Why the Summit?

Seriously... what was the point of Thursday's health care summit, exactly? The outcome was pre-determined, as was the course of action to be taken by the liberals. From Politico on Thursday morning:

"After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.

"A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to 'give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.'

"Democrats plan to begin rhetorical, and perhaps legislative, steps toward the Democrats-only, or reconciliation, process early next week, the strategists said."

Also:
"The point [of the summit] is to alter the political atmospherics, and it will take a day or two to sense if it succeeded,” the [same Democratic] official said.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33510.html
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That being the case, why meet with the minority Republicans at all? Why the charade of pretending that you give a damn about their thoughts, ideas, suggestions? Nothing's changed. Only 25% of the country, according to the latest polling, wants any of the bills already put forward.

Don't pretend that Obama or the Democrats have elicited Republican opinion in the past 13 months. "I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess." -- Obama. Then why the make-believe summit????

I love having the Republicans referred to as a "party of No". Only they should take it further, and refer to themselves as the party of "HELL NO". It's not about opposition for the sake of opposition.. that's called REFLECTING in psychological terms, and a condition with which liberals are quite cozy. They do it all the time.

It's about opposition to an asinine, intrusive, illegal bill, or set of bills, designed to do one thing and one thing only: Centralized MORE power in the hands of the liberal nanny state. End of story. This isn't about getting a single sick person healthier, and it damned well isn't about cutting ANYONE'S costs for anything. It's about power, and the liberals "in charge" and their sycophantic followers care nothing about either the country or its opinions about them. They care about themselves, first -foremost -and always.

They were never interested in hearing the opinions of the minority party; not 13 months ago ("I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess"), and for damned sure not today.

That should tell every American, no matter their particular political bent, that this administration cares ONLY about power... not about the citizens of the nation, not about the Constitution that he swore to uphold, not about the economy or anything else. Just POWER. And We the People have had enough.

Fifty Rules for Writing Good

This is NOT original, but it is quite funny.

Fifty Rules for Writing Good

1. Each pronoun should agree with their antecedent.
2. Between you and I, pronoun case is important.
3. A writer must be sure to avoid using sexist pronouns in his writing.
4. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
5. Don’t be a person whom people realize confuses who and whom.
6. Never use no double negatives.
7. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with. That is something up with which your readers will not put.
8. When writing, participles must not be dangled.
9. Be careful to never, under any circumstances, split infinitives.
10. Hopefully, you won’t float your adverbs.
11. A writer must not shift your point of view.
12. Lay down and die before using a transitive verb without an object.
13. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
14. The passive voice should be avoided.
15. About sentence fragments.
16. Don’t verb nouns.
17. In letters themes reports and ad copy use commas to separate items in a series.
18. Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary
19. “Don’t overuse ‘quotation marks.”’
20. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (if the truth be told) superfluous.
21. Contractions won’t, don’t, and can’t help your writing voice.
22. Don’t write run-on sentences they are hard to read.
23. Don’t forget to use end punctuation
24. Its important to use apostrophe’s in the right places.
25. Don’t abbrev.
26. Don’t overuse exclamation marks! ! !
27. Resist Unnecessary Capitalization.
28. Avoid mispellings.
29. Check to see if you any words out.
30. One-word sentences? Never.
31. Avoid annoying, affected, and awkward alliteration, always.
32. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
33. The bottom line is to bag trendy locutions that sound flaky.
34. By observing the distinctions between adjectives and adverbs, you will treat your readers real good.
35. Parallel structure will help you in writing more effective sentences and to express yourself more gracefully.
36. In my own personal opinion at this point of time, I think that authors, when they are writing, should not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that they don’t really need.
37. Foreign words and phrases are the reader’s bete noire and are not apropos.
38. Who needs rhetorical questions?
39. Always go in search for the correct idiom.
40. Do not cast statements in the negative form.
41. And don’t start sentences with conjunctions.
42. Avoid mixed metaphors. They will kindle a flood of confusion in your readers.
43. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
44. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
45. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
46. Be more or less specific.
47. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement, which is always best.
48. Never use a big word when you can utilize a diminutive word.
49. Profanity sucks.
50. Last but not least, even if you have to bend over backward, avoid cliches like the plague.

English Tips of the Day

This is NOT original, but it is wonderful.

English Tips of The Day

• Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
• Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
• And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
• It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
• Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
• Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
• Be more or less specific.
• Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
• No sentence fragments.
• Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
• Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
• Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
• One-word sentences? Eliminate.
• Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
• Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
• Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
• Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
• Puns are for children, not groan readers.
• Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
• Who needs rhetorical questions?
• Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

And finally...

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.