A new study shows that Conservatives are happier than Liberals because we're able to "justify economic inequalities."

To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance.

In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.

If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University.

I couldn't have said it better myself!  Apparently we're happier because we're not socialist! 

I realize this study was more intended to malign Conservatives by saying that we just don't care, but the truth is we do believe that, in America - the greatest land of opportunity mankind has ever known - people have a lot of control over their own destiny.  If you work hard, make responsible life decisions, and yes, even make sacrifices, then there's a good chance that you can improve your financial status.

If you're lazy, make poor lifestyle decisions, and seek every luxury right now with credit cards or an excessive mortgage, then it's not the job of government to insulate you from the consequences by taking more from those who have sacrificed and achieved and giving it to you.

A Jordanian man who converted from Islam to Christianity is about to lose everything, including custody of his children, as punishment for his "apostasy."

ISTANBUL, April 24 (Compass Direct News) – On trial for converting from Islam to Christianity, a Jordanian man may lose legal custody of his children and have his marriage annulled if found guilty of “apostasy.” Mohammad Abbad, 40, fled Jordan last month after Muslims violently attacked him and his 10-year-old son in their home and his father sued him on charges of apostasy, or leaving Islam. “I can’t win this case as long as I insist that I converted from Islam to Christianity,” Abbad wrote from the safety of a nearby country. “The court will annul my marriage, I will be deprived of my kids, I will be with no ID or passport, and my properties will be confiscated,” said the father of two, referring to a previous Jordanian apostasy verdict. In a separate November 2004 ruling, an Amman Sharia Court headed by Judge Suleiman Abdullah Abu Yahya convicted a Muslim convert to Christianity of apostasy. Stripped of all his legal rights, the convert and his family fled Jordan to escape the verdict.

I don't know who at the Obama camp thought it would be a good idea to let Obama's controversial pastor/mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright go on tour, but he's not helping his candidate any.  At Wright's appearances over the weekend, he is claiming that criticisms of his overtly racist and anti-American rhetoric are actually "an attack on the black church." 

In other words, if you object to him yelling "God damn America" from the pulpit, you're just a racist member of the "dominant culture" who's only out to smear black Christians everywhere!

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose post-Sept. 11 comments critical of America have raised questions about his relationship with Obama, has been on a multi-stop tour to restore his image and talk about his church. In addition to speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, he sat down for an interview with PBS's Bill Moyers in recent days.

"This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. This is an attack on the black church," said Wright, who cast his appearance as part of a two-day "symposium" on the black church.

[...]

Playing off the crowd's energy, Wright even suggested he would be interested in the vice presidency.

[...]

Wright also reasserted Monday that Obama was only disavowing his former pastor's comments for political reasons.

I'm sure Obama must be glad to know that his mentor of twenty years is running all over the country telling people that Barack actually does believe that controversial crap that Wright's been preaching but that he's only saying that he doesn't so that he can trick us into electing him, a raging radical, to the White House.  That's gotta be great news for his campaign.  Sure it's the same game he played with NAFTA, but the public isn't supposed to find out about these things!  (Don't you just love his "new brand of politics?"  We've never seen such overt double talk from politicians before!)

Wright has also announced that he will play an extremely influential role in an Obama administration (whether Barack likes it or not), and he continues to claim that his comments have been taken out of context.  But, like any liberal trying to play this smoke and mirrors game, refuses to explain the "proper" context that would make his comments acceptable.

Last October, when presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) was asked why he does not wear an American flag pin on his lapel, Obama responded:

Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.

Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.

Well apparently keeping an overtly racist, anti-American pastor/mentor for twenty years and accusing rural Americans of being so "bitter" that they have to "cling to guns or religion," does not make for such a great "testimony" to his patriotism.

So ironically enough, Barack's lapel flag is back (Pennsylvania photo here), apparently a "substitute" for the "true patriotism" that his poor choice of company and elitist opinion of average Americans have proved he is lacking...

Only over-sensitive Liberals could possibly find a way to tag a Hispanic woman who has endorsed a African-American man for president as racist toward blacks...

Moving to nip in the bud some potential bad press, White House hopeful Barack Obama's campaign persuaded a delegate to step down after she was ticketed for calling her neighbor's African-American children "monkeys."

Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Carpentersville village trustee, was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She sports an Obama sign in her front yard.

On Saturday, two neighbor children were playing in the tree next-door to her house.

Ramirez-Sliwinski "came outside and told the children to quit playing in the tree like monkeys. The tree was not on Ramirez-Sliwinski's property," Carpentersville Police Commander Michael Kilbourne said.

Ramirez-Sliwinski admitted she used the word "monkeys," but said she did not intend racism. She said she was only trying to protect them from falling out of the tree.

I can't say that I would agree with Ramirez-Sliwinski on most public policy issues, but I feel bad for her.  These are the kind of baseless accusations of racism that have been thrown at Republicans for years.

The real irony is that Obama would throw this woman under the bus for this but when his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was found to have said way worse during his twenty years as Obama's personal mentor, Barack only threw white grandmother under the bus.

What a joke...

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Boy... Muslims sure do get angry and violent when people accuse them of being... well... angry and violent.  They're already calling for the death of Dutch politician Geert Wilders for his fifteen-minute documentary "Fitna," which chronicles Islamic violence around the world...

Here are some disturbing results from a recent study:

In the YouGov survey, nearly half of all Arabs in the Gulf, Levant, and North Africa said that they have met someone who holds extreme religious views.  Asked under what conditions violence is permissible, more than 60% cited Western interference in a Muslim country, while 55% said offensive words or behaviour was a trigger.

Troubling?  Well the U.N. - always on the lookout for the newest, most cutting edge way to appease extremists - is trying to eliminate such "offensive words" from the world!

Arab and Muslim countries defended Tuesday a resolution they pushed through at the United Nations to have the body's expert on free speech police individuals and news media for negative comments on Islam.

The United States, Canada and some European countries criticized the role reversal for Kenyan legal expert Ambeyi Ligabo, who has reported to the global body on measures by dictatorships and repressive governments to restrict free speech.

The U.S. and other Western nations warned that the Muslim-backed resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council could curtail freedom of expression and help dictatorial regimes block dissenting views.

According to presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), children are a form of punishment:

I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.  I don't want them punished with an STD...

Certainly an unwanted pregnancy is a consequence of irresponsible sexual promiscuity, but calling a child a punishment in the same league as an STD?  How can that come from the mouth of a father?

Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill) pastor Jeremiah Wright has openly preached that racist, rich white people are the root of the economic oppression and exploitation of black citizens.  Then he retires and asks his "economically oppressed" congregation to build him a $1.6 million mansion and to finance a $10 million line of credit.

Here are a few articles that may help clear the intentionally murkied water regarding Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), and the man he used to refer to as his personal mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright has now resigned from his advisory post in Sen. Obama's presidential campaign and Wright's church is now comparing the recent media scrutiny of his  incendiary sermons to "the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr."

Just to recap, King said that he had a dream that his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," and his assassination was a national tragedy.  Wright blames the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks and calls on God to damn the U.S. of K-K-K-A and then is rightfully scrutinized for his extremist beliefs.  Comparable?  You be the judge.

Obama said he never heard these sermons or even knew the kind of message being preached by his personal mentor of twenty years, though an eye witness account puts him in the church for the "Hate America" sermon on July 22 of last year, along with a Secret Service detail (they have been protecting Obama since last May).

This scandal clearly contradicts the persona that Obama has been building for nearly four years in the public eye.  How can a man who claims to be "post-racial" and "post-partisan" attend a church for twenty years that preaches such venom and hatred... all the while calling its pastor his personal mentor?

As bloggers in Iowa, we try to keep our finger on the pulse of state politics as well as the national scene.  It is in that vein that we would like to encourage Bob Vander Plaats to run for Governor in 2010.  It's not too early to get started!

Mr. Vander Plaats has been a high school business teacher, basketball coach, and principal.  He has real solutions to bring to the Iowa education system which has been in decline over the last decade of Democrat rule, which has seen special interest groups given priority over our kids.

Though he has not held public office before, Mr. Vander Plaats has abundant experience as an executive, and not only as a principal.  He has also served as President and CEO of Opportunities Unlimited, a non-profit health care organization that specializes in helping young adults with brain and spinal cord injuries, and he now runs his own successful consulting business.  Bob served as state chairman on Mike Huckabee's Iowa campaign for president as well.  It's no accident that the former Arkansas governor went from a virtual unknown to the winner of the first-in-the-nation Caucuses seemingly overnight. 

Does this seem strange to anyone else?  April 30, 2007, Barack Obama's Kenyan grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, appeared in a New York Times article that included the following caption:

Sarah Hussein Obama of Kenya, Barack Obama's stepgrandmother (sic), is a lifelong Muslim.  "I'm a strong believer of the Islamic faith," she says.

However, the USA Today ran a story about her on Wednesday with this line:

"In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents," [Sarah Hussein Obama] said. She, too, is a Christian.