khalidi suggests Israel carried out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians; writes Western powers backed Israel’s establishment due to guilt of the Holocaust; laments the Palestinian Authority’s stated acceptance of a Palestinian state “only” in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem; and argues Israel should be dissolved and instead a binational, cantonal system should be set up in which Jews and Arabs reside.

During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an “apartheid system in creation” and a destructive “racist” state.

Obama seems to have many personal relationships with people not supportive of the U.S. and in this case antagonistic towards Israel. In the handling of Israel and the so-called Palestinians Obama will be playing with fire and quite frankly, I think his sympathies are not with Israel despite his protest to the contrary.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=68973

Yes my friends, we have to face the fact that even infants and toddlers are racists and must be condemned for their racism:

Toddlers who dislike spicy food [are] ‘racist’

Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.

The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says “yuk” in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children “reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes”.

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: “Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case.”

So, when I spit out Brussel Sprouts, Liver, Grits, Greens and other foods as a baby, I was being racist? I was unconsciously rejecting those foods because they might be associated with people of color?

In the July 2008 Reader’s Digest, there was a very interesting article that addressed the idea of Happiness; and the author, Arthur C. Brooks, pointed out that in The Declaration of Independence, the pursuit of happiness was held to be as important as was life and liberty, happiness being the connection between the the Creator and our nation’s destiny.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It was interesting to note that in the studies on this subject, it was not economic well being, the availablity of national health care or the amount-quality of play time that caused the people questioned to feel they were happy, rather it was . . .

First, there was FAITH, people that attended church on a regular basis were generally much happier than believers that did not or non-believers. Just like in the beginning of our nation, faith still plays a critical role in whether or not we feel happy. To be sure a good job, not big paying, but one where people enjoyed going to work also played a role, as did a strong sense of family. They also spoke of charitable giving and liberty (freedom) as also being measurements of happiness.

Under freedom (liberty) there was an interesting revelation: “Not all types of freedom are [considered] the same in terms of happiness.” Moral freedom (license) in terms of a lack of moral constraints on personal behavior, did not seem to these respondents to result in personal happiness.  Those people enagaging in sexual liberation and drug use were not very happy at all.  So, licentiousness was not considered as making any contribution to our happiness. Take this along with the happiness of people of faith and it appears that we are still at heart a Judeo-Christian nation, with a strong sense of moral (family) values.

In 2004 as in almost every election cycle for many decades, despite the pundits and the skewing of data about what is or what is not a very important issue, the voters continued to choose “moral values” as the most critical issue of all.

How does this impact our voting? The people can still be fooled by the “I can feel your pain” folk on the Left and by this we see Democrat victories; but if the Right did not, out of craven fear of the liberals, atheists and those wanting to engage in licentious behavior in the Republican Party keep strong moral values, family values out of the center (heart) of their campaigns we could continue to win at the polls; but the fear of loss of power and money has made cowards of most of the Republican Party, allowing the Left to so confuse the issue that Americans are being cheated out of the very thing they desire most and our Founders desired for them - personal happiness.

Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs
(A Political Tale)



The seven dwarfs always left to go work in the mine early each morning.
As always, Snow White stayed home doing her domestic chores.

As lunchtime approached, she would prepare their lunch and carry it to the mine.



One day as she arrived at the mine with the lunch, she saw that there had been a terrible cave-in. Tearfully, and fearing the worst, Snow White began calling out, hoping against hope that the dwarfs had somehow survived.



‘Hello!...Hello!’ she shouted. ‘Can anyone hear me? Hello!’



For a long while, there was no answer. Losing hope, Snow White again shouted, ‘Hello! Is anyone down there?’



Just as she was about to give up all hope,
she heard a faint voice from deep within the mine, singing . . ...

‘Vote for Barack Obama! - Vote for Barack Obama!’

Snow White fell to her knees, crossed herself and prayed, ‘Oh, thank you, God! At least Dopey is still alive…

Conservative icon Jesse Helms dead at 86

Raleigh, N.C. — Jesse Helms, the firebrand U.S. senator whose outspoken, conservative views polarized North Carolina and U.S. voters for decades, died at 1:15 a.m. Friday in Raleigh, according to John Dodd, president of the Jesse Helms Center.

He joins the second and third presidents of the United States – Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Jr. – who both also died on Independence Day.

He was 86. His cause of death was not released. Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming, Dodd said.

Helms served five terms in the U.S. Senate, retiring in 2003 because of his faltering health. During his 30 years in Capitol Hill, the North Carolina Republican became a powerful voice for a conservative movement that was growing both in Congress and across the country, and he used his position to speak out against issues like gay rights, federal funding for the arts and U.S. foreign aid.

He was always a gentleman ("Jesse Helms was the kindest, most infuriating, politest, most aggravating and nicest politician I had to deal with in the United States Senate,” former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in a 2001 interview.), he had strong core values that did not waver, even in the face of constant, direct attacks.

“It has always been my contention,” he wrote in his memoir, “that there is no sense in being in office if you don’t have the courage to do what is right, even if it is the most unpopular position in the world.”

Like him or hate him, he made his mark on this nation!

WorldNetDaily

Great Voice, great pictures

How about McCain attacking the idea of our not drilling for oil in Anwar and exposing the Al Gore plan for our government to arbitrarilty, gradually increase gas prices to at least $5.00 a gallon to get people away from fossil fuels and out of their cars? This link is very interesting in that regard.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2037987/posts

Such drilling really frightens and hurts the Caribou:

Scares the crap out of the bears:

The American people want lower gas prices, these higher prices will grow and throw our economy into a horrible, perhaps irreversible tailspin. So why not take the fight to Obama and the Democrats? I think the American people are not willing to give up their cars and standard of living, and global warming isn’t selling outside D.C., so I suggest McCain sell the idea of Anwar, North Dakota and off-shore drilling big time, make it the centerpiece of his campaign. Also, sell it as a national security issue, the people that have the oil mostly want us dead, so we need to stop all dependence upon them for our oil.

This is, IMO, the big issue for 2008 if McCain has the cahones to back off his ‘green’ crap and sell America’s financial and national security interests.

Presbyterians move to allow gay clergy, but fight remains:

SAN JOSE, Calif.—The nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination on Friday (June 27) cracked open the door to ordaining non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy, though the decades-old fight is far from over.

Delegates at the Presbyterian Church (USA) meeting here voted 54 percent to 46 percent to remove a clause in their constitution that requires clergy to be either married and faithful or single and chaste.

But the action still needs approval by a majority of the denomination’s 173 regional bodies, called presbyteries, and similar moves in recent years have twice failed to win ratification on the local level.

Under the new rules, candidates for ordination must “pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church.” It makes no reference to sexual orientation or activity.

Since the entirety of the New Testament has always been viewed as authoritative, God breathed and even every word of the Epistles are essentially inspired by the Spirit of Christ; how can people have homosexual desires and/or engage in homosexual conduct and be obedient to Christ (God) at the same time? Homosexual desires and conduct are condemned by God and yet these few people, contrary to their membership, want to ordain homosexuals as ministers of the Gospel, which two things are wholly incompatible.

Whether it is the Presbyterians, the Roman Catholic Church or any other group calling themselves disciples of Christ, if members are in disagreement about basic teachings of their faith, it seems the practical, honest course is to start their own religious group, issue a man edited Bible omitting condemnations about things like homosexuality versus trying to deny the Word of God as taught by their home church.

Homosexuals, can accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord and be saved, and even struggle with their homosexual desires and even fall back into homosexual behavior at times and still remain saved, as the blood of Christ is sufficient to save any man or woman; but to have saving faith means to accept all that Jesus directly and/or through his Apostles taught us, to recognize and not try to hide our sins and to repent (agree with God about the matter) when they fail. What even by free will one cannot do and remian faithful to the teachings of Christ, IMO, is to change God’s Word to agree with their own aberrant, unChristian thoughts and actions and think they are genuinely saved.

The point? The leadership of the Presbyterian Church must be honest and say they reject God’s Word as being infallible, as regards its condemnation of homosexuality; or, they should submit themselves as servants to their membership and uphold all of God’s Word, despite any desires to feel poliotically correct.

http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=15953

Of course you are free to discount all of this, but I thought you might like to read about it before you vote:

Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.

When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.

One of the stories by Col. Day Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, “I told you I would make you a cripple.”

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day’s will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at “a goofy angle,” as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again. But it didn’t heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe
punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day’s splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he’d gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was
“Dr.” McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners.

Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain’s sermons. “He remembered the Episcopal liturgy,” Mr. Day says, “and sounded
like a bona fide preacher.” One of Mr. McCain’s first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn’t ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.

Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms
behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can’t raise his arms over his
head. One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted to meet was that guard.

Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely
ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. “He wasn’t corruptible then,” Mr. Day says, “and he’s not corruptible today.”

I have omitted most of the stories, they have been written elsewhere, and I still am not pleased with McCain as a candidate for a host of reasons; but let no one question his courage, his honor as a soldier or his humanity.

http://cameron.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/05/08/colonel-bud-day-on-john-mccain/

It is said dogs can sense earthquakes and other natural catastrophes long before humans and are a reliable warning device for all things evil.

Are we being warned by this dog, does he sense a great political catastrophe on its way?

Mrs. Obama Reaffirms Husband’s Support to Gay
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/mrs-obama-reaff.html

ABC News’ Rachel Humphries and Kate McCarthy report:  Michelle Obama addressed the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council Gala in New York City Thursday night and renewed her husband’s promise to repeal federal policies that she says limit the rights of gays and lesbians.

“Barack believes that we must fight for a world as it should be.  A world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws like D.O.M.A. (Defense of Marriage Act) and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Mrs. Obama said, addressing an audience of 250 people at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.

D.O.M.A stipulates that states are not required to recognize same sex marriages, even if the marriages are recognized in another state.  The law also states that the federal government define marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman.  “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, as it is commonly called, allows gay men and women to serve in the military but it prevents them from talking about their sexuality openly.

This appears to me to be a declaration of war to force homosexual rights upon this nation. Like a good politician, she and her husband talk about states rights; but to reverse “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and a federal definition of marraige as being between a man and woman, appears to me that they are going to make a federal case of those issues and more, being an openly pro-gay administration.

This is not, IMO, simple pandering to gain support of the gay Community, but I believe it is a truthful expression of their intentions to promote gay rights legislation and use the bully pulpit to advance the gay agenda.

Once again into the breach dear friends, that breach being in the Bill Of Rights. People do not want to accept the idea that the Bill of Rights were meant to be inviolable, not subject to any act of Congress, the Judiciary or the Executive Branches of government. The Bill of Rights are in fact a list of things the government is forbidden to alter. Yet, ... the Congress, the Courts and the states continue to amend these rights:

‘Religion in private’ OK, declares ACLU
New limits on Christians leave family groups reeling.

Governor Ritter

Colorado’s new state law that apparently was based on the belief that free speech rights are not unalienable and they sometimes must be restricted is scaring residents who now fear expressing their opinions in public.

WND reported the law, SB200, which was promoted as an “anti-discrimination” plan favoring alternative sexual lifestyles and gender perceptions, has made it a criminal offense to discriminate against someone based on those lifestyles or perceptions.

“This desire to limit the constitutionally guaranteed right to the ‘free exercise of religion’ can be seen in Cathryn Hazouri’s, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, testimony given before the Colorado House Judiciary Committee,” the group said.

“One may practice one’s religion in private; however, once a religious person comes into the public arena, there are limitations in how the expression of their religion impacts others,” she had said.

It is not just the ACLU, nor liberal governors and legislators; much like Canada to the north, it is increasingly becoming the sentiment of the American people that all forms of religious beliefs and practice should be confined to the home and church, and in the latter case even in the pulpit to preach against sins like abortion or homosexuality constitute hate crimes.

You better get used to more and more repressive laws against Christian (they will never dare apply these laws against Islam) beliefs and practices in the public square and as part of the price we will pay is that, your little girl gets to examine the hairy penis of some guy, be he straight or gay, in the same restroom in public facilities, even at school. Isn’t our brave new, politically correct world great?

The First Amendment protection for religious worship is as inviolable and important to our liberty as Free political Speech, a free press or private gun ownership. If you are willing to sacrifice one upon the altar of political correctness, then none of these rights are safe at all.

Over at HumanEvents.com, John Gizzi has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the record saying that the Democratic caucus, far from being agnostic on the so-called Fairness Doctrine, is actually interested in resurrecting it. What’s more, Pelosi herself wants to bring back the policy that could literally silence conservative talk radio.

“Do you personally support revival of the ‘Fairness Doctrine?’” I asked.

“Yes,” the speaker replied, without hesitation.