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America needs a conservative stronger than Rick Perry
By Julio Severo
Strong conservatism is in the roots of America. Her founders were the Pilgrims: Evangelicals with strong moral and biblical values.
Yet, today, America has in her presidency a man that is an inversion of her original values. And, not surprisingly, America is in powerful moral, spiritual and financial troubles.
Notwithstanding her deep financial crisis, America under Barack Obama is determined to keep investing in abortion, not only in America, but worldwide. There has been little protection for the America society against this crisis, which has hit American families hard. But abortion investments have been under powerful protection by the US government. Child-killing is top priority in US politics.
NSSM 200, a 1974 White House classified population-control document (declassified in 1989), gave the US a central and secret role of promoting worldwide abortion and contraception. No nation on the earth, not even the Soviet Union, has fought so much against the unborn worldwide as America has.
Whatever was her calling in her founding, involving stalwart Christians like the Pilgrims, since NSSM 200 America has acquired another calling: making the worldwide killing of the unborn and contraception as normal as apple-pie.
It has worked. Decades after NSSM 200, the Soviet Union has fallen, but abortion imperialism has been advancing, regardless of crisis and opposition, with incredible US protection and impetus.
Perhaps there may also be some secret pro-sodomy NSSM 200, because no nation on the earth has promoted sodomy worldwide more than America has. Sodomy is top priority in US politics. No crisis has kept America from being committed to her filthy calling — a calling that would have distressed the Pilgrims. If they had foreseen America in the future, they might just have changed their minds and returned to England.
Obama is not a president who "changed" America. Wholeheartedly committed to the unborn-killing and sodomy values he has kept America right on her NSSM 200 tracks.
America has invested billions in spreading the contagion of abortion and sodomy — her own society and the whole world. No crisis, financial or otherwise, diverts her from her filthy calling.
For those agreeing with the Pilgrims, America needs a president as strong in righteousness as Obama is strong in wickedness.
In my view, Rick Perry is unable to fulfill this role. He has supported Al Gore in the past. He signed into law an anti-"homophobia" bill in Texas. And he has decreed compulsory Gardasil vaccination for girls in schools. Gardasil is intended to fight HPV, a condition common in sexually promiscuous people. So Perry has treated all Texan girls as potentially promiscuous, giving their parents no choice to avoid this tyrannical decision made under the pretext of health. This attitude was worthy of a liberal Democrat.
Oh, some might say that Perry is now a "changed" man. I have posted on my Portuguese blog some of his recent antiabortion initiatives. But in Brazil, when a candidate does a lot of "good" things in an electoral season, his interest is to conquer voters.
Yet, his real conservatism showed up when New York passed same-sex "marriage". Perry said, "It is fine for them".
No, it is not fine for anyone if another state or nation passes abortion, sodomy and other evils. If a nation chooses them, it is bad and it should be publicly chastised. Such is the appropriate attitude of a real conservative. And, as Christians, if we are unable to lead people to Christ because of their stubborn refusal, at least we are called to warn them about the destructive ways threatening their lives and families.
If some politicians manage to pass same-sex "marriage" in Texas, would it be "fine" to Perry? If so, as a president it would be just bad if he saw it as "fine".
US abortion and sodomy politics, which have wrought untold havoc around the world, have been promoted by US presidents of enormous immoral fiber, especially Obama. To counter such massive attacks against families, nations and their moral sovereignty takes men of enormous moral fiber.
I do not know what America can do to counter the child-killing and sodomy mire she has gotten herself and the world into. But certainly she needs a conservative stronger than Rick Perry.
Portuguese version of this article: Os Estados Unidos precisam de um conservador mais forte do que Rick Perry
Source: Julio Severo in English


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Adobe MAX Speaker Stephen Gates of Starwood Hotels Talks Adobe Edge Inspect
Stephen Gates, Vice President and Creative Director for Global Brand Design at Starwood Hotels & Resorts will be joining us at Adobe MAX this year to share design and development secrets behind building Starwood's mobile roadmap. Prior to MAX, he sat down with our Adobe Edge Inspect team to discuss how the tool has been helping his team come up with new ways to best show off their nine hotel brands. They've managed to accelerate their production and gain buy-in from a dispersed global team of designers, developers, strategists and stakeholders. Pretty impressive, right? Learn more about their success and get to know Stephen in our Adobe Edge Inspect Team Blog Q&A.
Want to hear more from Stephen Gates? Attend Adobe MAX and hear him talk about the "Secrets to Creating a Successful Mobile Roadmap, Apps, and Mobile Websites." Don't forget to enter promo code MXSM13 when you register to receive $300 off.

subset: commoncrawl


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Booking the cheapest plane tickets
Lots of ink and pixels have been devoted to the quest for an answer to the question, "When is the best time to buy airline tickets?" My pat answer has always been, "When they're on sale," but colleague George Hobica of Airfare Watchdog says -- and I agree -- you can't predict the next sale. Nevertheless, folks keep trying, and you might want to check out the possibilities.
The latest information comes from the online travel agency CheapAir.com, focused on how far in advance the optimum time to buy might be. CheapAir's data are based on extensive mining of its own purchase records:
Check the calendar
On historical average, says CheapAir, the ideal time to buy a domestic ticket is 79 days, or seven weeks, in advance of departure, when the average fare for the sample was about $400. The earliest data were for seven months in advance, where the average fare was $475. It decreased slowly and steadily until the 49-day point; after that, it increased slowly until 11 days in advance, when it spiked to more than $600 on the day before the flight.
For international tickets, the "sweet spot" was a little more in advance: 81 days, with good deals available generally 11 to 12 weeks in advance.
CheapAir's findings generally track with others: The Economist reported an "eight-week" rule, and Angie's List cites a report from the Airlines Reporting Corp with six weeks as the optimum.
The report also notes that you find lots of deviations from this average. CheapAir found some routes where the best time to buy was when the flight first opened, 331 days in advance, and others when the cheapest tickets were last-minute. And, of course, you're better off buying earlier for travel around major holidays.
The report's data dispute the urban legend about buying tickets on Tuesday and Wednesday: CheapAir found little day-to-day difference.
Use airfare predictors
Two online outfits -- Bing Travel and most recently Kayak -- boast a different approach: "Buy or wait a week" airfare predictors on their search engines. I'm currently testing them and see how they compare.
Track fares
Beyond trying to pick the best periods to buy, you have the option of tracking fares and the possibility of getting a refund if a fare drops after you buy. CheapAir has what appears to be one of the best such programs: "Price Drop Payback" promises that if you buy a ticket through CheapAir and the fare subsequently goes down, the agency will issue a credit in the amount of the difference, up to a maximum of $100. The deal applies only to online purchases of nonrefundable economy-class tickets, and only to fare drops posted on CheapAir for the exact same itinerary.
Other big online travel agencies provide somewhat similar programs. Orbitz offers a credit up to 110 percent of the difference, but only if someone else actually books the identical itinerary on Orbitz. Expedia offers a guarantee, but only for price drops that occur within 24 hours of purchase.
Sign up for alerts
Another approach is to request an alert whenever a fare drops on some route you want to fly. Here, you have lots of options: Most big online travel agencies offer such a service, some airlines offer it, and some independent third-party travel information sites, including SmarterTravel.com, the source that posts my columns. Most third-party agencies do not include Allegiant and Southwest, two lines that block "screen scraping" by external agencies, but George Hobica's human-powered AirfareWatchdog.com does cover these lines. You enter one or more routes, and your email address and the source notifies you of a fare drop. These days, some of them also provide smartphone and iPad apps.
All in all, you won't find a single magic bullet answer to the when-to-buy question. Instead, your best protection is to avail yourself of a number of different approaches and keep on top of the airfare marketplace.


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Lucky, Lucky Dogs
Lily was in dire need of a nice collar. She's been rocking a nylon one for ages and I figured, since she's a reflection of me, she has to be stylin' at all times.
I bought the pink one above from GreenBelts because it has the perfect balance of badass (spikes) and fussy (crystals). Maggie and Stinky have a few custom collar & leash sets from her too. Can't seem to get enough!
I fell in love with the hardware on the three above. The third one is so over the top!!! If they didn't look so masculine I probably would have purchased one of these for Lily too.
The last two are classic and would only look better with wear. Kind of sad the sellers don't make belts for humans!
Surprisingly, there weren't many leather collars to choose from on etsy, especially for small dogs. What gives?