ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090819

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable

Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!



"Daily Motivations"

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day, saying…"I will try again tomorrow." -- Mary Anne Radmacher



Helping Others – and Yourself – Grow Through Mentoring

Men-tor - n. A wise and trusted counselor or teacher.

Looking for a way to help your people develop, grow, and improve their performance? Like to do the same for yourself? If so, you need to try MENTORING. If ever there was a “win-win” process, this is it!

By definition, mentoring is a relationship between an experienced person and a less experienced person for the purpose of helping the individual with less experience learn and grow. Mentoring is a great way to serve your people … and yourself. As team members develop in both knowledge and skills, their performance naturally improves. When that happens, everyone wins. And you’ll find that YOU grow by mentoring, as well. As you reflect on your life experiences and distill them into nuggets to share with others, you “re-experience” the wisdom that’s inside of you. What’s wrong with that picture? NOTHING!

So, consider adding mentoring to your leadership strategies. And as you do, keep the following in mind:

All mentoring relationships need to focus on the people being mentored. Remember that it’s not about you – it’s about them. Accept them for who they are. Help them advance at their own place.

Avoid treating people you are mentoring as incompetent or incapable. Rather, think of them as individuals lacking in experience … valuable team members who need guidance. And don’t forget where YOU came from. Earlier in your career, you didn’t know what you know now. Why should they?

Don’t criticize or belittle. Instead, help “mentorees” think through the consequences of their behavior and to identify more positive ways of handling difficult or troubling situations. And, by all means, hold the people you are mentoring responsible for their success. Be willing to give of yourself and your time, but insist that they do the same.



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

"Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take." (Proverbs 3:6).

Imagine Captain Ahab, rowing after Moby Dick in a small boat. We would call him ambitious. But if we were to see him in that same boat, carrying a jar of tartar sauce with him, we would call him not only ambitious but well-planned. He not only believes the impossible but carries out the preparation.

In the days immediately following World War II, President Truman's administrator of the National Housing Agency was Wilson Wyatt. The war had caused a great housing shortage, and the president told Mr. Wyatt to "make no small plans." The administrator certainly took that advice.

He announced a program to build 1.2 million houses in 1946, which would represent a 500 percent increase over the total for 1945. Naturally, newspapers and politicians attacked Mr. Wyatt's plan, saying it was a pipe dream. They offered reason upon reason why it would be impossible.

By the end of 1946, the administration had fallen just short of the ambitious goal---but they had built more houses than anyone had believed possible. It never could have happened if one man had not planned with a faith perspective.

You can be the boldest of visionaries and possess the deepest faith; even so, you will need the wisest and most organized of plans if you are to see results. If we are to become supernatural thinkers, we must become supernatural planners.



"The Patriot Post"

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." -- Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774

"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782

"[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community." -- Benjamin Rush, letter to David Ramsay, circa April 1788



"Rick Santorum"

The Good News About Bad News in Latin America

The only good news about a pile-up of bad news in a region is its ability to awaken important powers to the long-festering security threats in their midst that had previously gone unheeded and untreated. Such is the case with Latin America this week, as recent events in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have finally instigated the right kind of response from those in the international community, including our own U.S. State Department (no longer trying to restore a dictator to power in South America) and the United Nations (keeping closer tabs on Venezuela’s recent curtailing of free speech).

The streets of Honduras have been awash in new violence, as demonstrations in support of exiled Honduran President Zelaya re-ignited after protestors set a restaurant on fire in Tegucigalpa on Wednesday. But this most recent aggression should be understood as legitimacy’s last gasp for ousted President Manuel Zelaya, whose illegal actions to overturn the Honduran Constitution are thoroughly documented in an excellent analysis by Nicole Ferrand of the Center for Security Policy. Hondurans, through a remarkable conviction of their own freedoms and a fierce desire to defend them, seem to have won, with the majority of the world no longer working against their fight for democracy.

The apparent defeat of Zelaya does not mean victory over Chavez's Bolivarian Revolutionary ideas that held him, however, as evidenced by the recent direction Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has been taking. A few weeks ago Ortega publicly announced his desire to change the term limits stated in the Nicaraguan constitution.

Meanwhile, with domestic woes multiplying at home and disapproval strengthening abroad, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has been ramping up his bellicose anti-imperalist rhetoric in a last-ditch effort to galvanize increasingly unsure supporters. With thirty-four opposition radio and television station licenses revoked in July and the potential for 285 more to go, not to mention the introduction of a new education bill that threatens to open up public education to Chavez’s ideological influence, new critiques of "Cubanization" have been making the rounds of Venezuelan public discourse. Chavez is feeling the heat from within, and he is running out of worthy scapegoats upon whom to blame the country's problems. With regard to the recent U.S. announcement that it is using seven military bases in Colombia, Chavez has urged the Venezuelan military to be prepared for a conflict, and on Sunday charged wildly that Colombian troops had entered Venezuela across the Orinoco River.

"The Yankees are starting to command the Colombian Armed Forces; they are the ones who are in charge, who are in charge of these provocations, who make up huge lies," he said.

Ethics and Public Policy Center

Program to Protect America's Freedom
1015 15th Street, NW Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20005



"answersingenesis.org"

How can a Christian survive secular college?

I can say from experience that being a biblical creationist at a secular college has its challenges. In addition to the normal academic pressures faced by all students, the consistent Christian must learn to be discerning about the views and interpretations expressed by his or her professors. This requires extra research as well as time (a valuable commodity while in college!). Such intellectual challenges occur in the midst of a social environment that is hostile to Christianity.

Many Christian parents are concerned that such a secular environment may lead their children to walk away from the Church. This concern is justified, since studies have shown that around two out of three Christian students from conservative churches will leave the church when they become adults.

First of all, our research shows that the problem starts much earlier than college. Nearly 90% of those students who leave the church have already begun to doubt God’s Word by the time they graduate from high school. Although they may continue to attend church with their parents, spiritually they are already gone.

Most Christian teenagers do not understand how the Bible connects to the “real world.” They have been taught “Bible stories,” but they have not been shown how the Bible’s history explains the evidence around us—from biology and geology to astronomy. Conversely, public schools use their evolutionary version of history to interpret the present world. So, students are inclined to think that the secular version of history they learned in public school is real, whereas the Bible is just a collection of interesting stories.



"Find Law"

Hackers' Indictment Alleges Theft of 130M Credit Cards

U.S. V. ALBERT GONZALEZ
(U.S. Dist. Ct., N.J., Aug. 17, 2009) - An accused hacker previously charged in at least three other federal cases was indicted by a federal grand jury in New Jersey yesterday on charges alleging that he and two co-conspirators in Russia, hacked and stole the credit and debit card information of 130 million people. Read all his charges in this and two other cases here. Read more... http://blogs.findlaw.com/courtside/2009/08/hackers-indictment-alleges-theft-of-130m-credit-cards.html



Get The Cluck Out, Miami Beach Orders Mr. Clucky and Girl-Hen

MARK J. BUCKLEY V. CITY OF MIAMI BEACH
(Special Master, City of Miami Beach, FL, Aug. 13, 2009) - It's official. Mr. Clucky, the Miami Beach rooster, his guinea hen girlfriend Wallflower, and their poultry guardian Mark Buckley lost their appeal in Miami Beach's chicken eviction case. Read the decision here. Read more... http://blogs.findlaw.com/courtside/2009/08/miami-beach-fries-mr-clucky-in-official-chick-evict-ruling.html



"ProEnglish.org"

Health Care Bill Requires Free Translation Services

First, are you tired of "voice mail" instructing you to dial "1" for English? Can you believe President Obama and the majority Democrats on Capitol Hill have legislation which will require (y)our Doctors and Hospitals to hire interpreters? How much more will this add to the cost of Healthcare? Do these elected officials understand this is still America; not a foreign nation speaking a different language?

Secondly, President Obama's administration representatives are now saying President Obama may accept "not-for-profits", rather than the government proposal to operate "Healthcare". Be shy of President Obama accepting not-for-profits, as President Obama may turn around and fire the not-for-profits administration, and reappoint the government representatives, just as President Obama fired the GM CEO. Who would have ever believed a US President or any other political figure could fire a CEO in private owned and operated industry. President Obama's action of replacing anyone in a free-market society where no criminal active by any person is charged and convicted, is nothing less than Socialism. - oyh

Strike Section 1221 (b) from H.R. 3200

Urgent alert! Please act now!

Health Care Reform legislation now pending in Congress would require doctors and hospitals to provide interpreters and translation services free of charge to non-English speaking patients.

That will add $billions to the cost of health care and give immigrants even less incentive to learn English.

The "America's Affordable Health Choices Act," H.R. 3200, Section 1221 (b) says Medicare health care providers that fail to "substantially provide language services to limited English proficient beneficiaries" face severe fines and penalties.

This is outrageous. Medicare is already bankrupt. Now medical providers also will have to provide free translation services.

Send a free email message to your congressional representatives and demand that they remove entitlements to language translation services from health care reform legislation!

Please "Take Action" now!

And please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to ProEnglish. We receive no government support and depend entirely on voluntary contributions from people like you. Click here to make a secure donation online. Thank you!



"The Web"

How Drab This World Would Be Without Color!

http://www.greatdanepromilitary.com/Colors/index.htm



545 People

By Charley Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices. 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq, it's because they want them in Iraq.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses, provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!



Obama's MySpace page: I'm 52 years old, not 48

Would place president's birth during time Hawaii was a territory

WorldNetDaily

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=107163

Is President Obama's age 52? His MySpace page declares his age as 52, thus putting his birth year at 1957, two years before Hawaii achieved U.S. statehood.

If President Obama were indeed born in Hawaii, was it while the islands were a territory of the United States?

A new wrinkle in the dispute over his birth – and whether he is eligible to be president under the U.S. Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural born" citizen – appeared today when Obama's official MySpace page declared his age is 52, thus placing his birth year at 1957 instead of 1961 as has been claimed.

That would mean he would have been born during the archipelago's time as a territory of the U.S., the islands' status from about 1900 until statehood in 1959.

The birth year also conflicts with campaign and other White House information that have discussed his 48th birthday this month.

An Aug. 16, 2009, screenshot of President Obama's MySpace page declares his age as 52, not 48 as has been claimed elsewhere.

Obama's personal web page, BarackObama.com, has numerous links to related sites including Facebook and MySpace, confirming that MySpace.com/barackobama is the president's page on MySpace.

Even when one puts the words "MySpace" and "Barack Obama" into search engines such as Google, the top result is the same page and indicates: "Official profile page for Barack Obama includes his blog, blurbs, news clips, videos and comments from his MySpace friends."

Obama's Facebook listing does not display his age, but shows his date of birth as Aug. 4, 1961.

President Obama's Facebook page lists his date of Birth as Aug. 4, 1961, and also confirms his MySpace page address

A WND request to the White House for comment did not generate an immediate response.

It was the Associated Press that reported on Aug. 4 Obama was having Senate Democrats to lunch because "it's the president's birthday and Chuck E. Cheese was booked."

AP credited Obama with being the nation's third youngest president who turned 48 this month.

Interestingly, a check of the Internet archive "Wayback Machine" finds that on April 10, 2007, Obama had his age listed as 45 on MySpace, which would be correct if, in fact, he had been born in August 1961 as has been trumpeted.

A screenshot from the archive of Barack Obama's MySpace page from April 10, 2007, indicates an age of 45 years old, which would be consistent with a birth date of Aug. 4, 1961.

Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, several times has raised the question over Obama's eligibility at White House news briefings – initially asking why the president didn't just release a copy of his original long-form birth certificate.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, at first laughed at the idea, stating the "birth certificate" was on the Internet. That image, however, shows a "certification of live birth" which is not the same document and until recently wasn't even accepted as identification by the state of Hawaii for some of its programs.

But a multitude of other records that also have not been released would shed light on the president's past, including his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and adoption records.

Even when a hospital in Honolulu started using an image of a letter purporting to be from Obama acknowledging the facility as his place of birth, the White House refused to confirm the validity of the letter.

The dispute rages because Obama has not provided simple, incontrovertible proof of his exact birthplace. That information would be included on his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate which Obama has steadfastly refused to release amid a flurry of conflicting reports.

Hawaiian law specifically allows "an adult or the legal parents of a minor child" to apply to the health department and, upon unspecified proof, be given the birth document.

WND has reported on the dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen" – challenges that all have been confronted by attorneys acting on the president's behalf to keep his records sealed.

The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

The key question in the dispute also is being raised on billboards nationwide.

"Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard in Pennsylvania

The billboard campaign follows an ongoing petition campaign launched several months ago by WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah.

They are intended to raise public awareness of the fact that Obama has never released the standard "long-form" birth certificate that would show which hospital he was born in, the attending physician and establish that he truly was born in Hawaii, as his autobiography maintains.



Obama-Linked Activists Targeting Glenn Beck in Boycott Campaign

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/beck_obama_boycott_fox/2009/08/13/247700.html?s=al&promo_code=856B-1

By: David A. Patten

Is a left-wing attempt to scare off advertisers from Fox News host Glenn Beck’s highly rated cable news show being orchestrated with some high level help from the Obama White House?

Perhaps.

Newsmax has learned that the co-founder of the African-American political organization Color of Change, which is calling for Beck's ouster, is civil rights attorney Van Jones.

In March, President Obama appointed Jones to serve as his so-called "green-jobs czar," responsible for stimulating job growth in the environmental sector.

"I don’t have proof that the White House asked Color of Change to help it fight back against Glenn Beck," Matthew Vadum, the Capitol Research Center senior editor who has written extensively about Jones' activities, tells Newsmax. "But I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it had. Van Jones has the president’s ear. It’s a few hundred feet from his office at the Council on Environmental Quality to the Oval Office."

The other co-founder of Color of Change, James Rucker, confirmed to Newsmax that Jones' formal association with Color Of Change ended in December 2007. He states however that the organization continued to use Jones' name on their e-mails until May 2008.

Jones and Beck have had their run-ins before. Beck has described Jones as "a black nationalist who is also an avowed communist."

Color Of Change claims that it has pressured a growing roster of companies into pulling their ads from Beck's program: Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, RadioShack, GEICO, Progressive Insurance, Men's Wearhouse, State Farm, Sargento, Lawyers.com, and Procter & Gamble.

One company — SC Johnson of Racine, Wis. — is disputing statements that it has pulled its ads from the Beck show.

"There is misinformation out there on the Web," Chris Beard, SC Johnson's director of public affairs, tells Newsmax. "We have not directed advertising toward the Glenn Beck show. Consequently, we have not pulled any advertising from the Glenn Beck show. Actually, that is misinformation."

The campaign against Beck stems from remarks he made on the July 28 Fox & Friends program, following Obama's assertion that the Cambridge Police Department had acted "stupidly" in its arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. Obama later backed off from those words, and invited Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, to join him at the White House for a beer.

"This president I think has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again, who has a deep seated hatred for . . . white people? Or the white culture?" Beck asked. "I don't know what it is, but you can't sit in a pew with [former Obama pastor] Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and not hear some of that stuff, have it wash over."

The show's co-host, Brian Kilmeade, replied to Beck: "But listen, you can't say he doesn't like white people. David Axelrod's white, Rahm Emanuel his chief of staff is white. I think 70 percent of the people we see every day are white. Robert Gibbs is white."

"I'm not saying that he doesn't like white people," Beck said. "I'm saying he has a problem. This guy, I believe, is a racist. Look at the things that he has been surrounded by."

Predictably, Beck’s off hand remarks created a storm of controversy in the leftwing blogosphere, the same group that had been apologists for the Rev. Wright’s statements of hate against whites and Jews.

Color of Change, which claims to be the largest African-American political organization online with 600,000 members, has seized on Beck's comment to mount a campaign to discourage companies from advertising on the program.

Color of Change Executive Director James Rucker spoke with Newsmax, and made clear his organization's goal is for Beck's voice to be silenced.

"It's preposterous and absurd," Rucker says of Beck's opinion. "It's insulting to black Americans; and it corrupts honest debate. Anyone who uses such a platform to spew such vitriol, whether Glenn Beck or anyone else, has no place on the air, and we at Color Of Change would use every resource available to us to remove corporate sponsorship from their platform."

The group is asking its member to sign a petition urging companies who advertise on Beck's program to pull their ads from the show, and claims that 150,000 members have signed the petition. And it says its anti-Beck campaign is working.

In a Tuesday press release, Color of Change quoted an e-mail sent to the group from GEICO: "On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on Fox TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program. As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."

A Fox spokesman confirmed that GEICO is dropping its ads from the show, Brandweek reported, but noted: "The advertisers referenced have all moved their spots from Beck to other programs on the network so there has been no revenue lost."

It's not the first time Color of Change, which was founded in 2005, has sought to quell political speech from the right. It lobbied the Congressional Black Caucus not to host a Democratic presidential debate co-sponsored by Fox, arguing that it "consistently marginalizes . . . black leaders and the black community." Marching in lockstep, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shunned the debate.

Grass-roots leaders find news of the group's ties to the Obama administration alarming, however.

They see the anti-Beck campaign as part of a clear pattern of Democratic efforts to stifle free expression from the right, ranging from the recent labeling of town hall protesters as "un-American," to openly mocking talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, to flirting with back-door ways of reinstating federal controls over radio content, such as "localism" and the Fairness Doctrine.

Now they are answering back.

"We have put out the word among our grass-roots members," Everett Wilkinson, a national leader of the Tea Party Patriots, tells Newsmax.

Wilkinson tells Newsmax that the Tea Party Patriots have joined forces with a similar group, the National 912 Coalition, to beseech their members to contact Beck's sponsors, and encourage them to continue underwriting The Glenn Beck Program.

He says members are even hosting Glenn Beck popcorn nights to watch the program together and have an open debate about its topics.

"It's about principles not parties," Wilkinson says. "Perhaps you disagree with him, but at least we're getting America to talk."

Wilkinson says Tea Party Patriots holds Beck "in high regard as a journalist" adding, "We also understand a large amount of his show is entertainment. But we support any kind of independent journalist, be it Glenn Beck, Cavuto, Hannity. And we see that anyone who is independent or who puts out an independent perspective is being attacked by the liberal left."

Rich Noyes, research director for the Media Research Center, points out there wasn't much hue and cry when President Bush was labeled a racist in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But the political left is far more inclined than the rest of America's body politic, he says, to attack and punish individuals for their views.

"If the left wants to clean up hate speech, they can start in their own ranks," Noyes says. "We had a syndicated radio host Mike Malloy go on the air after this, and say he hoped Glenn Beck would commit suicide on live TV. A few days later he said he hoped Rush Limbaugh choked to death on his own fat. There are hate-filled things coming out of the left-wing media all the time, but it doesn't seem to get the left riled up or upset."

Newsmax made several attempts to reach some of the companies that reportedly dropped their support for the Beck program. As of Tuesday evening, those calls had not been returned. One thing that's clear is the controversial hasn't dented the popularity of Beck's program. On Tuesday, for example, overnight Nielsen's showed The Glenn Beck Program attracted over 2.3 million viewers — more than CNN, MSNBC, and Headline News combined.

Beck supporters are distributing the contact information for officials at two companies that have stopped their advertising. They are:

Progressive Insurance

Mr. Glenn Renwick, President & CEO

440-461-5000

Ms. Linda Harris, Advertising & Sponsorships

E-mail: linda_j._harris@progressive.com


GEICO

Mr. Tony Nicely

Chairman, President & CEO, Insurance Operations

E-mail: tnicely@geico.com

301-986-2462

Chris Tasher, GEICO Media Relations

301-986-3271

E-mail: ctasher@geico.com

Some Beck supporters say they're also calling his current advertisers, encouraging them to continue supporting the program.



HOUSE ON A ROCK

http://residesi.blogspot.com/2009/08/house-on-rock-byash-this-is-cool.html

Clingstone, an unusual, 103-year-old mansion in Rhode Island 's Narragansett Bay, survives through the love and hard work of family and friends.

Henry Wood, the owner, runs the house like a camp: all skilled workers welcome.
The Jamestown Boatyard hauls the family's boats and floating dock and stores them each winter in return for a week's use of the house in the summer.

Mr. Wood, a 79-year-old Boston architect, bought the house with his ex-wife Joan
in 1961 for $3,600. It had been empty for two decades.

Clingstone had been built by a distant cousin, J.S. Lovering Wharton. Mr. Wharton worked with an artist, William Trost Richards, to create a house of picture windows with 23 rooms on three stories radiating off a vast central hall.

The total cost of the construction, which was completed in 1905, was $36,982.99

An early sketch of the house. Mr. Wood is as proud as any parent of his house, and keeps a fat scrapbook of photographs and newspaper clippings that document its best moments.

Many of the historic photos he has were provided by the company that insured the house for its original owners.

The Newport Bridge is visible from the windows of the Ping-Pong room, to the left of the fireplace.

The house is maintained by an ingenious method: the Clingstone work weekend. Held every year around Memorial Day, it brings 70 or so friends and Clingstone lovers together to tackle jobs like washing all 65 of the windows. Anne Tait, who is married to Mr. Wood's son Dan, refinished the kitchen floor on one of her first work weekends.

There are 10 bedrooms at Clingstone, all with indecently beautiful views

The dining room table seats 14. Refinishing the chairs is a task on the list for a future work weekend.

Sign by the ladder that leads to the roof reads: No entry after three drinks or 86 years of age.

"It used to say 80 but we had a guy on a work weekend who was 84, so I changed it," said Mr. Wood, ever the realist. It would have been a shame to curtail the activities of a willing volunteer



"The e-mail Bag"

The Family Tree of Vincent Van Gogh

His dizzy aunt - Verti Gogh

The brother who ate prunes - Gotta Gogh

The brother who worked at a convenience store - Stop N. Gogh

The grandfather from Yugoslavia - U. Gogh

The cousin from Illinois - Chica Gogh

His magician uncle ¯ Where-diddy Gogh

His Mexican cousin - A. Mee Gogh

The Mexican cousin's American half-brother - Gring Gogh

The constipated uncle - Can't Gogh

The ballroom dancing aunt - Tan Gogh

The bird lover uncle - Flamin Gogh

The fruit loving cousin - Man Gogh

The little bouncy nephew - Poe Gogh

A sister who loved dance clubs - Go Gogh

And his niece who travels the country in an RV - Winnie Bay Gogh