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After Presidential candidate Barack Obama's "National Anthem snub" the question that many are asking is "Is Obama a patriot or a political grandstander?"

By now most people have heard about Obama's "Sometimes He Does, Sometimes He Doesn't" as explained by an Obama spokesperson.

They further explained on Inside Edition, "In no way was he making any sort of statement, and any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous." That's his campaign's reasoning for him not holding his hand over his heart at Senator Tom Harkin's Steak Fry event on September 16 in Indianola, Iowa.

A minor debate has ensued that his failure perform the traditional etiquette constitutes evidence that Barack Obama is unpatriotic and therefore unfit to hold the office of president. This is based on the idea that the gesture of dissent was intentional.

In all fairness since the definition of patriotism is in question here let's allow for clarification. According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2006

PATRIOTISM - devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty. [Origin: 1720-30; PATRIOT + -ISM ]

So the question remains does Obama's position support that definition? Is he a Patriot?

This isn't Obama's first protest though! In an interview with KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Barack Obama states that he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"The truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he explained in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."

His campaign issued a statement: "We all revere the flag, but Senator Obama believes that being a patriot is about more than a symbol. It's about fighting for our veterans when they get home and speaking honestly with the American people about this disastrous war."

And Bill Maher ( the man who characterized the 911 terrorists as courageous) says, "...when I see the little flag right here, the first thing I think is, you voted for, and still like, George Bush...". Most have already concluded that Maher is truly a man who was born to be an idiot!

Here, in an excerpt from a letter written by Obama he explains further:

"Thank you for inquiring about the false accusation that I have refused to sing the National Anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance. I knew when I decided to run for President that I would not be immune from the "anything goes" form of attack politics that has been so prominent in our elections in recent years. And this outrageous charge is just another example of the kind of mean spirited, "shock" politics I will move beyond as President."

He later calls it as a "baseless and particularly hurtful political attack".

So let me see if I get this right. Obama believes that by telling us what he believes makes this country great and by taking a political stand for the veterans and the war that "that alone" qualifies him as a patriot!

Further anyone who questions his patriotism is practicing mean spirited, "shock" politics, a painful political attack, an argument, by the way, popularized and mastered by the Clintons.

Let's break this down:

The "National Anthem" and the "Pledge of Allegiance" have become an accepted form of reverence for our country and our overall form of government as well as a sign of respect for those who are currently fighting, have fought for and have died for our country and our free way of life.

It became popular in the 60's and has had a rebirth today to characterize those who show this form of patriotism as jingo's*! They were once labeled as old fashioned or having blind loyalty.
*Jingo(Jingoism) - a person who professes his or her patriotism loudly and excessively, favoring vigilant preparedness for war and an aggressive foreign policy; bellicose chauvinist.

So rather than attack the ideas he chooses to use a retro protest tactic to gain attention to his position. In the process he has insulted all current and former service personnel, yes those very people whom he wants to lead.

Additionally after his own indiscretion he wants to deflect blame to those who protest against his protest by portraying himself the victim of their mean spirited politics. Let's turn it into a Democrat vs. Republican issue. A petty argument!

Looking more like the Clintons everyday!

Obama has made a tactical error in decorum. Rather than emulate the controlled and respectful qualities of a leader he has resorted to a childish protest in order to gain attention to a political stand that he likely feels is not being taken seriously. He has provided us with a demonstration that is in the true spirit of the juvenile "Shock Tactic" style of the Generation X crowd where "Anything Goes".

So... is Obama a Patriot or a Political Grandstander?

Both, but certainly not a qualified leader!

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There are so many different machines that you may use when it comes to finding the perfect Pilates exercise machine.

But when consider an Winsor Pilates exercise machine it depends on what type of exercise you want to work on what size you are, there are lots of different aspects too.

For instance, the fitness circle pro, it is a ring that is used by people that are slightly shorter than 52 in height, this piece of equipment will help the individual move easier during exercise and you can use it when you want to work on specific muscles by placing it on the muscle then squeezing it.

This Pilates exercise machine is so easy to use and it is extremely comfortable due to the fact that it has latex free grips that are molded and firm resistant.

This product is best to be used when doing the group exercises. If you think this is a great product and it might work for you but you are taller than 52, thats no problem because there is also a 14 circle pro that would work just great for you even if you are taller than the rest!

The Hard Decision With Selecting A Winsor Pilates Exercise Machine

When it comes to the best Pilates exercise machines it has to be a hard decision which one to choose but this stamina Pilates performer will do you just great!

It is really affordable, it is sturdy and stable and it is portable, it folds up so compactly that you can take it just about anywhere you like!

This machine proves to be extremely fun and also easy to use while it exercises your muscles, improving your circulation and increasing your flexibility as well as your muscle strength for the look you have always dreamt about!

When you buy this machine you will also receive a video that will help you to master your exercise routine and also a color chart that will show you your progression throughout the time that you are using this wonderful Winsor Pilates exercise machine.

It will also come with a stand that will make this machine even more convenient for you to use because it will elevate the way you mount and dismount it which will allow you to exercise more thoroughly due to ground clearance.

The mounting and dismounting is also extremely easy and you can manage it on your own, by removing the six pull pins you may set up your machine and get to work!

By using this Pilates exercise machine you will develop a firmer stronger chest, flat hard abdominal muscles, stronger shoulders, tight firm buttocks and triceps, you will shape your thighs and tone your calves and you will have slimmer hips.

By doing this your posture, flexibility and coordination will improve dramatically.

To get a full review of the best Winsor Pilates exercise machine, check out Jack website at: Winsor Pilates Review

Vampire Art has a long history, Artist have always been attracted to vampires. Vampires offer that rare blend of seduction, and danger. This represents a great challenge for the artist to capture. Artists are also responsible for shaping our image of the vampire. Early books help make vampires popular and Hollywood completed our image of the modern day vampire. Early oil paintings of the 1800's have evolved into todays fantasy vampire art. Vampires have come a long way from their early legends and myths that came out of the Balkans and other parts of Europe

One of the best known early depiction of a vampire was Edvard Munch's "Vampire" in 1895. It is popular even today and is probably his most famous work other than "The Scream". This was by no means the first depiction of a vampire, but most earlier works were either engravings or ink. Munch's work represents one of the early paintings of what we consider the modern day vampire. Todays modern day fantasy art has much of its roots in comic book illustrations.

There are thousands of people who consider themselves vampires and live the lifestyle as such. They are part of a sub culture closely related to the gothic scene. They live eat and dress the vamp image. In recent years there seems to be a rise in female vampires. The image of the sexy blood thirsty dominating female vampire is very often found in modern fantasy art.

Just as the vampire is after eternal life, our fascination means we will continue to see them in paintings, books and movies. Vampire Art is a great source for hard to find vampire clothing, vampire jewelry and vampire art online.

http://vampireart.net

As easy as this task may sound, a few prominent points should be mentioned. Piano sheet music is readily available today from a myriad of sources on the Internet. Go to www.Google.com and type in "piano sheet music online" or "piano sheet music" or "virtual sheet music" and lastly by "(artist name) sheetmusic". You will find countless sites that offer immediate access to sheet music online or available to be sent to a physical address. Regarding "old fashioned mail order", Amazon.com has an amazing selection of sheet music by artist as well as instructional music folders and music books so make sure to investigate what they have to offer. The most popular site for online sheet music is probably www.sheetmusicplus.com. Many classical piano pieces that have reached public domain status can often be downloaded for free such as porfolios of Chopin's works or Beethtoven pieces, etc.

Contemporary artist books and sheet music to a single song tend to disappear after a short shelf life existance and then it becomes a trial sometimes to find your selection. Suggestions for obtaining out of print music would be to check out ebay.com and see if your item is currently available there in new or used form. As with most ebay items, availability can change by minute, hour, or day so don't give up if your item is not seen on your first try. There are a number of retail music stores that also specialize in hard to find music so "Google" "out of print sheet music" (or "hard-to-find music") and contact those particular stores.

"Virtual sheet music"sites enable you to gain immediate access to a single song and then print out the piano sheet music right from your computer download of that song. The fees are usual comparable to what a retail store would charge, say $3.95-$6.95. Again, just "Google" "virtual sheet music" or "download sheet music" to find a good site for this. The nice thing about this feature is that 1) songs only available in song books or 2)hard to find songs or out of print songs, will now be accessible at your fingertips by the push of a few buttons!

Last but not least, if a song appears to be impossible to find, what I've done is to search out the lyrics online and then search for the "tab or guitar tabs" or "piano tabs"for that song and then put the two together to create a "lead sheet". Often the "tabs" to a song list both melody and chords. Now with this method, you will have to transcribe the melody line on your own which is pretty easy to do- just whistle or hum the tune as you sit down at the piano. Sites that say "guitar tabs" that include guitar tablature are mostly where you'll be finding your song tabs but sometimes you'll see a site that says "piano tabs". What you are really doing as a pianist though is jotting down the chords and where they are placed with the lyric. Just ignore the guitar tablature. Your big limitation though of course, is that many of the tab listings for a song are created by "well intentioned, though inexperienced" amateur players. In this regard, you'll need to look at the chords as "a possiblity" and you may have to change one or many chords for the song to sound "correct". The other issue is make sure your "viral control" software is working as these sites tend to be vulnerable to those.

Concerning "piano or artist song books", very often a song is not available as a single sheet but is can only be found within a song book with many songs all by a certain artist or composer or perhaps a book with songs by multiple artists. The other scenario you will see is theme music books such as "Movie Classic Songs" or "Songs of the 90's" or "Best Loved Broadway show tunes", anything along those lines.

To discover the "pro way" to play piano songs without having to read note-for-note sheet music arrangements, be sure to visit http://www.instantpropiano.com

David Seagal is a New York City based pianist and teacher. A musician for over 25 years, he is a piano teacher, songwriter pianist and is the author of "Play Piano Like a Pro" video course. His formative music education was orchestral training on clarinet with Naomi Drucker, Hostra University and the late-great world-renowned Leon Russianoff, Professor of Music Julliard School of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Pop and rock piano and songwriting studies with Frank Doyle, New England Conservatory of Music and "Moogy" Mark Klingman, author of the Bette Midler hit "Friends" and former pianist for Todd Rundgren's "Utopia". Classical piano studies with concert pianist Dmitri Alexev.

His piano course is available at http://www.instantpropiano.com

The old western movies from Hollywood always depicted a scene in a barroom where there was an active game of poker taking place. There may be five or six around the table with another half dozen or so spectators standing around the poker table intensely watching the action. There was always a cute barmaid serving the guys drinks, and there was always a protagonist and an antagonist playing at the poker table. The protagonist was the good guy, and you could tell he was the good guy because he wore a white hat. There was also seated at the table an antagonist or bad guy. You could tell he was the bad guy because he wore a black hat. There was something else that he had. He had a cohort of friends who were standing around the table trying to read the other players cards, and tip their buddy off as to their poker hands. The poker cheats were the bad guys who wore the black hats.

Cheating Never Pays Off

Cheating never paid off for the villains in the old Western movies about a place and a time nearly one hundred fifty years ago, and cheating in the casino parlor and in the online casino parlors does not pay off today. In the casino parlors, there are security teams and security cameras that cover every square inch of the casino. In the movie CASINO, poker cheats were taken down stairs in the casino basement and had their hands and fingers broken in order to discourage cheating in the casino. Cheaters got the message loud and clear. Over the years, there have been many attempts at cheating at the poker table which have proven to be fruitless for the poker cheats. People today still attempt to do some mild cheating at the poker table. Splashing or shorting pots is an amateur's attempt at stealing someone else's chips or taking back some chips from the table that you just lost. Occasionally, a real klutz will try to look over another player's shoulder in order to get a peak of their hand. This is commonly known as rubbernecking, and it is ineffective and foolish at a casino parlor poker table. Others may think they're geniuses and attempt a rudimentary marking of the deck of cards which is easily detected. Poker cheats at the casino parlor end up in jail or, in some cases, they may mysteriously disappear.

Online Poker Cheating

There have been some quite unsuccessful attempts at cheating in online poker. The most common form is two people conversing over the telephone while the poker game is going on and disclosing to each other their "hole' or face down on the table cards. The other form of online poker cheating is when one individual uses two separate accounts to play two hands in the same game. The casinos have been proofing players from time to time, which has successfully thwarted their attempts to cheat. Poker cheats are cowards and they are always caught and made to pay for their indiscretions.

Mike Smith is the founder of online casino (OPA), a reliable online casinos and poker information provider. OPA offers in-depth reviews on the online gaming industry's most generous casinos and poker rooms, latest gaming news as well as comprehensive poker and casino game guides. Being regularly updated, OPA is considered by many to be Internet's most trustworthy gaming info source!

His lockjaw delivery makes him look as gangsta as Marlon "the Godfather" Brando, but 50 Cent is no actor, folks. In fact, his unique articulation has to do with a hole in his jaw, the result of having taken a bullet in the face (along with eight other shots taken to the rest of his body). He managed to defeat the odds by leaving the street hustle behind before it was too late, transforming his life of crime into a profession in rhyme. Whether rapping about the streets, the clubs, or even certain candy shops, 50 has quickly emerged as one of hip-hop's most dominant and talked about superstars to date.

Born Curtis Jackson, the New York native was raised in a drug-infested area of South Jamaica, Queens, and so, naturally, he was introduced to the negative side of the ghetto at an early age. 50 never knew his father, and his mother was a crack cocaine dealer and addict who was murdered in her own home by an unknown assailant at the age of 23. Only 8 years old at the time, 50 moved in with his grandparents, where he eventually followed in the footsteps of his mother by the age of 12. In tenth grade, he was arrested and given juvenile probation for possession of narcotics. 50 dropped out of school shortly thereafter. He continued his hustle, but the law caught up with him again, this time twice in a matter of three weeks. Perhaps these arrests put things in perspective for young 50, because soon after, he began to show an interest in writing rhymes with a few of his buddies. One of his crew introduced him to the late Jam Master Jay of Run-D.M.C., who showed 50 the ropes and produced a few unreleased tracks for him.

Never losing focus, 50 moved on and recorded another album, Power of the Dollar, this time with Columbia Records. But two months before he was set to debut in 2000, he suffered those infamous nine point-blank gunshot wounds and was dropped from his label as a result. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however. Although the Power of the Dollar album was shelved, its catchiest single, "How to Rob," was featured in countless mix tapes circulating across the East Coast. And they inevitably made it to the West Coast and onto the Internet. The song became a turning point in 50's career. In it, he paints portraits of how he'd stick up random celebrities, from Mariah Carey to members of the Wu-Tang Clan to even Jay-Z. The single sparked not only controversy within the industry but also extreme popular demand from hip-hop fans.

His budding popularity, legendary invulnerability to bullets, and expertise in verbal assaults earned him the right to sign with Eminem and Dr. Dre in 2003. In doing so, he's sold more albums in two years (Get Rich or Die Tryin' and The Massacre) than most artists in any music genre can dream of selling in their entire careers. GameSpot recently filmed exclusive interviews with 50 Cent, the G-Unit, and the producer of the upcoming video game 50 Cent: Bulletproof. Watch the videos in this special feature for the latest on the world's premier rapper and his new video game. Sign me up to receive email updates on the latest news, contests and videos for 50 Cent and other Interscope Records artists.

Gunit 50 Cent