Sports Channel: NASL 1984- Soccer Bowl: Chicago Sting @ Toronto Blizzard

Source:The Celebrated Misterk- NASL Soccer Bowl 84.

"Highlights of the Chicago Sting's win over the Toronto Blizzard in the final North American Soccer League game ever played, the second leg of the 1984 NASL Soccer Bowl.

From The Celebrated Misterk

America vs Canada to decide the NASL championship.

ABC Sports: NASL 1979- Soccer Bowl- New York Cosmos vs Vancouver Whitecaps

Source:The Celebrated Misterk- your 1979 NASL Champions.

"The Vancouver Whitecaps defeated the Tampa Bay Rowdies, 2-1 in the North American Soccer League's Soccer Bowl '79 at Giants Stadium." 

From The Celebrated Misterk

Short video of the 1979 Soccer Bowl the NASL championship game.

PBS: NewsHour- Spencer Michaels- 'California Law Aspires to Improve Mental Health'

Source:PBS NewsHour- interviewing Eduardo Vega, for this piece.

"The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and television program distributor.[6] It is a nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational television programming to public television stations in the United States, distributing series such as American Experience, America's Test Kitchen, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Barney & Friends, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Downton Abbey, Finding Your Roots, Frontline, The Magic School Bus, Masterpiece Theater, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Nature, Nova, the PBS NewsHour, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Teletubbies, Keeping up Appearances and This Old House." 

From Wikipedia 

"In the wake of several recent shootings, politicians and commentators have called for improved mental health screening and treatment. Spencer Michels reports on a program in California called "Laura's Law," an unfunded mandate that has proven difficult to implement and has drawn concern about involuntary treatment for patients."

From the PBS: NewsHour

It's a good thing that California is taking a lead on something positive (for a change) as it relates to their government by funding mental health care. 

It's not as if we can't fund mental health care in this country, but it's that we've decided as a country that funding mental health care should not be a priority, or that it's too expensive. Which is not true! It should be a priority, because of the people we've lost in these shootings and we can afford it through things like health insurance and public assistance for people who can't afford it on their own. 

We're paying a bigger price in human life and I would argue financially as well when it comes to our law enforcement and corrections system and having to put mentally handicapped people in prison instead of hospitals. That if those people who committed these horrible crimes wouldn't have happened in the first place, if these people were just in mental institutions, or at the very least getting outpatient therapy and on medication. We wouldn't have seen the shootings in Aurora and Connecticut, that we've seen this year. 

NHL: NHL 1967- Stanley Cup Finals Highlights: Toronto Maple Leafs Vs Montreal Canadians

Source:Barking Clam- the Maple Leafs and Canadians in 1967.

"Color (!) highlights from the 1967 Stanley Cup Finals between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs! This was the last time Toronto went to the Finals; that they even made it this far was considered outstanding, as they were an old team of veterans like George Armstrong, Tim Horton and Terry Sawchuk. They would upset Montreal in six games. 

From an old NHL highlight film a friend found; I'd love to know more about where this came from. I don't know how much color footage from this period of the NHL is still kicking around. Even though the series was broadcast in color, CBC kinescopes in the NHL archive are in black and white." 

From Barking Clam 

The best rivalry in Eastern Canada playing for the Stanley Cup.

CBC Sports: NHL 1978- Stanley Cup Finals- Game Four: Montreal Canadians @ Boston Bruins

Source:Barking Clam- The Bruins and Canadians in 1978.

"Boston leads game four of the 1978 finals 3 to 2 with only a few minutes left. Can they hang on for the win?" 

From Barking Clam 

Maybe the best rivalry in the NHL playing for it all.

Tri-Star Pictures: The Freshman (1990) Matthew Broderick & Penelope Ann Miller

Source:Leather Girls- Matthew Broderick & Penelope Ann Miller.

"The Freshman (1990) - leather scene HD 720p. Penelope Ann Miller in leather skirt and jacket."

From Leather Girls

I’m not going to say The Freshman is a bad movie, because I don’t think it is. I guess I could lie about that, but I’m not, but it is certainly a very overrated preppy kind of snobby movie. With a lot of cheesy writing, especially considering this movie is at least partially about a Italian-American gangster played by Marlin Brando, or former gangster.

And movies like this don’t tend to sound so Connecticut or upper Manhattan. They don’t tend to sound so preppy and snobby and upper class, Anglo-Saxon, but this movie does at least to me. But this is one scene that I liked and it had mostly to do with Penelope Ann Miller. Who is a very funny actress and looks great in this leather suit I guess with the jacket and skirt. 

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The Fiscal Times: Thomas Ferraro & Richard Cowan- 'Will the GOP Survive the Party’s Split on Taxes?'

Source:The Fiscal Times- Congress, being invaded by escaped elephants? At least it's not escaped mental patients, this time. LOL

"Had there been a vote on Republican House Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" to avert the so-called U.S. fiscal cliff on Thursday night, it would not have been close. He was probably 40 to 50 votes short of the number he needed to avoid a humiliating defeat at the hands of his own party, according to rough estimates from Republican members of Congress and staff members."

From The Fiscal Times

As hard as this might be to believe, the Republican Party right now is somewhat split between two political factions. The Christian-Right that probably has more power in the GOP that's made up of Christian-Nationalists,  people like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. And a Conservative-Libertarian wing people like Senators Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and others the people who tend to agree more often with the Ron Paul Libertarian coalition than the Christian-Right.

But the one thing that keeps this party together, the Pat Robertson coalition and the Goldwater-Reagan coalition is hatred for taxes and their love for economic freedom and fiscal responsibility. It's just that the Goldwater-Reagan Conservatives are also support personal freedom as well and if the Republican Party isn't a fiscally as well as economically conservative party, there isn't much of a reason for them to exist, because the Christian-Nationalists and Conservative-Libertarians will be arguing everything else. Like the right to privacy, free speech, cilvil liberties, America's involvement in the world, and so-forth.

Which means that Speaker Boehner has to get a good deal out of this and be able to tell House Republicans and the rest of the Republican that even if he has to give a little on taxes, he's going to have to get a big deal on spending cuts. That at least matches whatever revenue is raised through tax hikes. And President Obama knows the position that Speaker Boehner is in right now and is trying to holdout for the best deal that he can and put as much pressure on the Speaker as possible.

The Fiscal Times: Bruce Bartlett- 'How Democrats Became Liberal Republicans'

Source:The Fiscal Times- U.S. President Barack Obama (Democrat, Illinois) a real Progressive Democrat. Not a Socialist. 

"Many on the left are puzzled by Barack Obama’s apparent willingness to support dramatic reductions in federal social spending. It is only because Republicans demand even more radical cuts in spending that Obama’s fiscal conservatism is invisible to the general public. But those on the political left know it and are scared...

From The Fiscal Times

Being a Democrat myself and a member of one of the three ideological factions in the Democratic Party, I know something about the DP's ideological diversity.

We have a classical liberal faction people like John Kerry that I'm a member of, that believes in a lot of personal freedom, but we also have a economic liberal bent to us thats not as social democratic as the Social Democrats in the party. 

Another political faction, people like economists Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, so-called Progressives or Liberals (Social Democrats, really) believe in the welfare state and what they believe big, centralized government can do for the people with people's money. (As they see it) That's a quick summary of just their economic philosophy, but perhaps you already have a pretty good idea yourself. The Bernie Sanders (Democratic Socialist, Vermont) wing of the party. 

Social Democrats want America to become Europe where taxes and regulations are not only high, but popular, to fund a welfare state where the country would be dependent on the Federal Government to take care of the people. This might sound like me being over partisan, but it's true. 

The Democrats are essentially made up of two large factions. The George McGovern wing of Democratic Socialists. And the John F. Kennedy wing of Classical Liberals and Progressive Democrats, who want to solve problems that America and the country faces, but wants to empower people themselves as much as possible to solve their own problems.

And right now the Liberals and Progressives are running the party with Barack Obama being one of them as President of the United States. So that's who is directing policy for the party right now. And as much as the right-wing wants to label President Obama as a Socialist, he's clearly not. And more of a New Democrat who has strong liberal leanings, but which is different from the McGovern coalition that's more government-centric. 

It's not as if the Democratic Party has moved to the right or even center to now where they are a center-right, or centrist party. But they've moved more to the center and since Bill Clinton, or I would even argue since Mike Dukakis in 1988, but who didn't have the political skills of Bill Clinton. The Democratic Party has become the progressive party in America: a center-left party that's no longer so Far-Left in America. And a lot of the Social Democrats are now members of social democratic third parties.

The Fiscal Times: Sarah Kliff- 'Six Things You Don't Know about Mental Healthcare Costs'

Source:The Fiscal Times- with a look at mental health care in America.

"In the wake of the Newtown school massacre, many have called for a stronger mental health safety net as one way to reduce violent shootings. Shooters in previous massacres had unmet mental health needs. By widening access to services, the thinking goes, professionals could intervene before a tragedy occurs." 

From The Fiscal Times

If something is worth doing and you have the money to do it, then it's worth paying for. And mental healthcare in America is not only something that's worth doing, but something we simply have to do to prevent future tragedies like Aurora and Newtown and unfortunately many others from happening in America. 

It's really that simple, we either pay for mental healthcare up front up, or we pay for it down the road with mentally challenged and irresponsible people making horrible decisions that results in the deaths of many people who otherwise didn't have to die. 

It gets to do we either want to pay for mental health care with our money up front, or do we want to pay for not by funding mental health care with our money up front and paying for it in high health care costs down the road with people getting free health care at the rest of us expense. And we losing more innocent lives down the road. 

It's that simple, we can fund mental health care in America, because we have the resources to do, or we choose not to and pay for it in higher health care costs down the road as well as costs in innocent human life.

Funding mental health care in America is fairly simple and will mean higher health care costs up front. Especially if we don't do anything further to reform our unaffordable health care system, because what we need to do is pass a law that would require all health insurers private and public to cover mental health care for their customers. Which means premiums would rise in the short run, because more health care would be covered. And the costs for Medicare and Medicaid would go up in the short run as well, but we need to seriously reform both Medicare and Medicaid anyway and get those costs under control. 

We also need to add mental health care to what they cover as well for reasons I've already laid out, but what I just laid out for mental health care just goes to cover patients and the mental health care that they receive. 

And for patients who need to be institutionalized, we need to adequately fund our mental hospitals especially the public ones and that means making mental patients eligible for public assistance while they are institutionalized for the ones who can't afford the stay on their own.

It really gets down to priorities and what we need to be paying for as a nation and health care is clearly one of those things including mental health care and is one of the failures of the 2010 Affordable Care Act that they didn't cover mental health care in that legislation and is something we are still paying for as a nation almost three years later after that legislation became law. And something we need to finally do to prevent future tragedies from happening in the future.

The Fiscal Times: Edward Morrissey- 'Shame on Congress for Robbing Hurricane Sandy Victims'

Source:The Fiscal Times- Hurricane Sandy survivors.

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste.  That quote from Rahm Emanuel came during the dark days of the 2008 financial collapse, when Democrats wanted to make sure that the Congressional intervention of TARP carried with it plenty of “opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” 

From The Fiscal Times

Bad news for people on the Left and people on the Right who believe in limited government and fiscal responsibility, for a couple of reasons.

One, Senator Barbara Mikulski will become the next Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the next Congress. She is a major porker and one of the members of Congress who have a habit of attaching non-relevant spending to appropriations bills. And I imagine she'll have some non-relevant amendments to the Sandy disaster relief bills.

Two, the other one being that Senator Milkulski's colleagues in Congress will be doing the same thing to the Hurricane Sandy disaster relief bills as well. We are running up run away debt and deficits and Congress is just adding to the problems by borrowing more money from other countries to fund their pet projects. 

Congress is the only reason why even disaster relief bills need to be paid for even if that means coming up with a national fund to finance disaster relief like a so-called trust fund. And getting non relevant amendments off of appropriations bills.

Disaster relief like another else the U.S. Government does including defense and military operations that involve helping our so-called allies and victims of civil war in other countries, should be paid for upfront. 

What Congress (both in the Senate and House does) is say: "We'll pay for this spending down the road. But what we need to do is get this money out the door as fast as possible, instead of arguing for how it should be paid for." But they don't even do that. They borrow the money upfront and then move onto other priorities. Which generally involves more borrowing. And Americans who at least care about our deficit and national debt, are left to wonder why we run up big deficits and add to out national debt every year.

CFL: 'The Final Wynne- Original Documentary'

Source:CFL- Hamilton's Ivor Wynne Stadium.

"CFL.ca presents an elegant retrospective into the final moments at Ivor Wynne Stadium before it shut its doors after 84 years." 

From the CFL 

As far as stadiums go as far as what Ivor Wynne had to offer: Ivor Wynne Stadium wasn't that much of a stadium. But it was a great little stadium as far as the atmosphere it had and the home field advantage it gave the Hamilton Tigercats.

The Fiscal Times: Bruce Bartlett- 'Jack Kemp Showed GOP How to Appeal to Minorities'

Source:The Fiscal Times- Jack Kemp, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty & U.S. Delegate Eleanor H. Norton.

"Tuesday, the Jack Kemp Foundation held its annual dinner in honor of the late congressman, HUD secretary and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee. The two featured speakers were Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio, both of whom cite Kemp as a major influence on their thinking. Both are also thought to aspire to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

From the The Fiscal Times

Jack Kemp could appeal to non-traditional Republicans, racial minorities, as well as people who live in big cities, especially in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast, because he was basically a Classical Conservative-Libertarian on social issues. Rather than with the Religious-Right. 

Jack Kemp spoke about economic conservatism in a way that showed non-traditional Republicans how economic conservatism worked for them. That if people get themselves a good education and there's economic opportunity for them, then they can be successful in life and have a much better future. Instead of living off of public assistance most of their lives, as well as raise their kids on public assistance. Which tends to be the message of so-called Progressive Democrats (Democratic Socialists, really) to people who live in poverty. 

Jack Kemp believed that government can help you help yourself, so you can live a productive life. And be able to take care of yourself and not have to live off of public assistance.

Jack Kemp was a classical big tent Republican, not in the sense that he was a moderate who votes Conservative on some things and liberal on others but that he was inclusive of people who aren't traditional Republicans. Who don't live their lives the way a typical Bible Belt Republicans might live. 

Jack Kemp used the message of conservatism to bring people into the GOP, rather than telling non-traditional Republicans that they are Un-American or lazy. Unlike Mitt Romney, Jack Kemp didn't put people down who lacked job skills and depended on public assistance. 

Kemp was interested in empowering these people to be able to take care of themselves. And hopefully this is the direction that people like Senators Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Representatives Paul Ryan, Jason Amash and others people who look up to Jack Kemp, will try to move the GOP into this direction.

National Archives: Tim Naftali- 'Watergate: The 18 ½ Minute Gap and Haldeman's Notes'

Source:The National Archives- President Richard M. Nixon and his Chief of Staff Bob Haldaman. 

"Three days after the Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972, President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman met in the Executive Office Building to discuss the incident. This Inside the Vaults video short examines the famous 18 ½ minute gap in the White House tapes, which occurred during this meeting. A multi-agency team under National Archives direction examined Haldeman's two pages of notes, attempting to decipher what was said in the gap in the tape.

Nixon Library director Timothy Naftali, David Paynter of the National Archives and independent researcher Phil Mellinger discuss the case and the results of the forensic analysis.

Inside the Vaults includes highlights from the National Archives in the Washington, DC, area and from the Presidential libraries and regional archives nationwide. These shorts present behind-the-scenes exclusives and offer surprising stories about the National Archives treasures. See more from Inside the Vaults at...

From The National Archives

One of the most fascinating and most unnecessary stories in American history, because President Nixon was going to get reelected overwhelmingly anyway in a landslide, because he was running against someone who was seen as a Socialist (and not just by Richard Nixon) in Senator George McGovern and President Nixon was a Moderate by comparison. But that is what Richard Nixon was always about when it came to politics which was information. 

Not saying President Nixon ordered the actual Watergate break in but it looks like it seemed like what he wanted according to the people who worked for him in the White House with his intelligence unit in the White House (the plumbers) believing that President Nixon at the very least wouldn't have a problem with the break in and thinking he might protect them if they were to get caught. 

The Plumbers got caught in 1972 because they weren't professional burglars. They were like a karaoke act at a nightclub or some dive just outside of an airport. They simply didn't know what they were doing and literally got caught on the spot at the Watergate Hotel.

CNN: 'Marijuana is Now Legal in Washington State'

Source:CNN- Holy smokes, Batman! Marijuana is now legal in Washington State. LOL

"A new law makes it legal to possess and smoke marijuana in Washington state, but pot possession is still a federal crime."

From CNN

One of the best stories of 2012, because it proves how far America is moving to become that big government out of our wallets and personal lives country that both Barry Goldwater and John F. Kennedy, who agreed as often as it snows in Los Angeles, that they both advocated for in the 1960s. 

It also shows that even though Millennial's are flirting with socialism and big government from the Left, ( Far-Left, really) That my Generation X is becoming a generation that doesn't want Uncle Sam or any other government uncle running our lives for us. 

Marijuana legalization was a fringe issue even back in 2004 and now eight years later it is legal in two more states in Colorado and Washington  and could be headed to New Hampshire, my State of Maryland, California, and perhaps other states in the next 5-10 years. Because more Americans are coming to realize the failures of the so-called War on Drugs and that we need a better approach to how we deal with narcotics like marijuana and instead locking people up for possessing or usage of it, legalize and regulate it like legal narcotics. Like alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs and other drugs.