Waites and Balances

Sept 11, 2001

2011-09-11T09:53:00.001-07:00

As I opened my computer and saw all the mainstream media tributes today, I realized that I don't feel patriotic today... that's how I feel on July 4th.

Today, I still feel angry!

I'm angry that 10 years ago men who had never met those that they would kill, never saw the faces of the fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers, the friends and children, the hard working heart of our country, would do so in such a cowardly manner.

I'm angry that our government, supposedly a government of the people and for the people, would choose to use the crisis to increase restrictions on us, the American Citizen. Choosing to invade our lives in ever increasing ways, restricting our freedom of movement, continually searching us, inquiring about our activities, even assaulting us with searches of our person that would be considered sexual assault if it were performed outside of an airport by someone not in a TSA uniform. All of this to supposedly find terrorists, but after 10 years, not one has been found in this manner! Security Theater...As Benjamin Franklin said, "Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security." We are it!

I'm angry that our soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors are continually placed in danger by rules of engagement that are both senseless and craven. I'm angry that the best military minds are stifled by politicians who have never stepped on a battlefield, and who surround themselves with armed security, while demanding that the rest of us give up our own weapons. I'm angry that the same military minds who conceived the brilliant battle plans responsible for the overwhelming victories of Desert Storm and Desert Shield, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan are hobbled by small minded men who sit in comfortable chairs in the Senate, House, and White House.

I'm fortunate, I lost no friends or family that day. A great friend was sick, and because of that was not where he might have been, and was thus spared.

But I am angry that so many other friends of mine did lose loved ones, and still bear those scars.

I am proud that Americans did not lash out at Muslims here. That we did not take out our anger on fellow citizens, simply because they were members of the same religion or race as the 19 cowardly fanatics who destroyed so much.

I am proud that we have tried to make the world a better place, not always succeeding, but we have tried.

I am proud that our military men and women have, by and large, acted appropriately when faced with very difficult decisions. That they have represented all that is best about America, while our politicians often represent all that is worst.

I am proud too, that we have sustained the war against those who would destroy our way of life, who would, given the opportunity, drive liberty and freedom from the face of the Earth.

I am hopeful. Hopeful that we can right the wrongs, find our way out from the cloud that hangs over us. That we can finish this job, and make American secure once more in her strength.

I salute those who protect us. Not the phony security theater of the TSA, but the men and women of the Armed Forces, who stand on the wall in the dark and say, "Nothing will hurt you tonight, not on MY watch!"

I TOO WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER!

Reagan again!!

2010-08-20T12:43:00.001-07:00

The Broken Window Fallacy

2010-08-08T21:47:00.001-07:00

Saw this mentioned somewhere, perhaps by John Stossel, but YouTube has a great video about it, click on the video to watch in high def:

Every once in a while, the Republicans get it right!

2010-07-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

After the last election, I began to think the Republican Party might be better referred to as "the stupid party", since they couldn't figure out a way to find an electable candidate to run against a junior congressman with no experience.

Maybe they are STARTING to figure it out.

14 Weeks from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.

Good Bye, Red Robin.....

2010-07-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

It has recently come to my attention, and been confirmed by corporate Red Robin Restaurants in an email, that:

Hello xxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for your e-mail. We appreciate your comments and feedback.

Red Robin company policy prohibits our Team Members, Guests and Vendors from possessing weapons on Red Robin premises regardless of whether or not the person is licensed to carry the weapon.

The only exception to this policy is those individuals employed in local, state and federal law enforcement that are required to carry a weapon as part of their duty to protect and serve the public.

Thanks again for your comments.
Red Robin Guest Relations

Note that this eliminates even RETIRED police officers from carrying in their restaurants.

It has also been noted that Fuddruckers and Buffalo Wild Wings also have similar policies, though I have not personally confirmed that as I have with Red Robin. I have spent fairly significant sums of money at Red Robin over the years, and have eaten multiple times at both the others, but that is all in the past unless they choose to revisit their ways.

They are certainly within their rights to do so, it is private property, after all.

But when any business chooses to eliminate one of the rights given to us by the Constitution, and only very recently reinforced by the Supreme Court, I have the right, even the obligation, to take my business elsewhere.

Ignoring these little revocations of freedom by those who do not revere the very document that allows them the opportunity to pursue economic activity is admitting that those rights are not important to us all.

If they were to deny entrance to blacks, or Jews, there would be widespread public criticism, but when they do so to a group that is not quite so easily identified, there is minimal complaint.

As for me, well, there are still plenty of other places to eat!

WE ARE AMERICANS!!!!

2010-04-04T13:36:00.001-07:00

In light of the earlier post below, and the Colonels appeal, I have been considering our past, and our ancestors response to difficult circumstances.

We have the words of Patrick Henry, uttered before the Virginia House of Burgesses while they dithered over whether to mobilize to fight the encroaching forces of the Kings military, (He was born in Studley, Virginia, can you think of a better name for a place which produced such a man?):

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

We have the words of John Paul Jones, while his own ship was sinking around him, and the British demanded surrender:

"I have not yet begun to fight!"

3 hours later, the British flagship, Serapis, surrendered herself, and the new American Navy had won perhaps the most astounding naval victory in history.

Have we committed ourselves to those same levels of determination and persistence to rid ourselves of the self imposed tyranny we are witnessing?

We have the actions of militia men at Concord, where 200 or 300 militia men sent 3 companies of the Kings men in retreat, to be rescued by reinforcements, and then harassed them all the way back to Charlestown and Boston, firing what would later be called. "The shot heard round the world".

We have the actions of Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, where 3500 American troops, including freed slaves, Baratarian pirates, Choctaw warriors and militias from Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi not only battled but defeated a force four times as large of hardened and trained British troops, some of whom defeated Napolean at Waterloo.

We have the actions of Robert E Lee, who turned down command of the Union Army out of allegiance to his home state, Virginia, then led smaller, poorly equipped Confederate armies to victories at the Seven Days Battles, the Second Battle of Manassa (Bull Run), the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and the Battle of Cold Harbor. This was a man who became not only a hero to the South, but who was worshipped in the North as well, because he sought reconciliation and friendship once the last shot was fired.

We have the actions of Abraham Lincoln, a farm boy from the midwest, who went on to write:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

We have the actions of that same Lincoln, who put in place the framework to heal our Nation after it suffered that great abomination known as the Civil War, which pitted father against son, and brother against brother.

Are we now committed to carrying forth those heroic words? Are we now resolved to make sure that those men, indeed, did not die in vain? Are we now determined that our country should have a new birth of freedom, unencumbered by the whims of those who would rule over us, instead of respecting our freedom?

We have the actions of Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, which were so valorous as to have him submitted for the Medal of Honor, finally awarded many years later, after his death. Our only President to win the Medal of Honor, and the only man in history to win both the Medal of Honor for his actions as a warrior, and the Nobel Peace Prize for his actions as a President. (Contrast that with the current holder of the Nobel Peace Prize!)

We have the words of Teddy Roosevelt, too:

"...the only wise and honorable and Christian thing to do is to treat each black man and each white man strictly on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less that he shows himself worthy to have."

How different from our current state of affairs, where our countrymen seem to want to value some not on merit, but on some other basis, unexplainable, and catastrophic to society!

We have the actions of Alvin York, a 20 year old Army sergeant from Tennessee of English/Irish/Cherokee/Choctaw ancestry, who singlehandedly went up a hill covered with German machine gun nests during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. While repeatedly calling for them to surrender:

"And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush… As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them. There were over thirty of them in continuous action, and all I could do was touch the Germans off just as fast as I could. I was sharp shooting… All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. I didn't want to kill any more than I had to. But it was they or I. And I was giving them the best I had."

His actions took 32 machine guns, killed 28 German machine gunners, and captured 600 prisoners.

And they won him the Medal of Honor.

We have the actions of the Marines on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.

We have the actions of Audie Murphy, a 5' 5", and 110 pound Texan, who entered the Army at age 17 after being turned down by the paratroopers and Marines for being too small. He never grew much, leaving the Army at 5'7" and 145.

But in between, he became the most decorated American soldier of World War II, earning EVERY medal then available, and having been awarded at least 5 of them twice. As a 19 year old he performed an action of incredible bravery.

The citation for his Medal of Honor reads:

"Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad that was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective."

We have dozens more Medal of Honor winners to pick from, and of whom we should be following example.

These were men who risked their lives, and many whom gave their lives, to defend the freedoms that we seem so determined to allow politicians to legislate from us.

WE ARE AMERICANS!

We are the offspring of the Greatest Generation, the descendants of heroes like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, and others.

We are a country that started in the small states of New England on the edge of a vast continent, and grew to occupy that continent from Atlantic to Pacific, and then beyond.

We have an unmatched history of heroes. Men like Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Sam Houston, Alan Shepard, Buzz Aldrin, Chuck Yeager, Carlos Hathcock, Chesty Puller, Douglas MacArthur, Jimmy Stewart (did you know he enlisted as a private, earned his pilots wings, was commissioned an officer and then flew more than twenty bombing missions over Germany? The exact number is unknown because he, acting as commander, made sure they stopped counting at 20. He rose to Colonel from private in 4 years, and eventually was promoted to Brigadier General.)

We have so many heroes that I can only begin to barely scratch the surface.

Name a problem, and it appears that God put Americans on Earth to solve it:

Need a mechanical manner to harvest cotton when slavery doesn't work? We've got Eli Whitney.
Need a sewing machine to decrease labor and increase production? We have Isaac Singer and Elias Howe.
Need electric lighting? We've got Thomas Edison.
Need cheap mechanical transportation? We've got Henry Ford, who put America on wheels while the rest of the world looked at the car as a curiosity.
Need to fly? We have to brothers who made that happen, the Wrights.
Need to end large scale war, and do it in 3 years? We have the Manhattan project, which brought together geniuses from all over the world in a collective effort. ONLY IN AMERICA!
Need to win a war on TWO fronts literally halfway around the world from each other, against two war machines that have marched through dozens of other countries? We have the men and women of the US military.
Need a man on the Moon? We've got the collective geniuses at NASA, who before they were a bureacracy, were able to solve problems that no one else could even envision.
Need TV? We've a got Philo Farnsworth, a Mormon farmboy from Utah and Idaho.

And it goes on and on an on and on!

WE ARE AMERICANS!

We are faced now with issues that many of us never dreamed would be a problem. A country founded on the principal of less government interference is rapidly becoming one of gross oversight by those whom we elect to serve us. Instead, we find ourselves increasingly enslaved by their decisions. Decisions which we may not agree with, but which we find almost impossible to change.

NOW is the time, HERE is the place, WE are the people, and WE must change this progression, or OUR children and grandchildren will live in a place that will be so foreign that those great men, the Founding Fathers, will not recognize it.

Thomas Paine said:

"If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

NOW we must begin to say, "NO"! It can go no farther if we are to have any hope of avoiding the crushing bootheel of legislation that will undermine are very lives.

NOW is the time to say, "If you voted against what I believe are the principles upon which this country was founded, you have no right to office."

NOW is the time to become involved, to get off your couch, and to VOTE. VOTE for those who represent what YOU believe in, and when someone does not represent your view, VOTE them out of office by electing someone who will

WE ARE AMERICANS and we can change the direction our country is going. WE have done more difficult things, WE have accomplished more difficult things.

WE MUST change this!

WE ARE AMERICANS and there is NO IMPOSSIBLE!

The Battle for America as we know it!

2010-04-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

It is on, and unless a whole bunch more of us step up to the plate, it will gone forever!

Here is one man who is willing!

Fed Up Yet?

2010-03-10T15:42:00.000-08:00

From Mostly Cajun, read the whole thing, its worth it:

http://mostlycajun.com/wordpress/

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,…

"So I listened to Obama speaking (first mistake, I know) and he tells the Republicans “You had ten years” to straighten out the health care system.

........

I’m tired! Call a spade a spade. Show there’s a difference. Most of America is tired of one rule for all of us, another rule for them. do you think the IRS would have been as congenial with a tax error with ol’ Joe Schmucj as they were with Obama’s pick for TREASURY secretary, Tim Geitner? I’ve dealt with the IRS over tax errors and there was nothing “nice” about them.
Public health care? I’d think very well of “public health facilities” if the public health facility I used was the congressional wing of Walter Reid.
.........

I am an American. I do not ASK for privilege. I was born to my OWN “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And I do not do “classes”. I expect to work for me and mine, and I expect others to do the same for theirs. I will extend a hand to the unfortunate, but not the lazy.

And I am keeping close eye, as Claire Wolfe says, because “America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”

And it may be later than we think."

Because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!

2009-11-23T21:15:00.001-08:00

No matter how effective the police are, they CANNOT be everywhere. Everyone has a responsibility for their own protection. Thankfully, this woman accepted that responsibility!

Almost 50 Years Ahead of His Time, but Still Right!

2009-08-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

A few months ago

2009-07-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

Back in April, my son and I were offered the opportunity to shoot a .50 BMG. This is the cartridge that was made famous by the M2 or "Ma Deuce". John Moses Browning, often called "God's Own Armorer", designed the M2, along with a design that may be the most beloved firearm ever, the 1911 Government Colt .45. It is probably about the largest cartridge I'll ever have the chance to fire. Because of the muzzle brake, it was comfortable to fire, very comparable to a 12 gauge shooting slugs. The bullet is about as big around as my little finger and the cartridge is 5 1/2 inches long.

Unknown to me at the time, the experience was being videoed, and fortunately it was recently posted on another blog. The owner was kind enough to present a high quality version for me and I've posted it for your entertainment.

The first shooter, and the 10 year old (or so) who shoot last were other shooters given the chance to do so.

Bill

Couldn't GM solve it's financial problems....

2009-05-07T07:18:00.001-07:00

Very easily if they would just start building primers and making brass?

All that capacity, all those workers, surely they could be fairly easily converted over to manufacturing something that people actually want!!

I know, it's been 2 months, but I'm very close to completing a VERY long term project, and I've been VERY busy at work!

Quote of the Day!

2009-03-02T19:45:00.000-08:00

The only difference I ever found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership is that one of them is skinning you from the ankle up and the other, from the ear down. - Huey P. Long

Tip of the Hat to http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/

Here we go!!!!

2009-02-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

Update: Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters Wednesday that President Obama would like to "reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons" that expired in 2004 under the Bush administration. Holder said the ban would not only be a "positive move" by the United States, but would help reduce the trafficking of guns to the drug cartels in Mexico. It looks like the gun boom is far from over.

From this article: http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/02/25/fear-of-obama-drives-gun-stocks-higher.aspx

And no one can even define "assault weapons"! Is an AR15 in semiautomatic an "assault weapon"? How about a Ruger 10/22 with a 30 round clip? Or a bolt action .308 with a 15 round clip? Or a .40 caliber Springfield XDM pistol with a 16 round clip?

Here comes the nightmare, are we ready?

As I Age....

2009-02-10T12:43:00.000-08:00

I find that I am becoming less and less tolerant of the evil I see around me in the world. I see how it affects others, and think how easily it could affect those I love and respect.

A friend emailed me to tell me that a man was assaulted and stabbed in his home by thugs looking for his supposed pain medications. No mention was made about whether the man actually had pain medications, just that they were looking for them.

My friend then pointed out that people wonder why he always carries, even when he is alone in his own home. Now he has a newspaper article to hand them!

Another friend emailed me this piece:

Why I Carry a Gun

My old grandpa said to me, "Son, there comes a time in every man's life when he stops bustin' knuckles and starts bustin' caps and usually it's when he becomes too old to take an ass whoopin'."

I don't carry a gun to kill people. I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don't carry a gun to scare people. I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.

I don't carry a gun because I'm paranoid. I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.

I don't carry a gun because I'm evil. I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the
world.

I don't carry a gun because I hate the government. I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don't carry a gun because I'm angry. I carry a gun so that I don't have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.

I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone. I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don't carry a gun because I'm a cowboy. I carry a gun because, when I die and go to Heaven, I want to be a cowboy.

I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a man. I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.

I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate. I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I AM inadequate.

I don't carry a gun because I love it. I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.

Author Unknown

I would add a paraphrasing of something I heard a long time ago and for which I don't remember the source:

I don't carry a pistol because I expect trouble, IF I EXPECTED trouble, I would carry a rifle!!

An old Indian said:

2009-02-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

From http://www.softgreenglow.com/wp/

It’s late fall and the Indians on a remote reservation in South Dakota asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.

Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.

But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea. He called the National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?”

“It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,” the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.

A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. “Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?”

“Yes,” the man at National Weather Service again replied, “it’s going to be a very cold winter.” The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again. “Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?”

“Absolutely,” the man replied. “It’s looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we’ve ever seen.”

“How can you be so sure?” the chief asked.”

The weatherman replied, “The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.”

Another thought on the Stimulus Package

2009-02-05T20:17:00.000-08:00

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

--Dr. Adrian Rogers

Why the "Stimulus Package", isn't!!

2009-02-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Joe Huffman, from "The View from North Central Idaho" says it much more succintly than I have been able to. The Whole post is here: http://blog.joehuffman.org/

Suppose my family was deeply in debt, income was trending down, and some members of my family were unemployed. Would it improve matters if we borrowed a bunch of money and spent it on things like painting the house, new clothes, and a new car?

I don't think so.

Suppose it was my little North Central Idaho town of 20K people that was deeply in debt, income was trending down, and unemployment was trending up. Would it improve matters if the town borrowed a bunch of money and spent it on random stuff?

I don't think so.

Repeat at the large city level.

Repeat at the county level.

Repeat at the state level (California for example).

Is it going to make things better in any of those cases?

If not, then why would it make sense to do it at the national level?

Arabs vs. Jews, a view on accomplishment.

2009-01-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

This is not intended as a comment on the contrast, but as a rather interesting point of view of the two groups.

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000 ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfoo

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1990 - Elias James Corey
1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics: (zero)

Physics: (zero)

Medicine:
& nbsp; 1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

____________________________________________________________________________

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000 -- Only FOURTEEN MILLION
or about 0.02% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pa sternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
&nb sp; 1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
& nbsp; 1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
&nbs p; 1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Don ald A.. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Pe rutz
1965 - Richard Phil lips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Joseph son
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
&nb sp; 1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
&n bsp; 2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Mil ton Friedman
1978 - Herb ert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
&nbs p;1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1 990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herb ert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
& nbsp; 1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
&nbs p; 1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Ed elman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Ed ward B. Lewis

TOTAL: 129 ONE HUNDRED TWENTY NINE!

The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims!

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew that has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew that protests by killing people.

The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them!!

R egardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.
If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel'
-Benjamin Netanyahu

Kids know how it works!!

2009-01-27T20:54:00.001-08:00

I received this from several sources today, but my brother in law Andrew sent it first, so he gets the credit!!

Ice Cream & The Election

Excellent analogy!

From a teacher in the Nashville area.

Who worries about "the cow" when it is all about the "Ice Cream?

The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year.

The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest.

I decided we would have an election for a class president.

We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members. We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.

We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids. I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support. I had never seen Olivia's mother.

The day arrived when they were to make their speeches Jamie went first. He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best.

Everyone applauded. He sat down and Olivia came to the podium.

Her speech was concise. She said, "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down.

The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream." She surely could say more. She did not have to.

A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure.

Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it? She didn't know.

The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream.

Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and
fifty-two percent of the people reacted like nine year olds. They want
ice cream.

The other forty-eight percent of us know we're going to have to feed the
cow and clean up the mess!

Supreme Court pat down?

2009-01-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court issued a decision today that seems a little out of place.

The bare facts are these:

A car was legally stopped for an infraction. One of the police officers noted a passenger who appeared to be in gang related clothing. She began a consensual conversation and asked him to exit the vehicle so she could continue the conversation away from the driver. It turns out that the passenger was an Ex-Con. She suspected that he was armed, and so when he exited the vehicle she patted him down, found he was indeed armed, and arrested him for possession of a firearm.

The question put before the Supreme Court was whether the search of his person was Constitutional based upon the Fourth Amendment.

The Supreme Court held that once the stop was made, as established in previous cases by precedent, that the passengers, as well as the driver were under the control of the officers.

The interesting question here is that if he had refused to answer her questions about gang activities and his past, would she have asked him to exit the vehicle? Second, if he had refused to do so, since there was no real attempt at proof or belief at the time that he was involved in illegal activity, could he have been required to do so?

You can read the decision here:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-1122.ZS.html

All too true!!!

2009-01-19T16:01:00.000-08:00

A bit of satire about our governments incredible ability to spend the money we earn!

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Slingshot?

2009-01-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

Thanks to http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/.

This guy was just too much fun to not post!!

Our Republic!!

2009-01-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a couple of other bloggers I came across this YouTube video, thanks to:

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/ and to http://www.smallestminority.blogspot.com/

I agree, it needs wider dispersion as a primer to what our country was intended to be.

North Dakota!!!!

2009-01-03T08:50:00.000-08:00

After having attended the Physician Assistant program at the University of North Dakota, I came away with the belief that North Dakotans are some of the nicest people in the world. My wife, who visited me while I was in school, felt the same way. They have almost no violent crime, and most of what there is, is perpetrated by people who are NOT FROM North Dakota, but somewhere else.

For instance, Grand Forks, a town about three times the size of my hometown, had 1 murder in the year I lived there, and it was the first in something like 5 years!

Now comes news that all of North Dakota had a total of 2, yes that is correct, TWO, murders in 2008. Both of them were stabbings.

NO GUN RELATED MURDERS!!

This in a state that ranks 44th on the list of The Brady Campaign for gun control! More than 50% of North Dakota homes have at least one firearm.

More on this later!!

Self Defense?......

2008-12-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

It's Pearl Harbor day, and in light of that surprise attack, I have been thinking about the recent events in Mumbai. (Mumbai is the correct name for the city that has been known as Bombay for the past 100 years or so.)

The Mumbai rampage has left me wondering about the rights we have to protect ourselves. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, a handful of terrorists, armed with small bombs, grenades, and automatic weapons, took over in India's financial capital. Over parts of 3 days, they killed randomly, before finally being killed themselves by Indian security forces. Only one was taken alive.

India is a somewhat unique place when it comes to firearms, for firearms restrictions there are strong and old. A little research shows that the British first imposed firearms restrictions there in the latter part of the 19th century, hoping to avoid a repeat of the Mutiny of 1857. There is a good discussion of it by Abhijeet Singh and he has put together a coherent and interesting article, many of the quotes I use are from his site.

However, I will try to condense it to give a sense of the current situation.

The British rapidly recognized that having a huge population with weapons was not conducive to Colonial rule, so they systematically began disarming the populace, starting with the Indian Arms Act of 1878, which basically restricted firearms ownership to the Europeans, or to the Indians that the Europeans thought were loyal to the Crown.

From the British point of view, James Burgh very adequately explained it thus:

"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion."

Note that he specifically states, "The possession of arms ins the distinction between a freeman and a slave"!!

Interestingly, although India gained Independance in 1947, the 1878 act wasn't changed until 1959, and the Indian government continued in the belief that the populace should not own arms.

They subsequently imposed new acts in 1959 and 1962, and the effect was that Indian arms makers basically were very limited in what they could produce, and the people were even more limited in what they could buy. Few, if any, locally produced weapons were of any quality, and imports were the only way to access decent weapons.

In the 1980's however, the laws became even more draconian, when the government ceased importation, and the prices of even borderline weapons began to climb precipitously. Like the United States, however, there were few, if any, registered firearms ever used for crime.

"A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Interestingly, even the most successful of the passive resistance, Mahatma Gandhi, recognized that what the British had done was wrong, and said: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

And so we come to Mumbai, where the death toll is now around 200, with approximately 300 more injured.

Fingers will be pointed at the Police and Military for not acting more rapidly and appropriately. Some will say that the way the Police reacted was cowardly. But the bare facts are these:

1) The Indian people have been conditioned by more than 100 years of passivity.
2) The Indian people do not and cannot carry weapons to protect themselves.
3) The Indian police were not trained to deal with multiple attacks by trained aggressors.
4) The lack of appropriate police weaponry was very similar to the Noth Hollywood shootout in Los Angeles in that the aggressors possessed more effective weaponry than the defenders initially did.
5) Determined attackers, willing to die in the undertaking, are very difficult for government authorities to stop.

The Mumbai attacks were well planned, and they serve as a perfect reminder that "When seconds count, the Police are only minutes away!" In this case, even being minutes away and acting rapidly would have saved lives, but the Indian Police are evidently NOT trained to deal with multiple attackers with high powered weapons, and so they did not do so. Even special security forces, who arrived later, took almost 2 days to finally neutralize the last of the attackers.

Sounds like a large force, right? Nope, just 10 or so bad guys!

How did gun control affect this situation? Well, unlike most American cities, no Indians carry weapons unless they are on the Police force or in the military. Since Indians have no way to fight back against men with weapons, the attackers had essentially a shooting gallery of targets, with no real reason to fear that anyone could or would shoot back.

Now lets look at weapons in general:

What distinguishes men from animals? When I was growing up, we were taught that it was all the size of our brains, but whales and elephants have bigger brains, so that was dismissed. Then we were taught it was our ability to use an opposable thumb, but, well, that doesn't seem much of an advantage, and some other primates fall into the same category. Then we were taught it was language skills, but pretty soon we realized that whales, dolphins, and chimpanzees, among others, all seemed to have communication skills that allowed the group to act as one in pursuit of a common goal. Then we were taught that it was the use of weapons, but recent evidence has shown that chimps and some birds, as well as sea otters, among others once again, all use weapons to hunt.

BUT....Man does do one thing that no other known animal does, he makes tools to defend himself.

Anciently, it made great sense. Puny man against Lions, Tigers, Bears, and Wolves, all who had significantly better physical attributes than we did when it came to killing prey. All too often, especially when it came to our young, I suspect we WERE the prey. So we came up with defensive weaponry, something to use to protect us from the greater predators.

Our tools got so good that it wasn't long before we were hunting those same predators, even though physically they were our superiors. Since we could defend ourselves more than adequately, our numbers increased, and so did our ability to live long enough to gain experience, thus improving our ability to make better defensive weaponry. Once we could defend ourselves, we found ways to go on the offense, often using that same weaponry. But more importantly, women learned to use those tools defensively as well, protecting the young. That meant even more humans could reach adulthood.

So what changed? Why did a basic necessity, a right given to all, become a bad thing in some situations? Was it because too many used those tools inappropriately, and killed members of their tribes or families?

Of course not!! What happened is governments! As people formed alliances, and then formed bigger alliances, local and then national governments soon evolved. It didn't take long for those in power to realize that if the populace had easy access to weapons, they could rise up and throw out those in power, so by the Dark Ages, European Lords and the remainder of the nobility were restricting weaponry to the "nobility" or those appointed to represent them.

The Founding Fathers recognized it, and Thomas Paine said, "The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them..."

That horrid mischief is exactly what happened in Mumbai, where the population could not take up arms to defend themselves, and the attackers refused to lay theirs down!

Even the villain Hitler talked about it: "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty."

If we in America are to avoid situations like Mumbai, we must recall that the Japanese refused to attempt a land war on the United States for one reason. They were convinced that every American could and would defend his home with his own personal weapon. In every city were common citizens have access to weapons, through the right to self defense by concealed carry, the crime rate has dropped or remained stable. In cities such as Chicago and Washington, DC, where they do not, the crime rate is much higher.

Now a quote from Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, "Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You'll pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins."

If the crooks recognize it, why is it so hard for elected officials?

BCS strikes again!!

2008-12-06T13:19:00.001-08:00

From http://oldnfo.blogspot.com/2008/12/bcs-does-it-again.html I found this, it's just too good to not put up, especially for those of you who know about my thoughts on the way Division 1 BCS handles the top level of College Football!

BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II US Ranked 4th:
After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II."Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work––including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule––our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.

"Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories––Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests––they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event.

"German Chancellor Adolph Hitler said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.

So that's how Texas fell to number 3!!!

Found this also....

2008-12-04T12:31:00.000-08:00

My wife Julie pointed out a few weeks ago that most mass murders in the United States have happened in places where the victim could not provide any protection for themselves because they were considered "Gun Free" zones, such as schools, and increasingly, shopping malls. These places often have prominent signs proudly declaring that they are "Gun Free".

To someone bent on murder, the signs seem to effectively say..."Come on in, no one can shoot back!".

Interestingly, after years of those who try to protect our Second Amendment rights yelling that making places "Gun Free" only protects those who would harm us, the Main Stream Media is finally getting around to actually reporting the facts...and guess what, the facts are exactly what many of us have been saying!!!

Here is a great article, in an unbiased platform, which amazingly enough, made it past the editors and publishers scrutiny to print!

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story/When-Seconds-Count-Stopping-Active-Killers/_yls0jTxAkK8QJR1NKbePA.cspx

Why didn't Fred Thompson talk like this during the campaign?

2008-12-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

I've had other obligations, (fighting town hall seems to be something I am doomed to do, along with tilting at windmills!), as well as some old hobby issues I am trying to clean up, so I haven't posted much, but I ran across this video and realized it needed to be posted here:

Enjoy!!

A French Soldiers take on his American counterparts...

2008-11-24T13:58:00.001-08:00

The English version is here:

http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/2008/09/21/american-troops-in-afghanistan-through-the-eyes-of-a-french-omlt-infantryman

The original French is here:

http://omlt3-kdk3.over-blog.com/article-22935665.html

I believe it to be an accurate translation, but my French is worse than poor, although I can extrapolate some from the Latin roots with my Spanish.

“We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing “ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events”. Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day ? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.

They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever state they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other.

Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.

Here we discover America as it is often depicted : their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity lack of privacy and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley. Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that : the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.

And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.

And combat ? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks : they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the ennemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting : they just charge ! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later - which cuts any pussyfooting short.

We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is - from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.

To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America’s army’s deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers”.

I think even taking the test makes you one!

2008-11-23T16:45:00.001-08:00

145 years ago this week....

2008-11-22T16:59:00.000-08:00

Abraham Lincoln was dedicating a battlefield in Pennsylvania. His words, actually only a footnote to the address given by Edward Everett which lasted 2 hours, were brief, but profound. Edwards was a known orator, and his 13,607 words were sculpted and beautiful.

Lincolns short, 272 word oration has been memorized by thousands, if not millions, of school children since, while Edwards tremendous work is all but forgotten.

But a part of that text stands out...

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Benjamin Franklin said:

...a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles...is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep a government free.

We are now engaged in a difficult transition, not a war, but just as surely a defining time. No one seems happy with the direction our great Nation has taken recently. It is time to do as Franklin suggested, and return to fundamental principles.

Those basic principles were well enumerated by the Founding Fathers in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

When we have questions about what is wrong with our country, those should be the documents we check first!

If the press is not free, something is wrong.

If honest men are not allowed to protect themselves against those who wish them ill, something is wrong.

When the government quarters troops against the will of homeowners, something is wrong.

When peoples homes are not protected against unreasonable searches something is wrong.

When people have lost due process, or the right to a speedy trial, something is wrong.

When bail or punishment becomes excessive or cruel, something is wrong.

When rights not specifically enumerated are legislated against, something is wrong.

How many of those things have been violated recently? How many are violated on any given day?

Do you see your rights and actions being dictated by laws that contradict your rights enumerated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights?

Do you know these two vital documents well enough to even recognize when you are having your rights violated?

Benjamin Franklin said:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.

Are we allowing this to happen to us, hoping for more safety and protection from bad things and people?

Something to think about!

For the First Time EVER...Someone agrees with me!

2008-11-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney, who I liked in the early campaign, but was not 100 percent convinced had actually exhibited all the conservative strength I expected, has come around to my point of view...LOL!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html?_r=2

Hat tip to http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/ who found it before I did.

President Obama to "RULE"?

2008-11-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

Check this video:

I thought we sort of declined that whole "rule" thing about 232 years ago?

I think we are straying further and further from the intended function of government, which was stated so elegantly more than 2 centuries ago:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I missed the part about "rule" in there somewhere, didn't I?

The Constitution was designed as a document whereby free men could establish a completely free way to govern themselves, with a framework that the people agreed on. We continue to add to those rules, usually at our detriment.

Lets get back to basics!!

Hat tip to http: http://mostlycajun.com/wordpress/?p=4672 and http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/

I ran across a question....

2008-11-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

reading through Joe Huffmans old blog posts http://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/12/15/JustOneQuestion.aspx and this was it:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

Can you? The CDC couldn't in this report:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm

I think we need to continue returning to this point when people consistently call for more and more control.

It is certainly easy to find examples where people were endangered by more gun control, with virtually every episode of genocide precursed by arms control.

Keep at it, and eventually people begin to realize that those who propose gun control have no leg to stand on!!

Thank you Veterans!!

2008-11-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

I have been intending to write this all day, and now it is evening and I still haven't.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all those who have served our country!

Most especially, though, to my Father, who has taught me everything I know about being a United States citizen, and still remains my greatest hero. He served our country from right after the Korean War through the Vietnam War, and into the peace at the end of the 1970s. We share a first and last name, and we share a deep respect for our Constitution and the Rights enumerated there.

To my brother in law, Ed, who served in both Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and who still remains a strong moral compass. Thank you!

To all my other friends who have served or continue to serve, thank you!!

To all those who I have never met, but have shed sweat, tears, and blood for our country, thank you!

Thank you to all those brave men and women who stand guard so that we may sleep in peace!

Thank you all!!!

Obama pumps up one part of the economy!

2008-11-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

It seems that since the Obama election, a large portion of the American public has decided that regardless of what he said during the election about protecting gun rights, they are going to make sure that THEIR rights are not impinged.

Gun dealers nationwide are reporting gun sales at numbers that are so far beyond normal that even the most optimistic of them is having to revise numbers daily.

If nothing else, the election pumped life into a sector of the economy that the DNC must never have expected.

Some dealers are reporting sales figures that are almost unbelieveable.

One dealer I spoke with told me he had sold every AR15 he had a concession for during the next 12 months and not one of his regular suppliers could give him any idea of when they would have more in stock.

Just a cruise through the only local retailer revealed that the numbers of weapons on display has dropped dramatically in the last 5 days. The staff wasn't sure how much sales were actually up, but told me that "they haven't ever seen anything like this".

Gun sales, already up 15% in October, surged again after Obama won the election, indicating that a large part of the public is not buying into his promise to leave guns alone. While most guns sold are handguns, sales of rifles jumped by a reported 150,000 last month. http://www.hutchnews.com/Todaystop/guns2008-11-06T20-40-48

Nationwide, retailers are reporting record daily sales, and even the New York Times has noticed it. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/07guns.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I sincerely hope that Obama CAN be the healer he promises to be, and that he CAN reach out and achieve Bi-Partisan goals.

My gut, however, tells me it won't happen that way.

Here's to hoping my gut is wrong!

Looks like Lyle and I were posting about the same thing at the same time! http://blog.joehuffman.org/2008/11/11/TenPercentIncreaseInGunSales.aspx

Obama, citizen or not.....

2008-11-08T16:59:00.000-08:00

Philip Berg, a lifelong Democrat, filed suit against Obama regarding his place of birth, believing that he is NOT a native born American. There apparently is sufficient evidence that he was not born in Hawaii as he claims, but in Kenya. He intially filed suit in his home state, but the judge there said he did not have "standing", essentially saying that the people did not have the right to challenge presidential qualifications as required by the Constitution.

Berg then filed the case with the Supreme Court of the United States, and asked that the Nov. 4th elections be postponed until the issue was resolved. The Justices refused to postpone the elections, but did tell Obama that he must provide proof of his birth in Hawaii. Apparently this is going to be difficult to do, since he refused to do it when challenged previously. Contrast this with McCains response when challenged over the same issue, who rapidly provided all the information requested. (McCain was born in Central America while his father was stationed there.)

Berg's press release is here:

http://www.obamacrimes.com/index.php/news/52-us-supreme-court-awaits-response-to-berg-writ-of-certiorari-from-obama

There are more complications to the issue as well. He was adopted by his stepfather in Indonesia, and then attended school there when only citizens of Indonesia could attend school. It would appear, then, that he accepted Indonesian citizenship, but could have requested that his citizenship revert to the U.S. at 18, but there is no record he did so. Documented here:

http://www.obamacrimes.com/attachments/016_Obama,%20Motion%20for%20TRO%20from%20Pacer.pdf

Interesting take on it here:

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200811072518/editorial/america-the-beautiful.html

Thomas Jefferson left NO doubts...

2008-11-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

A tad sarcastic, but right on the mark....

2008-11-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

Thanks to http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/ I found this post!

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/11/election-analysis-america-can-take-pride-in-this-historic-inspirational-disaster.html

Socialism...predicted 50 years ago by Khruschev

2008-11-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

Glenn Beck had this on his show recently. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, who served under Eisenhower hosted Khruschev in the '50's and had this to say about it:

Quote of the week...

2008-11-05T19:34:00.000-08:00

From W. W. Woodward after digesting the results of yesterdays elections;

The wolves have decided who they want for dinner. It's past time for the main course's rebellion.

It brings to mind Jefferson's quote:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

I pray that we have not reached that point of rebellion, but I fear that we are not far from it.

Even Great Britain knows about Moscow Idaho!

2008-11-05T19:28:00.000-08:00

From Joe at http://blog.joehuffman.org/ comes a link from Great Britain:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082308/PETER-HITCHENS-The-Zombie-Third-World-Marxist---How-American-West-views-presidential-race.html

Late at night...

2008-11-04T14:43:00.001-08:00

Your wife, or daughter, or mother is home alone, late at night and hears a window break.

She attempts to run out of the house to a nearby neighbor, but is met at the door by a large man who then assaults and rapes her.

Fortunately, she survives the assault.

2 days later, she is watching TV when she hears a window break again, and then the power goes out.

What does she do? Well, if she lives in Chicago, or New York City, or Washington DC, or San Francisco, she can't do much, because the law says she can't keep a loaded firearm in the house with here. The last time she tried to run, she was assaulted and raped!

But if she lives in Cape Girardeau County Missouri she can...and this woman did!

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/9C58494B45470714862574F3006D0CA6?OpenDocument#tp_newCommentAnchor

Good for her!! And this is the protection that liberal politicians have taken away from those in the above cities, and want to take from all of us?

Very Aptly titled....

2008-10-30T18:14:00.001-07:00

http://www.usawakeup.org/USSA.htm

Cory the Well Driller...

2008-10-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Great Stuff!!

From Joe, http://blog.joehuffman.org/, but apparently originally from http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=778367.

"Mr. Obama, Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller".

I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn't go to college like you, I was too ready to go "conquer the world" when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80's oil boom. I didn't get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job.

My businesses did not start not a result of privilege. It is the result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck). A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a 20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs.

Through these years I never knew from one month to the next if I would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next two years paying that back (with penalty and interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the second time... $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D..

Of course, the personal stress endured through these experiences and years is hard to measure. I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all. I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the most competent and most honest water well driller in East Texas. 2 years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any added income from the new machine.

No government program was there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the screen service business. 2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.

A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a business loan to start production of the new pumps. With several deposits for pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started applying for as many credit card as I could find and took cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over $150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister and brother), to get this 3rd business going. Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six months).

How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into production, which immediately created another 2 full time jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in the first year suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee (another East Texan employed) had to drive across the country to repair customers' pumps, practically from coast to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and refining the product, building a reputation for the pump and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig manufacturers' product lines, and paying back credit cards.

During all this time I continued to manage a growing water well business that was now operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen service business continued to grow. No government programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's ok, I didn't expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for the government to help me. Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy.

Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled machining equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine shop. The machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can better manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work for outside companies as well. This has already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it in the next few months.

This should work out, but if it doesn't it will be because you, and the other professional politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our countrys’ (and the world) economy with your meddling with mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get my mud pumps into production, you were working with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates, I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created jobs for more East Texans.

It's funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally made enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and your ilk have perpetrated on our country.

You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn’t want to take a risk, and wouldn't demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything.

You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land. What is so terribly sad about this is this.

America was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach on every able bodied American who would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states. If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large embracing the conviction that they can elevate themselves through personal betterment, personal achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people embrace such ideals, they act on them.

When people act on such ideals, they succeed. All of America could find herself elevating instead of deteriorating. But that would eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr. Obama? The country would not need you if the country was convinced that problem solving was best left with individuals instead of the government. You and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on government.

What's remarkable is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't need my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life. You see, I know because I've had them work for me before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices to apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning money and pleasing their employer?).

You see, all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture. Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong again. You see, I've seen what the average percentage of your income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce “politically motivated”), you averaged of less than 1% annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it is someone else’s money you are giving to them. I won’t say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is several times more than you or Joe Biden (don’t you just hate google?).

Tell me again how you feel my pain. In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of America from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year.

God help us... Cory Miller, just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans used to be.

P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American..."

http://www.cmillerdrilling.com/

Cooper Rifles?....They're endorsing Obama!

2008-10-28T13:47:00.001-07:00

Well, that's one manufacturer I don't have to consider!!!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-27-prez-money_N.htm

Reduce crime...we don't need no stinking reduced crime!

2008-10-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

Apparently the most effective way to reduce crime is to not report it!!

The Home Office in Britain, (Their version of the FBI, the website says: The Home Office is the lead government department for immigration and passports, drugs policy, counter-terrorism and police.) has put increasing pressure on street cops to reduce crime, so many violent crimes have either not been reported or have been reported as less serious than they were.

I love the quote that drug crimes "buck the trend of falling overall crime rates"! How the heck do they know?

Article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079927/Violent-crime-22-Home-Office-admits-police-recording-offences-years.html

Why do we elect these people?

2008-10-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of time in the last week thinking about the elections coming up. (Is there anyone out there with a brain who hasn't?) One of the things that I keep coming back to is that we, as Americans, continually elect people who don't share our view of how things actually work, the world at large, or even AMERICAN society!

Our society is based upon Judeo-Christian morals and values. Those are the values our Founding Fathers espoused, they are the values that were inculcated into their fathers, and they are the values that continue to shape the vast majority of Americans. Our laws were first based upon those morals and values, and shaped by our Founding Fathers exposure to English and European law and thought. Blackstone, an English lawyer, was widely read, and many of his ideas were expressed in the writings and phrasings of what became the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

While occasionally laws need to be amended because times change, morals and values are much more substantial and enduring. Indeed, generally those laws need to be changed because the situations have changed, not the moral backing for the law.

Certainly we can believe that Moses was not the first to espouse the belief that "Thou shalt not kill." That basic premise existed prior to Moses coming down from the mountain, and continues today as one of the most cherished of societies beliefs. No society has been long successful who did not carry that premise in it's most basic rules for daily life. (One could argue that the belief was not necessarily found in "primitive" cultures existing into the 20th century, as they openly committed warfare and murder upon rivals, but within those societies, killing another member of the same group was an offense.)

That belief in the sanctity of life extends yet to the present day.

Other values and morals have also been passed down from generation to generation. They have been absorbed into the laws we commonly recognize. The wording changes, but the basic ideas are espoused in what are commonly called the Ten Commandments. Theological discussions aside, our law is based first upon those basic rules, and then extended and expounded. The recent belief that somehow the Ten Commandments are a "religious" idea that needs to be expelled from any discussion of law is ludicrous. The very basis of our civilization is founded upon these precepts, and yet we have allowed jurists to expell those basic beliefs from the courtroom. Doesn't it seem ludicrous that we have thousands of pages of codification regarding homicide, and yet we allow judges to tell us there is no place for the simplest wording regarding homicide, "Thou shalt not kill", because that wording comes from the Bible? It certainly wouldn't be excluded if it came from a contemporary work, or even from Blackstone! Rephrase it to, "You shall not kill another human", and no one objects! Does the idea change with the re-wording? Why then is it less objectionable to judges?

Since my purpose in this essay is not to discuss the law, but to discuss the people we elect and their lack of ability to follow any semblance of the morals and values most Americans espouse, I use the Ten Commandments only generally to illustrate that morals and values are long lasting, not ephemeral.

Why do we find it so hard to elect people whose beliefs and values actually mirror our own?

Part of the explanation probably hinges on two things:

1) People have a low opinion of politicians, or those who seek office. Thus, truly good people don't want to be politicians. They don't want to make compromises in their morals and values, so they don't run for office.

2) Truly good people, when they do decide to become involved, don't accumulate enough special interest attention to maintain their political imptetus. They may get elected once based upon some particular issue and their views on it, but they can't maintain enough momentum to actually continue their agenda because they don't encompass enough different viewpoints. They simply refuse to compromise their morals and values.

So then, what we are left with are individuals who become professional at compromising. As a local mayor once said to me, "When I sat down in the Mayor's seat, I became Mr. Compromise".

While compromise can be an effective tool when morals and values are not at stake, the too frequent exercise of compromise weakens resolve, and erodes the strong wall of identity based on those morals. Compromising the finance of a civic project, so that the cost can be spread over more time, is a far cry from calling for the deletion of the Second Amendment, but the path is in place when compromise over more important issues is allowed.

As Americans, however, we seem to repeatedly elect those who are most adept at compromise, not those who actually represent what we believe to be true.

As further examples:

Most Americans believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. (At least that is what the polls say!) But we actually elect people who say things like, "It's not what I would do, but I have no problem with gay men or lesbians being allowed to marry." Most Americans evidently do have a problem with that, so why do we elect people who don't?

Most Americans evidently believe that the Right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. (Again, the polls say this.) But do we elect people who also believe that? Evidently not, at least if you look at the laws enacted by our elected officials.

Most Americans believe that lower taxes help the economy. (If they didn't, they should have sent those tax stimulus checks back! I didn't hear of a single case where that happened!) And yet, we elect people who say that we need to redistribute the wealth.

Most Americans believe that prayer in schools would be a good thing. (Once again, relying on the polls!). And yet, our elected officials refuse to recognize that small and salient fact.

So why do we do it? Why do we keep electing people who don't agree with what we actually think should be done?

Our system needs an overhaul. Nothing about this election is satisfactory in any way. No real Republicans are happy with McCain, but the party gave them no better option. McCain has not represented real Republican ideals since he was elected to Congress.

No real Democrat can be happy with Obama, because he has compromised his way to this position, and has pandered to every special interest group he can talk to. At one time he represented the true Democrats, but at this point in the process he is almost as centrist as Bill Clinton was.

Both parties have spent incredible amounts of money on the campaign that should have been spent figuring out how to fix the economy, and the mess previously created by their predecessors.

Watching this election can only make me feel that DeToqueville was right when he said, "He was as great as a man can be without morality." Both of the major parties have failed the American public in that respect, as both candidates have sold their souls to garner the vote.

Again quoting DeToqueville, "In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own." In no election that I can recall has this been so apparent as it is now. The mass media has grievously failed in it's responsibilities. Orson Scott Card wrote brilliantly about this in an article I previously posted, http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-10-05-1.html.

Unfortunately, I can only think of one solution, and that is unlikely:

Some individual of uncompromising moral belief and value must arise, and he must be able to capture the hearts and minds of enough people to gain election. He must then be willing to turn the government on its own ear to fix the problems created by generations of dishonest men. We must then believe in his vision and make sure it comes to pass.

As Albert Einstein once said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Otherwise, we must be content to watch the pending disaster play itself out!

New thoughts from Harlem on Obama!

2008-10-22T11:50:00.001-07:00

Listen closely--Interesting thoughts about Obama.

http://www.bpmdeejays.com/upload/hs_sal_in_Harlem_100108.mp3

Work, Study, we don't need THAT!

2008-10-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

You'll have to scroll down a ways, but Rachel makes some great points!! (Her language may offend a few, but certainly isn't different from what one hears in just about any college class).

http://www.rachellucas.com/index.php/2008/10/21/what-is-the-thermochemical-equation-for-the-formation-of-resentment-from-the-pure-elements-of-entitlement-and-socialism/

Bill

Just too good to not post

2008-10-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Orson Scott Card, an Orion and Nebula winner on the state of journalism:

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-10-05-1.html

From a post elsewhere

2008-10-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

Government

If You Think the Problems We Create are Big, Just Wait until You See Our Solutions!!

http://blog.despair.com/

'Nuff said!!

2008-10-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 20, 2008

Too good a quote to not post!
I continue to be amused at those who can simultaneously hold the contradictory idea that Sarah Palin has insufficient experience to be president while Barack Obama somehow does. - geekWithA.45

Posted by bwaites at 3:24 PM 0 comments

I had written the post below, then was doing some additional lunchtime reading and came across this, which expresses many of the same thoughts, but in a more enjoyable way:
http://www.rachellucas.com/index.php/2008/10/16/i-see-in-your-eyes-the-same-fear-that-would-take-the-heart-of-me/

Well, said, and though my brother is the true LOTR scholar, enjoyable also because of the quotes!
Posted by bwaites at 1:13 PM 0 comments

Thoughts on never giving up!

I've been more than a little concerned by all the electioneering, with seemingly ALL the polls showing an overwhelming win for Obama.I have no doubts that a win by a socialistic Chicago politician will be a disaster for not only America, but for the world.

I am going to dispense with the 2nd Amendment, because Obamas votes on that are so well known as to be superfluous.

However, I refuse to believe that there are NO options other than a loss. Although I have grave concerns about McCain, and see him as he is, a very liberal Republican, I cannot countenance a loss which allows the Democratic machine to place someone in power who:

A) Cannot even provide appropriate documentation that he was born in the United States:
http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/pennsylvania/paedce/2:2008cv04083/281573/

B) Has known association with an unrepentant terrorist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89m0pC_bpY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNkclbvuc9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-45A6I-N5I&feature=related

C) Attended a church for 20 years that has been anti-American, bigoted, and ultimately, rascist. A supposedly "Christian" pastor who spends his weeks not teaching the Gospel of Christ, but politically inflaming those who attend his "worship services" and who has publically decried the government for "creating AIDS" to kill blacks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEMZHQsQJ6Y&feature=related

D) Has so little leadership experience that he has not produced a SINGLE piece of legislation in the US Congress or the Illinois Congress. Who has never actually worked and accomplished any long lasting benefit to anyone, and who is, basically, nothing but a gadfly on a political stage.

I will quote Winston Churchill, who is one of my heroes:

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!

Now is not the time to be faint of heart! Now is the time to gather our courage, to proclaim that we shall not be vanquished, and that all should stand proud to defend the honor of this country.

This country was not won in fear, but in courage. It was not won by the faint of heart, but by the brave. It was not won by weakness, but by strength in the face of great might. It was not won by surrender, but by constant battle against the opposition. It was not won though acquiescence, but the fervent valor of true believers in the cause.We dishonor those who wrote the great words which became the Constitution when we simply cease to struggle.

Thomas Paine said:
"'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."

Let us be sure we do so.
Posted by bwaites at 12:29 PM 0 comments

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Reading old blogs can bring back some great information:
http://www.actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml
Posted by bwaites at 1:22 PM 0 comments

Great Post! Says all I would on the subject, although I would point out that I see no option to a McCain vote in the Presidential Race.

http://armedandsafe.blogspot.com/2008/10/inexorable-creeping-statism-warning-not.html
Posted by bwaites at 10:14 AM 0 comments

Lots of talk about "jusitfiable homicide" right now, probably sparked by this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-14-justifiable_N.htm?csp=34

Wayne LaPierre notes that "Americans are simply refusing to be victims."

I think we have always refused to be victims, to illegal taxation, to illegal slavery, to a society nearly overwhelmed by those who traffic in illegal drugs, to anything that binds us from our God given Rights.

We have finally reached a point where we now are being more proactive about the refusal to be victims. In the past, we only acted after we were victimized, protecting ourselves from future similar circumstances. Now we are actively taking things into our own hands, preventing ourselves from being victimized in the first place. We have finally said, "enough", and are acting to make sure it truly is!

One of the issues that seems to offend liberals is that mindset of proactive action. From the article, "Northeastern University criminal justice professor James Alan Fox describes an emerging "shoot-first" mentality by police and private citizens. For several years, police departments have armed their officers with higher-powered weapons to keep pace with criminal gangs. "Clearly there is a message out there that citizens may be able to defend themselves" as well, he says."

If "shoot-first" mentality is a bad thing, we could all be mourning the loss of another college student today, but fortunately, this student acted instead of reacting: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/crime/262693

Since at least one of the "invaders" (I use that term somewhat sarcastically, since both had mug shots, and thus, presumably, criminal records.) was armed, and the student saw that before they entered his apartment, he took action and shot and killed both men when they were in his apartment. In this case, "shoot first" probably was the ONLY action which prevented his own death.

Jeffrey Snyder from "A Nation Of Cowards" phrases it far better than I can: "When a man pulls a knife on a woman and says, "You're coming with me," her judgment that a crime is being committed is not likely to be in error. There is little chance that she is going to shoot the wrong person. It is the police, because they are rarely at the scene of the crime when it occurs, who are more likely to find themselves in circumstances where guilt and innocence are not so clear-cut, and in which the probability for mistakes is higher."

Sometimes, many times even, "shoot-first" is the ONLY mentality that prevents injury or death to the innocent party."Justifiable homicide" often seems like politically correct phrasing for, "I shot and killed the bad guy!" When the near victim acts to save his own or loved ones lives, "justifiable homicide" doesn't do the act justice!
Posted by bwaites at 9:16 AM 0 comments

Soccer mom gets CCW permit back

Posted by David Hardy · 18 October 2008 12:37 PM

She had a permit, but open carried at soccer games. The other soccer moms got bent out of shape, and the sheriff revoked her CCW permit (he didn't like her openly carrying, so he put her in a position where openly is the only way she can carry. Makes a lot of sense.) Fortunately, a court has overruled the sheriff.Hat tip to reader Dave Ladin.... who sends a followup story and a note the spamcatcher blocked:"Soccer parents wince at prospect of guns at games""Gregg-Bolognese said some...fathers have threatened to take a gun away fromanyone who arrives at a game with one, an idea she tries to squelch."QED proof that she needs to carry in that thug league.

Makes sense doesn't it, assault the mom for exercising a Constitutional Right? Posted by bwaites at 8:02 AM 0 comments

A New Start

This is the first post on a new blog I plan to continue relating to Second Amendment Rights, government in general, and the changes our country faces in the future.I'm sure it will contain a fair amount of information that will be controversial to some, while being quite juvenile and ridiculous to others.

I make no pretense that I have any novel or original thought. I am deeply indebted to many who have paved the way before me including Joe Huffman at http://blog.joehuffman.org/, without whom I would not know that these type of blogs exist. I was invited to the Precision Rifle Clinic at the 2008 Boomershoot, and in the process met and conversed with Joe. Through his site, I have read and lurked at many other so called "Gun Bloggers", including: http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/ , http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/ , http://www.softgreenglow.com/wp/ , http://heartlesslibertarian.blogspot.com/ , http://triggerfinger.org/ , and too many others to mention.

Now, lets talk about the "gun bloggers" label. It bothers me, not because I think of it negatively, but because I hear too many people derogatorily refer to them as "right wing wackos". I've met some of them, and they certainly aren't wackos in any sense of the word. Professionally I am a medical provider, and I deal with real people who are psychologically handicapped (wackos!), none of the gun bloggers I have dealt with qualify! In fact, some of them aren't even right wing! Some of their politics are far, far left of my acknowledged conservative bent.

We do, however, have some things in common, and generally that is an acknowledgement that the United States Constititution is an inspired document, and that the Rights granted to be inherent in each individual are not given by government, but are part of our very humanity.I happen to believe that they are and were granted by my Creator, but others, who may not believe in a Superior Being, nonetheless recognize that government does not grant rights, they are part of our very being, regardless of what government we happen to reside under at the time.

Those rights are the same whether born under a tyrant or in a "free" country. They may be oppressed by a government who refuses to acknowledge them, but they exist, regardless of any such oppression.Those Rights are protected, but not granted, by our Constitution, and by the attached Bill of Rights.

Whenever anyone tries to restrict those rights, we as citizens have an obligation to rise up and protect the Constitution and that form of government guaranteed to each of us as citizens.As believers in those ideals, we have an obligation to spread those ideals, and more importantly, an obligation to protect those ideals, to all who seek them, whether here or elsewhere. (Remember, I said that I would say some things that would be controversial to some!) To believe that simply because we are lucky enough to be born here or to migrate here, and that we don't have an obligation to ensure those rights for others in other places seems to negate the protection we claim from those rights. Ideally, we should do so in some manner that doesn't actually infringe on those same rights while we try to implement them. History, however, says that it is not always possible to do so.

So how does any of this relate to my blog title? Well, several years ago, (actually, thinking about it, is more like 7 or 8 years ago), I began to realize that I was responsible for my life and what happened in it. (Strange that it took me 37 years to get there!) More importantly, I was responsible for the protection of the people I loved, namely my family. While that protection certainly encompassed things like food, shelter, and appropriate transportation, it extended further also. I realized that no police force could hope to cope with any serious breakdown in society, whether caused by civil unrest, or, more likely, natural disaster.

Realizing that, I began to see that when police were needed RIGHT NOW, they were always at least 5 minutes away, and that 5 minutes might mean the difference between life and death for my loved ones.From that moment, I began to prepare for things I had never considered seriously. In the process, I realized that one of those things required a firearm, or firearms, in the home.

My wife, a wonderful woman with all the best attributes of a mother, worried about the dangers of having a firearm with children in the home, but, after long discussions, realized that our children could be taught to properly respect and even handle firearms.As time evolved, I have come to understand the deep challenges faced by those of us who own firearms, and I now hope to lend my voice to those raised earlier in protection of those Rights.So my blog title has two meanings--the obvious--a gun in MY house--and the less obvious--a gun in the house of government, and how that very issue affects all of us.I salute those who saw the problem long before I did, and I lend my voice and what little strenth I have, to those who continue the battle!

Bill
Posted by bwaites at 5:36 PM