From American Minute:

Mothers’ Day was held in Boston in 1872 at the suggestion of Julia Ward Howe, writer of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” But it was Anna Jarvis, daughter of a Methodist minister in Grafton, West Virginia, who made it a national event. During the Civil War, Anna Jarvis’ mother organized Mothers’ Day Work Clubs to care for wounded soldiers, both Union and Confederate. She raised money for medicine, inspected bottled milk, improved sanitation and hired women to care for families where mothers suffered from tuberculosis. In her mother’s honor, Anna Jarvis persuaded her church to set aside the 2nd Sunday in May, the anniversary of her mother’s death, as a day to appreciate all mothers. Encouraged by the reception, Anna Jarvis organized it in Philadelphia, then began a letter-writing campaign to ministers, businessmen and politicians to establish a national Mothers’ Day. In response, on MAY 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first National Mothers’ Day as a “public expression of…love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” President Reagan said in his Mother’s Day Proclamation, 1986: “A Jewish saying sums it up: ‘God could not be everywhere - so He created mothers.’”

Congrats to LST-reader “redneckneighbor”
upon passage of your kidney stone!
We knew you could do it!

I’ve learned the hard way (thanks to many LST members) to view political polls with a large dose of skepticism. Added to that the fact that Daily KOS is nothing more than a shill for far left political views and I came away laughing at their poll that claims to show Rick “The Chosen One” Noriega within striking distance of Sen. John Cornyn. Take a look at some of their purported findings and you too will come away laughing.

First, look at the “results” that they claim to have found in name recognition. Among…..Democrats!

Are you kidding me? Do you seriously think that more Democrats in Texas have heard of The Chosen One than of Hillary Clinton? I mean, I knew Dems weren’t so bright but she was the First Lady of the United States for 8 years! C’mon! And even though Obama is relatively new to national politics, does anyone seriously believe that more Democrats have heard of The Chosen One than they have of Obama? Seriously?

What about amongst women? Daily KOS expects us to believe that The Chosen One has a higher favorability rating than Hillary?

This next one is my favorite. What do we hear every single day about Barack Obama? Something about youth support and new voters? Right? Check this out:

These guys are claiming that, amongst 18-29 year old likely voters, The Chosen One has higher favorability ratings than Barack Obama? Gimme a break.

Something is amiss in this poll. If these numbers can’t be believed, how can anyone believe them when they say that The Chosen One is within striking distance of one of the best and brightest senators Texas has had?

What we have here, my friends, is an attempt by Kos to convince Democrats to give money to The Chosen One because he hasn’t been able to raise any. They are hoping that mainstream outlets will pick up the poll and report it as if it were a real, honest political poll. Nonsense.

Fox is reporting that assistant district attorney Kelly Siegler has quit:

Assistant District Attorney and former DA candidate Kelly Siegler has resigned from her Harris County position.

The announcement came in a press release from DA Kenneth Magidson’s office on Friday afternoon.

Sources close to the office say Siegler’s resignation is effective immediately.

“Ms. Siegler has tirelessly served the citizens of Harris County during her long and distinguished prosecutorial career,” Magidson said in the release. “Her leadership will be missed, but I am sure she will succeed in whatever she chooses as her next endeavor.”

Someone’s going to have to put that DA’s office back together, and I have little confidence that either Pat Lykos or C.O. Bradford can do it.

BENZION UPDATES– LST sources close to the Siegler camp indicate that her next moves are undetermined at this time.

Voters in southeast Harris County should not feel left out of the elections tomorrow. The San Jacinto College System is asking their voters to approve $295 million in bonds.

There is a huge difference in direction between the Lone Star College and San Jacinto College bond proposals.

Recall what Lone Star College Montgomery campus President Tom Butler said about growth and expansion at his campus:

By hundreds of percents, the fastest growing programs at the Montgomery campus are music and drama, Butler said.

The bond will help fund a 20,000-square-foot arts instructional building for the popular classes, including band, orchestra and choral practice rooms.

Contrast this with San Jacinto College’s goal for their bonds:

The goal, Chancellor Bill Lindemann said, is to serve the region’s appetite for expertise in science, math, engineering and technology.

“Community colleges are driven by community needs,” he said. “A lot of the jobs in the communities we serve have these relatively high-tech jobs.”

Hmm. Band, orchestra and choir rooms or math, engineering and technology. Guess which group I think is on the right track?

You can find out more information about the bonds here. For poll locations, click here.

BigJolly says, Vote Yes on the future for the San Jacinto College System!

Eddy Arnold, the smooth country crooner who is Billboard’s highest rated country singer of all time, died yesterday at the age of 89.

Arnold’s father died when he was 11, and he quit school to help run the poor family farm, which the family later lost.  But Arnold went on to live the American dream.  He recorded 100 albums, sold over 85 million records and, due to his significant real estate holdings, some joked he ”owns half of Nashville.”

The voters of north Harris County, Montgomery County and a small section of San Jacinto County also have a choice to make tomorrow. The voters turned them down for $200 million in bonds in 2006 in a general election, so they have done what these small government bodies like to do: schedule another election, double the amount they are asking for and make the polling locations as obscure as possible to insure low voter turnout and thus, victory.

As we noted here, less than half of the amount of money that they want from the backs of taxpayers will go to instruction for real jobs. Is that really what the taxpayers of those counties want? We’ll see tomorrow. Will the voters get off the couch and turn it down again? Or will they go about their business, allow a very small group of teachers and students to pass it, then whine and complain on blogs and talk radio?

There are also four seats on the board up for election. If I were voting in that election, I’d vote for Fred Blanton in Position 3, Jason Roper in Position 6, and Gail Stanart in Position 9 (my heart tells me that I’d vote for Jean Iverson but my head tells me that Gail has a better shot at getting in). Someone else will have to chime in regarding Position 4, which is an open seat.

Click here for the polling locations.

Not any time soon. A more important question is do our politicians have the intestinal fortitude to extract the oil we have and refine it once extracted? Sadly, the answer is probably the same - probably not any time soon.

Vasko Kohlmayer shows us The Truth about Oil:

According the Energy Information Administration as of January 2007 there was more than 1.3 trillion barrels of proved crude oil on earth. Even if this were all the oil on the planet there would be no immediate danger of shortages, because at the current rate of consumption – roughly 85 million barrels a day – this supply would last for more than 40 years.

But the 1.3 trillion in these so-called proved reserves refers only to a tiny fraction of earth’s oil, designating only that portion which can be extracted under current ‘economic and operating conditions.’ As it happens, this figure grows with each decade and usually dramatically so.

In 1882, for instance, there were 95 million barrels of proved petroleum reserves. This number jumped to 4.5 billion in 1926 and then to 10 billion in 1932. In 1944 the quantity stood at 20 billion. In 1950 it leaped to 100 billion and in 1980 it was 648 billion. In 1993 the world’s proved reserves grew to 999 billion, and today they stand at 1.3 trillion barrels.

These figures show that our ever-increasing consumption has not over the years reduced the pool of available oil. In fact, the exact opposite is the case – each successive year we have more of it than ever before. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, mankind’s oil supplies are not getting depleted, but they keep continually expanding.

Read the whole thing. There is a lot of good information.

The general public, however, is largely ignorant of these facts. The divergence between the conventional wisdom and reality could hardly be any wider. Profoundly misinformed and alarmed, people place false hopes in misguided alternatives. Rather than implementing harmful, inefficient and expensive substitutes, we should insist that our government lift the obstacles which prevent us from availing ourselves of this superabundant resource.

The Katy ISD school board election will be held tomorrow. As we’ve noted here, here and here, there are three candidates from CLOUT running that could make a real difference in the district. If voters really want change, they will replace the incumbents with Kameron Searle, Cynthia Blackman and Chris Sanders. They have been endorsed by the Katy Watchdogs, a group of citizens that care about the students AND the taxpayers.

Why should Katy ISD voters care? Let’s take a look at a few indicators of the district’s performance, compared with Plano ISD, compiled from state reports located here. Hat tip to former board member Mary McGarr.

Katy ISD voters have a clear choice in tomorrow’s election. If they are happy with the statistics above, they can stay away from the polls and let the usual suspects send the incumbents back for more of the same.

If they want to make a change for the better, they can get off their rear ends, march down to the polls and take back their school district. CLOUT members Kameron Searle, Cynthia Blackman and Chris Sanders are just ordinary citizens that care about the future of their district and communities.

Click here for poll locations.

UPDATE: LST member bweldon has provided another link for poll locations.

UPDATE 2: LST commenter SMG has complained that I didn’t include the locally adopted tax rate for each district, I suppose because he or she thinks it will make Katy ISD look better. I didn’t include it because it has changed under the governor’s tax reduction plan - the stats above are for the 2006 school year. But, since you asked, for the 2006 school year, Katy’s locally adopted tax rate was $1.815 and Plano’s was $1.578, 13% lower. Hope that helps.

In case you missed it, Laura Ingraham had been missing from her radio show a couple of days. (Our very own Edd Hendee filled in one day!)

But why? Why would Laura go “missing” for a few days during an important Primary time? Just what kind of “mission” could she have possibly been involved with?

Meet Maria Caroline, Laura’s new daughter!! (Caroline is Laura’s Mom’s name.)

Laura adopted Maria from an orphanage in Guatemala. This “mission” has been in the works for 3 years!

What a beautiful, special little girl!

Congratulations Laura and Maria!!!!

Mark Slater, spokesman for John McCain:

First, let us be clear about the nature of Senator Obama’s attack today: He used the words ‘losing his bearings’ intentionally, a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain’s age as an issue. This is typical of the Obama style of campaigning.

We have all become familiar with Senator Obama’s new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is.

It is important to focus on what Senator Obama is attempting to do here: He is trying desperately to delegitimize the discussion of issues that raise legitimate questions about his judgment and preparedness to be President of the United States.

Through their actions and words, Senator Obama and his supporters have made clear that ANY criticism on ANY issue — from his desire to raise taxes on millions of small investors to his radical plans to sit down face-to-face with Iranian President Ahmadinejad – constitute negative, personal attacks.

Senator Obama is hopeful that the media will continue to form a protective barrier around him, declaring serious limits to the questions, discussion and debate in this race.

Senator Obama has good reason to think this plan will succeed, as serious journalists have written of the need for ‘de-tox’ to cure ’swooning’ over Senator Obama, and others have admitted to losing their objectivity while with him on the campaign trail.

Today, Senator Obama is complaining about comments John McCain made about a senior Hamas advisor stating that Hamas would welcome Senator Obama’s election as president. Indeed, on April 13th, senior Hamas political advisor Ahmed Yousef said, ‘We don’t mind – actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance.’

The McCain campaign has never suggested that Senator Obama supports Hamas’ agenda, but it is more than fair to raise this quote about Senator Obama because it speaks to the policy implications of his judgment.

Just today, the president of Iran, whom Senator Obama wants to meet with unconditionally, called the state of Israel a ’stinking corpse.’ Iran is the paymaster and state sponsor of Hamas.

In his victory speech this week, Senator Obama stated that ‘wisdom’ is meeting with our enemies, including  Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Raul Castro. John McCain couldn’t disagree more. Rather than giving tyrants and dictators the prestige of meeting with an American president, John McCain will instead meet with the champions of human freedom around the world and opposition leaders fighting for liberty .

We understand why Senator Obama doesn’t want to engage in a debate over leadership and judgment with John McCain, but the American people demand that debate take place.

These are serious times that call for a serious debate on the profound issues facing our future. John McCain is ready for that debate and we hope Senator Obama will one day get serious and join it.

Me likey.

My name is Davidio Benziona;
You killed my blog comments;
Prepare to DIE!

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Dawn Wolf Design– LST’s full-service graphic designer of choice. Talented, professional, competitively priced; a generous LST volunteer, we could not recommend her more highly. | 713-984-9200 | website

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A gay rights group is, more or less, staking out Joel Osteen to try to force his response to their invitation to a picnic this Saturday with “nontraditional” families.

And the group is led by the son of former PTL hucksters Jim and Tammy Bakker.

Jay Bakker and his group Soulforce have invited mega-church pastors from around the nation to join the happy movement, calling it The American Family Outing (an intentional double entendre, to be sure).

Lakewood Church’s Osteen is one of two pastors who has not responded, and the group is asking him to attend their picnic on Satruday and then invite them to Lakewood for Sunday services. Bakker said:

“We need to stop thinking of ourselves as ‘us’ and ‘them.’ We hope the families of Lakewood Church will open their hearts and minds to us and sit down and have a conversation and share a meal. … Let’s put our differences aside and share the love and hope of Christ.”

Bakker and a “lesbian mother” drove to Lakewood yesterday to give a letter to Osteen - they left after being told the letter would be delivered.

Osteen was busy writing his sermon, a process that a Lakewood spokesman said takes four days.

Of course, this is little more than a publicity stunt by Bakker’s group, designed to either embarrass Osteen and Lakewood or, if Osteen were to join in, to publicize his involvement and spin it as approval of the gay lifestyle.

Lakewood’s spokesman recognized the group’s motivation as well.

“If we met to talk, would this group be satisfied if we agreed to disagree? … Soulforce wants to use Lakewood to further their agenda.”

Indeed. What do you suppose the reaction would be if Osteen were to say, “I love you in Christ, but the Bible says a homosexual act is a sin. But God can forgive you”? I’m not sure how “open” Soulforce’s hearts and minds would be to that message.

I have never professed to be a big fan of Joel Osteen. But I do applaud him for not participating in this charade.

Of course, he still has almost two days to respond.

(By the way, the Chronicle article, which reads like a fawning press release, reminds everyone of the time and place of Saturday’s picnic, and that Lakewood members are invited.)

ADDENDUM

The omniscient Benzion (man, that guy knows stuff) points out that Soulforce is a smooth advocacy group and has engaged in civil dialogue at places such as Texas A&M and conservative Christian colleges.

ADDENDUM 2

Meanwhile, BigJolly points out that the approach of Bakker’s “church” might be just a tad rougher.

From the Chronicle:

Two men and a juvenile are accused of digging up a corpse, decapitating the body and using the head to smoke marijuana, according to court documents.

The men have been charged with the misdemeanor of abuse of a corpse after converting the head into a bong. I don’t even want to know more about that process.

The story does not state the age of the men, but clearly they were far older chronologically than mentally.

I could be wrong, but I’m just gessing their was a little more involved here than a little weed.

Just a quick reminder: Galveston County Tax Assessor-Collector Cheryl Johnson (hubba hubba) will host a Tax Freedom Day celebration tonight.

Here are the details:

WHEN
This Thursday, May 8th
Beginning at 5:30 pm (program begins at 6 pm)

WHERE
Gulf Greyhound Park
(1 block west of I-45 South at Exit 15 in La Marque)

COST
Tickets $10 at the door
Proceeds support Cheryl Johnson’s re-election campaign

GRUB
Hot dogs, hot pretzels
Tea, coke, and $.50 beer
Apple cobbler with ice cream

The guest list is pretty impressive, too, at least until the end:

• Galveston Co. Tax Assessor Collector Cheryl E. Johnson (hubba hubba)
• Harris Co. Tax Assessor Collector Paul Bettencourt (shudda shudda)
• Americans for Prosperity-Texas’ Peggy Venable (thugga thugga)
• GOP Nominee for State House District 130 Allen Fletcher
• Bruce Slover, Founder of Cy Fair Citizens
• Michael Kubosh, “The Voice” of the Protest Class TV Commercials
• With a special-guest appearance by LoneStarTimes.com’s very own Matt Bramanti! (glugga glugga)

And we’ll be auctioning off the notorious framed RINO picture.

It’ll be a good time. You’d better get there early, before Bettencourt and I eat all the hot dogs.

During the Republican primary, the term Evangelical continued to be abused by the press as nothing more than a conservative faction of the Party. Robert Novak even went so far as to say that Evangelicals were an inherent danger to the Party. Many of us tried to defend and define the term in proper context. Others, as in this link provided by LST member Shannon, explored the changes through the years. In the end, the pack mentality of the press ruled the day and Evangelicals continue to be portrayed as anti-intellectual stooges easily duped by the Republican Party.

Recently, a group of Evangelicals put forth the Evangelical Manifesto, an attempt to define what an Evangelical is and is not. Perhaps more importantly, what the mission of Evangelicals should be and how this mission should be accomplished. Indicative of the times we live in, they’ve even included an Executive Summary and a Study Guide.

Setting the theology portion aside for the time being, I enjoyed several of the thoughts on freedom of religion.

Let it be known unequivocally that we are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths, including the right to convert to or from the Christian faith. We are firmly opposed to the imposition of theocracy on our pluralistic society.

That is diametrically opposite from the way the press portrayed what they called Evangelicals. Does that sound inherently dangerous to society? I think not.

The manifesto discusses both sides of religion in public life, terming those that would force religion upon us as favoring a sacred public square and those that would strip any and all references to religion as favoring a naked public square, to which their response is:

Our commitment is to a civil public square — a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths too. Thus every right we assert for ourselves is at once a right we defend for others. A right for a Christian is a right for a Jew, and a right for a secularist, and a right for a Mormon, and right for a Muslim, and a right for a Scientologist, and right for all the believers in all the faiths across this wide land.

One of the key insights that I found was in the area of globalization as related to the public square.

the emergence of a global public square finds no matching vision of how we are to live freely, justly, and peacefully with our deepest differences on the global stage.

As this global public square emerges, we see two equal and opposite errors to avoid: coercive secularism on one side, once typified by communism and now by the softer but strict French-style secularism; and religious extremism on the other side, typified by Islamist violence.

We also warn of the danger of a two-tier global public square, one in which the top tier is for cosmopolitan secular liberals and the second tier is for local religious believers. Such an arrangement would be patronizing as well as a severe restriction of religious liberty and justice, and unworthy of genuine liberalism.

But globalization isn’t the greatest threat to our society and freedom. No, that comes from within.

Third, we are concerned that a generation of culture warring, reinforced by understandable reactions to religious extremism around the world, has created a powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people. If this hardens into something like the European animosity toward religion in public life, the result would be disastrous for the American republic and would severely constrict liberty for people of all faiths. The striking intolerance shown by the new atheists is a warning sign.

We call on all citizens of goodwill and believers of all faiths and none to join us in working for a civil public square and the restoration of a tough-minded civility that is in the interests of all.

Can we achieve a civil public square? Sure. Will we? That remains to be seen.

Today, Jews and other friends of Israel celebrate 60 years of renewed sovereignty in our homeland. Zion has been reestablished as a modern nation of remarkable strength, beauty, wisdom and achievement.

Meanwhile, what do the “Southern Syrians” have to show for their rejectionism and hate? Little but an ocean of innocent blood, an insane culture of death that eats their own children, and laughably pathetic displays like this.

Palestinians take part in a play in commemoration of Nakba Day “The Day of Catastrophe” during a rally in Gaza May 1, 2008. Palestinians will mark Nakba on May 15 as a day of mourning for the establishment of Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war which led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (GAZA)

Your eyes don’t deceive you–that’s a genuine Hamas Dwarf dressed up like a religious-Zionist oppressor, fedora, machine-gun and all.

Well, they say that “mockery is the sincerest form of contempt”… and so, in honor of the State of Israel’s 60th birthday, LoneStarTimes.com is proud to provide the poor, pathetic Arabs of Palestine with proof that they have been right about least one thing in the past century-plus of conflict.

And thus, “A Photographic History of ‘Nakba’ the Militant-Zionist Dwarf”–

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1948: David Ben-Gurion and Nakba
proclaim the founding of the Zionist Entity

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1967: Al-Quds falls to Nakba, Dayan and Rabin

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1967: Nakba praying at the Western Wall,
Islam’s 34th Holiest Shrine, and a place
that has nothing at all to do with Jews

Thanks to LST contributor “Squawkbox” for uncovering these long suppressed photos.

OK, not the crowning achievement of Israeli culture…
But still, sovereignty means the freedom to
make mistakes, just like every other nation.
Happy 6oth Birthday, Israel!

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Dawn Wolf Design– LST’s full-service graphic designer of choice. Talented, professional, competitively priced; a generous LST volunteer, we could not recommend her more highly. | 713-984-9200 | website

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The Los Angeles Police Department says enough is enough.

The Los Angeles Police Department has hired a dietitian to help veterans and recruits alike to slim down and get in shape.

Faced with a need for more officers in recent years, the LAPD briefly relaxed body fat limits from a maximum of 22 percent for men and 30 percent for women, drawing recruits who mirrored a plumper American public.

“I feel skinny,” Goodroe, 23, said with a laugh. “I actually had to get my uniforms fitted again.”

I guess it’s okay that she feels skinny but I found this to be disturbing.

But officers who don’t plan their meals are reduced to nutritional bottom-feeding: drive-thru burgers, microwave burritos and greasy slices of pizza.

Bottom feeding? Heck, that’s called supper in the trailer park. With fried pickles and a Pepcid on the side.

A Republican Governor… a Republican Lt. Governor… GOP control of the state house and senate… and an estimated $10.7 billion dollar budgetary surplus!

I can almost see the substantial tax relief arriving in my mailbox… in fact, I think I’ll go out and spend my inevitable refund check today!

What could go wrong?

Can’t stop me now!

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Dawn Wolf Design– LST’s full-service graphic designer of choice. Talented, professional, competitively priced; a generous LST volunteer, we could not recommend her more highly. | 713-984-9200 | website

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As mentioned by Dan Patrick, the infamous pic.

(more…)

At the end of a somewhat thoughtful analysis of the current state of Republican Party affairs, complete with solutions, Newt Gingrich has this to say:

P.S. — Father’s Day is just around the corner and there are great gift ideas available at great prices at Newt.org. Just click here to order personally signed copies of my new novel, Days of Infamy, as well as Pearl Harbor and Real Change. With the purchase of either of these three personally signed books, you can get a signed copy of Gettysburg for only $5. If you buy both a personalized copy of Pearl Harbor and Days of Infamy, you will receive a signed Gettysburg for free!

P.P.S. — The Days of Infamy book tour took me to New York City last week where Callista took some great pictures of us on the set of Hannity and Colmes, The View, The Daily Show and others. You can view them here.

I’m continuing the tour with a signing in Marietta, GA Wednesday. Click here for details.

I fear that soon our prognosticators will be as commercialized as our clergy.

Today is the last day for early voting in the Katy ISD School Board Election. If you want to make a difference and return this district to fiscal sanity, there are three members of CLOUT running that you should consider voting for.

They are Kameron Searle, Cynthia Blackman and Chris Sanders and have united under the slogan “Your Conservative Voice“. More about them