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Medical Library

“[State controlled] education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” – Joseph Stalin

Competitive Enterprise Institute

"[I]f you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever.  But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with."

--Ronald Reagan

 Bastiat Society

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)

 

Compassion is not about making people dependent on government. Compassion is about encouraging personal responsibility, and getting people to understand that life is about making choices. Poverty does not cause crime. Crime causes poverty. Poverty does not cause a child to have a child. A child having a child causes poverty. Finishing high school is a choice. Not joining a gang is a choice. Not having a child until you have the maturity and the means to raise that child is a choice. – Larry Elder

How respecting property rights help homeless people, Louisville Corporate Welfare, and Supreme Court Decisions             By Theresa Camoriano

1.       How respecting property rights help homeless people – For the past few weeks, a drama has been playing out at Wayside Christian Mission in Louisville.  The mission, which houses and feeds homeless people, wants to expand its facility, but the neighbors are opposed.  The neighbors have been trying to use historic preservation regulations as a way to prevent Wayside from expanding, saying that its buildings need to be preserved and cannot be razed for the expansion, even though Wayside agreed to use the historic facades in its expansion.  Instead of offering to buy Wayside’s property at a price that would entice it to move to a new location, they have been trying to use historic preservation to get the government to do their dirty work for them on the cheap.  Fortunately, Wayside was able to apply political pressure of its own by having churches encourage their members to send postcards to the mayor and other officials.          (click to read more)

Liberals want young kids voting for pretty much the same cynical reason they want to extend suffrage to illegal aliens, convicted felons and dead people. It takes a certain mentality, a certain degree of gullibility, after all, to believe plutocrats like the Clintons, the Kerrys, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, actually intend to pay their fair share when they insist they want taxes raised on the rich or to really believe that “hope” and “change” are any more profound and meaningful than “Tastes great, less filling” or “My bologna has a first name.” – Burt Prelutsky

Squeeze sweet success out of life’s lemons         By Jim Waters

A vicious cyber attack shut down the Bluegrass Institute’s Web site a couple of weeks ago. Getting it back online remains a work in progress. It’s back up now.

The whole situation has been a bummer. But the attack has given us the opportunity to improve the site and its security.

Sometimes when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.           (click to read more)

Democrats couldn't care less about high gas prices. The consistent policy of the Democratic Party, going back at least to Jimmy Carter, has been to jack up gas prices so we can all start pedaling around on tricycles. – Ann Coulter

$4.00 Gas is a Teaching Moment for Conservatives             America’s energy problems have been brought to us courtesy of the environmental movement and their political allies – liberal Democrats and timid or complacent Republicans          By Richard A. Viguerie

Americans are justifiably upset with the high cost of gasoline and everything that depends on fuel—electricity, heating oil, food, truck transportation, airline tickets, and more. 

Higher energy costs sets off a chain reaction that makes everything more expensive.          (click to read more)

Almost anything you might do to improve your life requires energy. It takes an energy source to read a book after the sun goes down, to keep cool on a hot day, to cook a meal, to transport the kids to soccer or music lessons, to surf the web, to visit far-flung friends and relatives or go on vacation with the family. – Cliff May

Input from the people would offer a breath of fresh air           By Jim Waters

If you thought the days of political deals made in smoke-filled back rooms ended, think again.

Of course, political correctness demands that those rooms now be smoke-free. Otherwise it’s business as usual in some Northern Kentucky counties, where good-ole-boy politicians “discreetly” explore ways to trample on private-property rights via government-imposed smoking bans.           (click to read more)

[L]iberals continue to support dysfunctional policies that have been failing miserably for decades and …they often oppose common sense programs that have been proven to work time and time again -- because it isn't about whether it works or not, it's about how it makes them feel. – John Hawkins

The Truth about the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge           -- A column by Congressman Geoff Davis

Since the Democrats gained the Majority in both the House and Senate in 2006, the price at the pump for a gallon of regular gasoline has increased by nearly $2.  Despite Democrats’ promises of a “commonsense plan” to lower gas prices, the average price of gas recently crossed the $4 per gallon mark.  Kentuckians are struggling to stretch their budgets to accommodate the increased cost of fuel and food.  As a nation, we must use our available domestic resources to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.          (click to read more)

I, for one, am getting sick and tired of being played by the Obama crowd. Michelle didn’t mean she’d never been proud of America, Barack didn’t mean Iran was a small country we had no reason to fear, and Father Pfleger didn’t mean a word of his racist screed. Right…and a bear doesn’t make do-do in the woods. – Burt Prelutsky

Trim state payroll for healthier Kentucky            By Jim Waters

While much attention focuses on Kentucky's unhealthy habits such as smoking and overeating, not nearly enough consideration is given to the fiscal obesity of Kentucky's state government. 

In 1982, Gov. John Y. Brown tried to put Kentucky's government on a diet by signing a law that would cap the number of executive-branch merit employees at 33,000. Unlike some diets, which require dieters to starve themselves, Brown offered a realistic and reasonable plan. If followed, it would have greatly improved Kentucky's fiscal health during the past two-plus decades. In fact, the stated purpose of KRS18A.005-KRS18A.200 was "to gain maximum utilization of human resources in order to provide better service to the citizens of this commonwealth."          (click to read more)

[T]he U.S. government has contributed to the recent run-up in world food prices by subsidizing the production of bio-fuels….This growth in ethanol production is the result of the combination of a government mandate, a 51 cents per gallon tax credit for ethanol production, various other subsidies, and a 54 cents per gallon tariff on ethanol imports. – Dr. Tracy C. Miller

'Big Oil' (from a reader – source not confirmed)

Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company.  Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips.  Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK.   Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations?  Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. So, when Bill talks about oil and gas issues, I tend to listen - very closely. I think that you will find Bill's thoughts and facts very revealing, very compelling and very difficult to argue with.          (click to read more)

What Obama fails to mention is that the problem of absent fathers, especially in the black community, is tied in part to well-intentioned social programs such as those the presumptive Democratic nominee intends to expand -- domestic violence prevention and child support collections. – Kathleen Parker

Observation about Iowa (from a reader)

Just a personal observation...as I watched the news coverage of the massive flooding in the Midwest with over 100 blocks of the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa under water, levees breaking, and the attention now turned downstream for when this massive amount of water hits the Mississippi, what amazed me is not what we see, but what we don't see...          (click to read more)

"[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -- James Madison

Where’s All the Writing Improvement?           By Richard Innes of the Bluegrass Institute

Kentucky Tonight just held a discussion of the pending CATS Task Force that will be looking at the state’s public school assessment program. It was three educators against our friend Martin Cothran from the Family Foundation, so the educators were outnumbered.          (click to read more)

Our policy now is to give al Qaeda combatants privileges that exceed the Conventions in terms of access to our court system without requiring al Qaeda to abide by these conventions themselves. This, of course, is an incentive for them to violate the law of war. They receive no penalty for not doing so, and by not wearing uniforms, makes any standard of proof requirement with regard to enemy combatant status more difficult for the United States. We are literally giving the enemy the means by which they can do us great harm. – Fred Thompson

Oil reserves in Alaska, elsewhere could ease crisis          By Anne M. Northup

Two years ago, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Congress promised to devise a national energy policy and lower the cost of gas, which was about half the price it is now. When asked what he and the other Democrats have done to fulfill that pledge, Congressman Yarmuth points to legislation they passed to suspend shipments to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He initially claimed this legislation “could reduce prices by about…25 cents per gallon gasoline,” but later downgraded the expected effect of this action to only 5 cents per gallon. It’s a little surprising that anyone would boast about saving a nickel when gas prices have risen $1.63 since Yarmuth took office and the Democrats took control of Congress.          (click to read more)

In the course of the twentieth century, supposedly sophisticated Europeans managed to create some of the most monstrous forms of government on earth-- Communism, Fascism, Nazism-- in peacetime, and to start the two World Wars, the bloodiest in all human history….After both World Wars, the United States had to step in to save millions of people in Europe from starving amid the wreckage and rubble that their wars had created. These do not seem like people whose sophistication we should defer to. – Thomas Sowell

Pension controversy will outlive reform session            By David Adams of the Bluegrass Institute

When Warren Rogers started a retirement plan for his employees more than thirty years ago, he never seriously considered offering a defined benefit program like Kentucky provides state and local government workers.

“Those plans are built on an assumption that growth never ends,” Rogers, president of W. Rogers Company in Lexington, said.           (click to read more)

Though she had spent weeks preparing an approved text [for her commencement speech at Wellesley], Hillary Rodham tossed aside the script as she approached the platform. She then launched into a point-by-point rebuttal of the senator’s [Edward W. Brooke’s] remarks, with all the moral certainty, righteousness, and wisdom of a 21-year-old Poli Sci major from the suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois….It took almost 40 years, but it seems that Senator Edward W. Brooke has alas seen Ms. Hillary Rodham receive her comeuppance.  – Dr. Paul Kengor

Dems Want Even Higher Gas Prices              By Mike Minton

Email…it’s a blessing on one hand…and a curse on the other. Like the one I opened up at midnight from Human Events. Now I’m so wired that all I can do is write. I know I haven’t been doing much of that lately, but hopefully you’ve been getting your “Right Opinion fix” on the radio show which is on Tues. and Thu. From 1:30-3:00 p.m. at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Mr-Right-Opinion.           (click to read more)

A lot has changed since Barack Obama was 13. No one knew what an iPod, e-mail address, Web browser, CD, DVD or Post-It Note was. Fax machines were cutting edge, the space shuttle was a pipe dream and cloning was science fiction. Global cooling, not warming, was the fashionable doomsday scenario. – Jonah Goldberg

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