The Real Story Behind the Short Shorts

/2 Comments/in , /by

This is the REAL story behind the short-shorts!

scott-front-back

I know the world has varying degrees of what is modest and what is not when it comes to clothing. In our family we have pretty definite modesty guidelines; No mid-drift or low-cut shirts, no short shorts, short skirts and we even go as far as saying no sleeveless shirts unless playing sports or on the beach. Having raised four daughters and three sons, I’m a bit protective. Some may call me old fashion, but I call it “A Dad who loves his daughters” (and sons too) I know some of you may be rolling your eyes and that’s okay, my daughter does it all the time.

I’m a firm believer that the way we dress sends messages about us, and it influences the way we and others act. (okay okay – I’m the first to admit I look like a redneck and I may say “crick” instead of “creek”) But that’s beside the point. My teenage daughter day after day continues to wear clothing that I, as her father, feel is inappropriate and immodest. Her mother and I feel the same about the importance of dressing modest. With that said, let’s move onto the night of the happening …….

In an effort to try to spend time with just the family we reserve our Monday evenings for just that. On this particular Monday, we decided to go out to eat (something we had not done in a very long time) and made plans for after dinner to use our pass-of-all passes to go miniature golfing at Trafalga, a nearby “fun center”. I heard my wife ask our daughter if she would please change into some longer shorts before leaving. She said “NO!” Instead of turning her response and disrespectful attitude into a major battle, I decided to make a “small” statement on how her short-shorts maybe aren’t as “cute” as she thinks!

I ran into my bedroom as the family was loading into the car. I grabbed some scissors and cut some old worn out pants into a set of short-shorts with the ends of the pockets hanging out the bottom. There was only about an inch of material below the crotch of the shorts. To add frosting to the cake, I looked down and noticed a shirt that my older daughter had given me for Father’s Day. At the time I thought “where the heck would I ever wear this?” Wow! I just found the perfect moment! I was a bit worried about going through with this, but felt that it was “OKAY” to make this statement in the privacy of our own home. I was certain that when my daughter saw me, that would be as far as it would have to go to make the point.

Read more from this story HERE.

Al-Qaeda Chief Calls for Attacks on US in 9/11 Speech to Followers

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AFP/GETTY

Photo Credit: AFP/GETTY

In an audio message released on Friday, two days after the anniversary of September 11th, Ayman al-Zawahiri said America was not a “mythic power” and that it could be defeated even through small-scale strikes by “one brother or a few of the brothers”.

“We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue in its massive expenditure on its security, for the weak point of America is its economy, which has already begun to stagger due to the military and security expenditure,” he said, according to SITE, a jihadist monitoring group. “America is not a mythic power and the Americans, after all, are humans who can be defeated, felled and punished.”

Zawahiri urged the Islamic world to “abandon the dollar and replace it with a currency of other countries that are not taking part in the aggression against us”. He also said that Muslims should refuse to buy goods from America and its allies, as such spending only helped to fund US military action in Muslim lands.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: New Low for Government Trust

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Less than half of Americans trust the government to handle problems, a all-time low, according to a new poll.

Just 49 percent of Americans said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the federal government to handle international problems, according to a Gallup poll released Friday. The previous low was 51 percent in 2007.

The public’s trust is even lower when it comes to domestic issues. Just 42 percent of Americans answered with a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the government to handle issues at home, one point below the previous low from 2011.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boston School Broadcasts Muslim Poem & Skips Pledge of Allegiance on 9-11

/14 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: libertynews

Photo Credit: libertynews

Yesterday, on 9-11-13, Boston’s Concord Carlisle High School skipped the morning pledge of allegiance and broadcast a Muslim poem in its place.

Principal Peter Badalament says the whole incident was the result of a collision of 9-11 and the absence of student who normally recites the daily pledge, reports The Boston Globe.

Badalament explains the situation saying, “We were unaware that our student Pledge reader had an internship commitment” and therefore, wasn’t in school on 9-11.

Read more from this story HERE.

The 12-Year War: 73% of U.S. Casualties in Afghanistan on Obama’s Watch

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Twelve years ago today, nineteen al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners and flew them into the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

In the war that Congress authorized against al Qaeda only three days after that attack, the vast majority of the U.S. casualties have occurred in the last four and a half years during the presidency of Barack Obama.

In fact, according to the CNSNews.com database of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, 73 percent of all U.S. Afghan War casualties have occurred since Jan. 20, 2009 when Obama was inaugurated.

The 91 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan so far in 2013 are more than those that occurred in the first two full calendar years of the war (2002 and 2003) combined, when 30 and 31 U.S. troops were killed there.

On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress approved a resolution authorizing the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Flash Flooding Kills 3 in Colorado (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Massive flash flooding along Colorado’s picturesque Front Range mountains, triggered by what the National Weather Service termed “biblical rainfall amounts,” killed at least three people Thursday, cut off small towns and forced countless residents to scramble for high ground.

Boulder, home to the University of Colorado, was among the hardest hit by the devastating waters. Classes were canceled, hundreds of students evacuated and a quarter of the campus buildings damaged by rising water, authorities said.

“This is not an ordinary day. It is not an ordinary disaster,” Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said, describing walls of water as high as 20 feet that tore down mountainsides and canyons already scarred and denuded from wildfires.

“All the preparation in the world … can’t put people up those canyons while these walls of water are coming down,” he said.

President Obama signed an emergency declaration Thursday night, which frees up federal aid and allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Read more from this story HERE.

Herpes-Infected Monkeys Terrorize Florida

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Barcroft Media

Photo Credit: Barcroft Media

Beware of the monkeys!

Hundreds of rare wild monkeys — some carrying herpes — are on the loose in Florida after a tour guide brought the spunky critters to the state long ago.

Wildlife officials said that three pairs of Rhesus monkeys were transported to a park near Ocala in the 1930s by tour operator Colonel Tooey after a “Tarzan” flick sparked a fascination with the creature.

But the breed has since boomed and more than 1,000 of the monkeys now live in the state, wildlife officials say.

State officials have caught more than 700 of the monkeys in the past decade — most of which tested positive for the herpes-B virus.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tea Party Republicans Flex Muscle, Put Boehner in Tight Spot as Shutdown Looms

/14 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

House Speaker John Boehner once again finds himself caught in the middle of a Capitol brawl between Tea Party Republicans and his Democratic counterparts, as he tries to navigate the choppy political waters and prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month.

Tea Party-aligned members of Boehner’s caucus are flexing their muscle and pressuring him to allow a vote on an anti-ObamaCare measure as part of ongoing budget talks. They want the vote tied directly to the budget measure, and rejected a compromise plan earlier this week — leaving unclear how Congress might pass a short-term spending bill before funding runs out on Sept. 30.

Boehner, after meeting with bipartisan congressional leaders on Thursday morning, offered no hint of what the next step might be. In the face of heated intra-party squabbling — and even nastier accusations flying between Republican and Democrats — he projected cool.

“There’s all this speculation about these deadlines that are coming up. I’m well aware of the deadlines. So are my colleagues,” he said. “And so we’re working with our colleagues to work our way through these issues. I think there’s a way to get there. … There are a million options that are being discussed by a lot of people.”

But Boehner realizes that the party’s public image going into the 2014 elections could be at stake, with Democrats eager to pin the blame on them if Congress can’t reach a budget deal and there’s a partial shutdown. Lawmakers came within minutes of a shutdown during a budget fight in 2011, and have continued to pass a series of short-term measures — leaving the prospect of a shutdown perpetually over the horizon.

Read more from this story HERE.

Assad Tells Obama to Stop Arming Rebels, or No Deal

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP/SANA

Photo Credit: AP/SANA

President Obama must promise not to arm rebel forces or Syrian dictator Bashar Assad will not hand over his chemical weapons, the embattled leader told a Russian state media outlet today while demanding that Israel also surrender its nuclear arsenal.

“When we see that the U.S. genuinely stands for stability in our region, stops threatening us with military intervention and stops supplying terrorists with weapons, then we will consider it possible to finalize all necessary procedures and they will become legitimate and acceptable for Syria,” Assad told RIA News.

Read more from this story HERE.

Zuckerberg: US Government ‘Blew It’ on NSA Surveillance

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, struck back on Wednesday at critics who have charged tech companies with doing too little to fight off NSA surveillance. Mayer said executives faced jail if they revealed government secrets.

Yahoo and Facebook, along with other tech firms, are pushing for the right to be allowed to publish the number of requests they receive from the spy agency. Companies are forbidden by law to disclose how much data they provide.

During an interview at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mayer was asked why tech companies had not simply decided to tell the public more about what the US surveillance industry was up to. “Releasing classified information is treason and you are incarcerated,” she said.

Mayer said she was “proud to be part of an organisation that from the beginning, in 2007, has been sceptical of – and has been scrutinizing – those requests [from the NSA].”

Yahoo has previously unsuccessfully sued the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court, which provides the legal framework for NSA surveillance. In 2007 it asked to be allowed to publish details of requests it receives from the spy agency. “When you lose and you don’t comply, it’s treason,” said Mayer. “We think it make more sense to work within the system,” she said.

Read more from this story HERE.