ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090304

Motivational-Educational-Historical-Inspirational-Enjoyable



"Daily Motivations"

Managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right thing. -- Warren Bennis



Earning Employee Trust

It’s no secret that being trusted by team members is critical to any leader’s success. And that fact leads to an all important question: How can you earn your people’s trust … what can you do protect and maintain that most important leadership characteristic? The answer: By exhibiting the following four behaviors …

Keep your promises. You don’t have to promise things just to make employees feel good. They’re more interested in being able to depend on what you promise than in feeling good. Just keep the promises you do make and your team will trust what you say.

Speak out for what you think is important. Employees can’t read your mind. They don’t know how you feel. If they have to guess about what’s important to you, they may guess wrong. Save them the trouble. Tell them how you feel and why. They’ll respect you so much more.

Err on the side of fairness. Be fair to everyone. Employees really do know that things are not always clearly right or wrong. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions that affect many people. Sometimes those decisions include having to dismiss team members. All your team can really ask for is that you be fair at all times – regardless of the type of decision you have to make.

Do what you say you are going to do. Just let your “yes” be yes and your “no” mean no. When you tell people you are going to do something, they should be able to “consider it done.”



"Daily Devotions" (NASB)

Let the Lord Decide Moses brought their case before the Lord (Num. 27:5). A banner at a local school proclaims, "We celebrate fairness." My son commented upon it: "But life isn't fair."



"The Patriot Post"

"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Spencer Roane, 9 March 1821

"It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 35

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book, 1774-1776



"Simple Thoughts"

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Kindness is more important than wisdom and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.

I destroy my enemy by making him my friend.



"The Web"

Do You Remember These

http://oldfortyfives.com:80/DYRT.htm



Time Gets Better With Time

http://home.att.net:80/~mcp3_2000/_classics/021/age.htm



Another Day, Another Trillion (from Family Research Council)

In bold white script, the words "A New Era of Responsibility" are splashed across the cover of the President's new budget proposal. Unfortunately, the responsibilities outlined throughout its 142 pages are ours--all $3.6 trillion of them. In five weeks on the job, President Obama is on his way to racking up more national debt than President Bush did in five years (2001-2006). Under this spending plan, America would be saddled with a $1.8 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2009, the highest in U.S. history. This administration seems to operate under the slogan: Why quit while you're behind? Big government is back--along with big taxes, big promises, and what will certainly be big disappointments when generation after generation of taxpayers get the bill.

Among the budget highlights are some broad social policy shifts, including: a "down payment" on government-controlled health care ($634 billion), "greener" government through pricy climate research and buildings ($12.3 billion), another $5 million to Medicaid "family planning" efforts, a second, more costly bank bailout ($750 billion), and projected revenue from a "cap and trade" clamp on carbon emissions.

Today's edition of the D.C. Examiner itemizes the cost to American taxpayers in an invoice from the President, which totals $7,371,000,000,000.00. How does Obama expect to pay for everything? Charles Hurt of the New York Post writes, "Obama's budget schemes to drain staggering amounts of money from people who worked for it and steer it to people who didn't." According to some estimates, Americans can expect $1.5 trillion in tax increases by 2019. Obviously, one of the immediate casualties of the Obama era will be President Bush's tax cuts, which have provided real relief for American families. Although FRC lobbied to make the cuts permanent, they are almost certain to expire next year. The wealthy (those making $250,000 a year or more) are scheduled to take a punishing blow for their success with hikes in capital gains taxes, income taxes, employer taxes, and the resurrection of the estate tax.

But perhaps the most troubling element of the President's proposal is a deliberate--and debilitating--attack on charitable giving. To the dismay of people across the political spectrum, the White House has asked for a 20% reduction in the amount that upper-income people can deduct from their taxes for making charitable donations. For organizations already feeling the crunch of the recession, this could be a killing blow.

Under the current plan, no one would be immune. The new code would affect everything from think tanks to food banks. As the President is well aware, the pain would be particularly acute for the community of religious conservatives, who are more generous than political liberals in every measurable way. The move would hurt traditional-values charities most, since the government is already funding the far Left's agenda on abortion, environmentalism, welfare, the arts, and "family planning" with billions of tax dollars every year.

In effect, Obama would be squeezing out any programs that are not government approved. He claims the move would bring in roughly $32 billion a year--but at a much larger cost to philanthropy as a whole. If the provision passes, the White House would be well on its way to replacing the work of churches, nonprofits, and social service agencies with more government programs, which studies have proven to be a poor and ineffective substitute. Americans should be outraged. If there's one place that doesn't need our charity, it's Washington.



Tiger Woods: Proud American, Son and Father

Tiger Woods spoke Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington during the "We Are One," an inauguration celebration for President-elect Barack Obama. Below is the text of his speech, entitled "You'll Never Walk Alone," as posted on his Web site:

"I grew up in a military family - and my role models in life were my Mom and Dad, Lt. Colonel Earl Woods. My dad was a Special Forces operator and many nights friends would visit our home. They represented every branch of the service, and every rank. In my Dad, and in those guests, I saw first hand the dedication and commitment of those who serve. They come from every walk of life. From every part of our country. Time and again, across generations, they have defended our safety in the dark of night and far from home.

Each day -- and particularly on this historic day -- we honor the men and women in uniform who serve our country and protect our freedom. They travel to the dangerous corners of the world, and we must remember that for every person who is in uniform, there are families who wait for them to come home safely.

I am honored that the military is such an important part, not just of my personal life, but of my professional one as well. The golf tournament we do each year here in Washington is a testament to those unsung heroes. I am the son of a man who
dedicated his life to his country, family and the military, and I am a better person for it.

In the summer of 1864, Abraham Lincoln, the man at whose memorial we stand, spoke to the 164th Ohio Regiment and said: 'I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.' Just as they have stood tall for our country - we must always stand by and support the men and women in uniform and their families.

Thank you, and it is now my pleasure to introduce the US Naval Glee Club."



Obama Offered Deal to Russia in Secret Letter

WASHINGTON — President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said Monday.

The letter to President Dmitri A. Medvedev was hand-delivered in Moscow by top administration officials three weeks ago. It said the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.
The officials who described the contents of the message requested anonymity because it has not been made public. While they said it did not offer a direct quid pro quo, the letter was intended to give Moscow an incentive to join the United States in a common front against Iran. Russia’s military, diplomatic and commercial ties to Tehran give it some influence there, but it has often resisted Washington’s hard line against Iran.

“It’s almost saying to them, put up or shut up,” said a senior administration official. “It’s not that the Russians get to say, ‘We’ll try and therefore you have to suspend.’ It says the threat has to go away.”

On Tuesday, a press secretary for Dmitri A. Medvedev told the Interfax news agency that the letter did not contain any “specific proposals or mutually binding initiatives.”

Natalya Timakova said the letter was a reply to one sent by Mr. Medvedev shortly after Mr. Obama was elected.

“Medvedev appreciated the promptness of the reply and the positive spirit of the message,” Ms. Timakova said. “Obama’s letter contains various proposals and assessments of the current situation. But the message did not contain any specific proposals or mutually binding initiatives.”

She said Mr. Medvedev perceives the development of Russian-American relations as “exceptionally positive,” and hopes details can be fleshed out at a meeting on Friday in Geneva between Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev will meet for the first time on April 2 in London, officials said Monday.

Mr. Obama’s letter, sent in response to one he received from Mr. Medvedev shortly after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, is part of an effort to “press the reset button” on Russian-American relations, as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. put it last month, officials in Washington said. Among other things, the letter discussed talks to extend a strategic arms treaty expiring this year and cooperation in opening supply routes to Afghanistan.

The plan to build a high-tech radar facility in the Czech Republic and deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland — a part of the world that Russia once considered its sphere of influence — was a top priority for President George W. Bush to deter Iran in case it developed a nuclear warhead to fit atop its long-range missiles. Mr. Bush never accepted a Moscow proposal to install part of the missile defense system on its territory and jointly operate it so it could not be used against Russia.

Now the Obama administration appears to be reconsidering that idea, although it is not clear if it would want to put part of the system on Russian soil where it could be flipped on or off by Russians. Mr. Obama has been lukewarm on missile defense, saying he supports it only if it can be proved technically effective and affordable.

Mr. Bush also emphasized the linkage between the Iranian threat and missile defense, but Mr. Obama’s overture reformulates it in a way intended to appeal to the Russians, who long ago soured on the Bush administration. Officials have been hinting at the possibility of an agreement in recent weeks, and Mr. Obama’s proposal was reported on Monday by a Moscow newspaper, Kommersant.

“If through strong diplomacy with Russia and our other partners we can reduce or eliminate that threat, it obviously shapes the way at which we look at missile defense,” Under Secretary of State William J. Burns said about the Iranian threat in an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax while in Moscow last month delivering Mr. Obama’s letter.

Attending a NATO meeting in Krakow, Poland, on Feb. 20, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said, “I told the Russians a year ago that if there were no Iranian missile program, there would be no need for the missile sites.” Mr. Obama’s inauguration, he added, offered the chance for a fresh start. “My hope is that now, with the new administration, the prospects for that kind of cooperation might have improved,” he said.

The idea has distressed Poland and the Czech Republic, where leaders invested political capital in signing missile defense cooperation treaties with the United States despite domestic opposition. If the United States were to slow or halt deployment of the systems, Warsaw and Prague might insist on other incentives.

For example, the deal with Poland included a side agreement that an American Patriot air defense battery would be moved from Germany to Poland, where it would be operated by a crew of about 100 American service members. The administration might have to proceed with that to reassure Warsaw.

Missile defense has flavored Mr. Obama’s relationship with Russia from the day after his election, when Mr. Medvedev threatened to point missiles at Europe if the system proceeded. Mr. Medvedev later backed off that threat and it seems that Moscow is taking seriously the idea floated in Mr. Obama’s letter. Kommersant, the Moscow newspaper, on Monday called it a “sensational proposal.”

Mr. Medvedev said Sunday that he believed the Obama administration would be open to cooperation on missile defense.

“We have already received such signals from our American colleagues,” he said in an interview posted on the Kremlin Web site. “I expect that these signals will turn into concrete proposals. I hope to discuss this issue of great importance for Europe during my first meeting with President Barack Obama.”



"The e-mail Bag"

Three Good Arguments That Jesus Was a Woman, or a Black Woman, or ...

There are 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black:

1. He called everyone "brother"
2. He liked Gospel
3. He couldn't get a fair trial.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish:

1. He went into His Fathers business.
2. He lived at home until he was 33.
3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his mother thought he was God.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian:

1. He talked with his hands.
2. He had wine with every meal.
3. He used olive oil.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian:

1. He never cut his hair.
2. He walked around barefoot all the time.
3. He started a new religion.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish:

1. He never got married.
2. He was always telling stories.
3. He loved green pastures.

But the most compelling evidence of all - 3 proofs that Jesus was a woman:

1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was no food.
2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it
3. And even when he was dead, He had to get up because there was more work to do.



'Toot 'n Tell or Go to Hell'

The elderly priest, speaking to the younger priest, said, 'You had a good idea to replace the first four pews with plush bucket theatre seats. It worked like a charm. The front of the church always fills first now.'

The young priest nodded, and the old priest continued, 'And you told me adding a little more beat to the music would bring young people back to church, so I supported you when you brought in that rock 'n roll gospel choir. Now our services are consistently packed to the balcony.'

'Thank you, Father,' answered the young priest. 'I am pleased that you are open to the new ideas of youth.'

'All of these ideas have been well and good,' said the elderly priest, 'But I'm afraid you've gone too far with the drive-thru confessional.' 'But Father,' protested the young priest, 'my confessions and the donations have nearly doubled since I began that!'

'Yes,' replied the elderly priest, 'and I appreciate that.... But the flashing neon sign, 'Toot 'n Tell or Go to Hell' cannot stay on the church roof.