Drake's Drivel

So, I was looking at some SC polls...

2012-01-13T13:37:00.000-08:00

To see how (who else?) Ron Paul was doing. Turns out, he's in third (20%) behind Newt (25%) and Romney (25%). Darn good if you ask me, except that he (an ideologically consistent libertarian who actually believes in small government) is behind a notoriously unfaithful serial hypocrite and flip-flopper (A Newt! He didn't get better, either.) and a well-known Massacheusetts liberal/"moderate" flip-flopper campaigning as a conservative (Romney). So yeah, that kinda stinks that the only good guy is behind the two worst. Oh, well.

Now, here's what's disturbing. The polls also divided by category, to see how the candidates were doing with certain voting groups. The disturbing part? Among evangelical Christians, Paul placed last. What. The. Heck. Are you JOKING?! Ron Paul, a pro-life, small government, pro-free market, pro-peace Christian who actually lives out his religion rather than using it for political purposes is losing to all the other guys among CHRISTIANS.

Refresher: Gingrich is notoriously unfaithful, and is currently married to his THIRD wife. He's consistently hypocritical (Free market! Unless Romney participates in it!) and is a complete warmonger regarding Iran.

Romney is a freaking MORMON. A MORMON is doing dramatically better among CHRISTIANS than another Christian! Romney is also a "moderate," which, translated, means "no principles whatsoever." The man is pro-choice (until he needs to be pro-life) and has an economic plan comparable to Obama's according to the Wall Street Journal, and is also a warmonger regarding Iran.

Santorum... well, there's a lot to say about Santorum. There's a 2006 ad floating about on Youtube in which Santorum actually brags about working with liberals like Nancy Pelosi to get big-government, big-spending legislation passed. Claimed to be all about a balanced budget, so when the time came... he voted five (5) times to RAISE the debt ceiling! His position on Iran also makes the others look like peace-lovers, too.

Perry. Well, he was pro-bailout, is essentially a rerun of the disasterous George W., and... uh... oops. Yep. Another clueless, big-government warmonger.

Huntsman - who? Joking aside, he seems like a "decent" guy, but looking at his objectives, he's... really, really lacking when it comes to a substantive plan, and he's also convinced Iran is a "strategic threat."

What unites Christians behind four outrageously bad candidates and one somewhat bad candidate, instead of the thoroughly good, consistent Ron Paul, who actually lives out his Christianity?

Iran. Yes, that annoying nation that refuses to go away, despite all our sanctions against it. It appears that the single unifying element that has convinced the majority of South Carolina Christians not to support Ron Paul is a hypothetical nuclear weapon being hypothetically developed by a hypothetical nuclear weapons program in a third-world country. In other words, the majority of evangelical Christians in SC place more importance on a theoretical nuke than on actually getting a small-government, pro-free market, pro-life president into the Oval Office, and are willing to vote for anyone and everyone entirely on that basis.

Because another war in the Middle East over weapons of mass destruction (sound familiar?) is precisely what we need, apparently.

Let's talk foreign policy.

2011-12-15T18:06:00.000-08:00

I've needed to write this for a while. As you may have noticed, I've been blatantly campaigning for Ron Paul. The single most common objection I get is foreign policy. It's usually something like this: "Well, I think he's great, but I just can't stand his foreign policy."

Let's go in-depth with this. Dr. Paul has been repeatedly called "isolationist" - this is a very inaccurate term for his policy ideas. He's about as internationalist as one can get, since it's pretty hard to be isolated with free trade. He is non-interventionist. Specifically, that means the following:

1) No foreign aid. Yes, that includes Israel. However, it also includes Israel's two biggest enemies - Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Yes, we are giving those two nations foreign aid. Cutting foreign aid to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt would probably be a net benefit to Israel.

2) Out of Afghanistan. NOW. Nobody is entirely sure WHAT we're doing there, especially now that bin Laden is dead (in PAKISTAN). We're certainly not accomplishing anything, unless you count angering Afghans who are really tired of being invaded. On a slightly creepy note, Afghanistan has been invaded two other times by superpowers, the British Empire and Soviet Empire. The Brits were using Lee-Enfields, the Soviets AK-47s. Guess what empires no longer exist? Guess what weapons are being used against us by the Afghans? The country is called the Graveyard of Empires for a reason.

3) Bring the troops home from the Middle East. And Europe. And Africa. And Asia. And... I think you get the picture. We've got soldiers on every continent except Antarctica (I think...). Why? It's costing a ton of money, and it's not making us any safer. Isn't there a certain extremely violent border where these soldiers would be more effective, anyway?

Now, let's talk a little more about Israel. Whenever it is suggested that we really don't need to lavish funds upon them, there is a horrified reaction from most people. Here's the thing - the Israelis can easily handle themselves. They have defeated the ENTIRE FREAKING Middle East on at least one occasion, and numerous attempts to destroy them have failed, completely and totally. They have an advantage in that they have an AIR FORCE. A modern one, not using outdated MiG fighters and even more outdated SCUD missiles. They have tanks that can launch infrared missiles. I somehow doubt that some angry Palestinians are a real threat. If Iran does get a nuke, I don't expect the Israelis will let it last, either.

Speaking of Iran, that's another thing. They're what amounts to a third world nation. Refining uranium is not exactly easy or simple, in case you were wondering. Even if they DO get a nuke, only a complete MORON would attempt to use it. Iran's missile tech is also utterly outdated - to call their ballistic missiles "medium range" is quite a stretch, certainly nowhere close to modern missiles that can hit any target, anywhere in the world.

In short - Iran is not a threat.

Now, why NOT Ron Paul? To paraphrase John Q. Adams, America is the champion and vindicator of only her own. "Spreading democracy" at the point of a gun is not going to work. Freedom is best spread by example, and we are not setting a good one.

Why Ron Paul could absolutely cream Obama

2011-12-01T17:40:00.001-08:00

Whatever you may think of his chances for the Republican nomination, I think we can all agree that he would stand a very good chance of utterly destroying our current dimwit-in-chief in the general election.

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Electability: Ron Paul Soundly Defeats Obama for These Eleven Reasons

by Dave Trotter

Establishment political personalities are quick to claim poor "electability" to diminish Ron Paul’s chances because they presume that Paul holds no positive advantage in a head-to-head matchup against Obama in the general election. That’s an apparent premise of their calculation.

This is either a sublime miscalculation or a profound deception. If Ron Paul can win the Republican nomination, the path to the White House could seem downhill by comparison. Why?

Unprecedented debt circumstances demand an unprecedented reimagining of US government priorities and obligations. The U.S. national debt is categorically unsustainable and literally, it’s now mathematically impossible to repay, too. That the debt, banking, and finance system is increasingly proven to be a rigged Ponzi scheme in mainstream media only underlines Ron Paul’s tenured criticism of the oligarchical Federal Reserve System itself. Further, increasing numbers of voters awaken daily to the direct correlation between endless foreign interventionism and that categorically unsustainable debt that vexes the nation.

Indeed, from wars, rumors of wars, a fading dollar, climbing prices, hopeless unemployment, and an overreaching federal police state, the time is ripe for Ron Paul’s small-government message.

There’s merely that small prerequisite for the general election: winning the Republican nomination.

The first contest, the Iowa caucus, is an activist-gathering, hand-raising event that heavily favors a strong ground organization. Ron Paul, by all accounts, enjoys a robust ground organization in Iowa – the strongest of the field. Ron’s numbers are up recently in Iowa, too, leading many previously dismissive pundits to consider seriously the prospect of a Paul victory next month.

After all, Paul fell just short of winning the Ames Straw Poll in August by a mere 150 votes to Michelle Bachmann, who’s since collapsed utterly from relevance – or posing any serious threat of repeating. Bachmann was merely the first of several anybody-but-Romney candidates to grab the "frontrunner" baton for a few precious moments of prime time.

The momentum for Ron Paul coming out of an Iowa victory could roll right through New Hampshire, considered a more libertarian-leaning electorate, and in turn, trigger Romney’s long-inevitable glass house collapse.

Despite a hiccup here or there, maybe in South Carolina, no other already-passed-the-baton "frontrunner" could stop Ron Paul after victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire. So there you go: early victories, nomination, a speech, and on to the general election.

In that general election matchup, Ron Paul would make short work of Obama, for these eleven reasons.

Ron Paul significantly outclasses Obama in any extemporaneous, conventionally conceivable economic or foreign policy debate format not involving teleprompters. How does Obama justify expanding the bailouts, the wars, and the police state at home after promising the opposite – "hope and change" – throughout his 2008 campaign? Filling his cabinet with crony bankster speculators and lobbyists? Secretly bailing out insiders and foreign banks alike? How does Obama defend Solyndra or Fast and Furious? Answer: He can’t.
I say "conventionally conceivable" because it seems there’d be one offsetting chance here for Obama: cancel the debates. And the election.

One thing’s clear, though: if Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination, the debate moderators will have much more difficulty ignoring him on a stage of two or three than in the midst of eight or more in the GOP primary debates.

Ron Paul wins the issue of war and foreign policy for anti-war liberals, independents, libertarians, and constitutional conservatives. Don’t look now, but that’s a sizable and growing coalition, and one that isn’t currently gauged by restricting polling samples to GOP primary likely Republican voters. There’s upside there, too, as Paul makes progress with traditional Bush-supporting "conservatives" who begin to recognize that wars cost trillions, and the U.S. is flat broke.
There’s a significant portion of Obama’s base that elected him based on his antiwar rhetoric, which he subsequently abandoned upon inauguration. These disillusioned liberals and independents have witnessed Obama expand the war in Afghanistan as he drew down symbolic numbers in Iraq (and replaced those troops with mercenaries). They watched Obama expand the front in Pakistan with collateral damage-inflicting drone strikes – even as he launched a completely new conflict in Libya – without a declaration or even an unconstitutional authorization from Congress.

The most depraved recent offense? Obama executed an American citizen and his children in Yemen without a trial, presentation of evidence, or any authentication whatsoever of the speech crimes allegedly committed by him. (Anwar Al-Awlaki, this new Boogeyman/Goldstein/Osama, had himself questionable ties to the US military industrial complex shortly after 9/11.) Consider that with Ron Paul and Barack Obama on a debate stage, Obama becomes the pro-war candidate. Needless to say, any voter who trends anti-war will likely vote for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul wins the domestic police state issue before the debate even begins. After all, Obama is the one on that stage who must answer for gratuitous TSA abuse. Seemingly all voters have either had bad experiences themselves with the TSA, or have heard anecdotes from friends or relatives describing the rampant violations of dignity and body so common now to airport travel. Everyone’s heard the stories about TSA agents raping, stealing, leering, and murdering. Would Obama attempt to suggest that the TSA keeps us safe – by exposing our children to pat-downs by pedophiles?
With domestic surveillance, Obama essentially expanded Bush’s worst abuses and then argued for more. Even more disaffected liberals and independents will join the libertarian and constitutional conservative coalition over these issues and vote for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul wins the federal drug war issue by arguing to end it. By killing that decades-old federal boondoggle, Paul wins the support of most California, Washington, Nevada, Montana, South Dakota, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, and Oregon medical marijuana patients who’ve watched as Obama’s DEA raids state-approved medical marijuana dispensaries contrary to state law. You know who else would appreciate an end to federal drug enforcement? Minority populations, who are disproportionately prosecuted for nonviolent federal drug crimes. Still think Obama has an unquestionable advantage with minority groups? How is this growing coalition of voters even quantified?

Ron Paul wins the abortion issue. Ron Paul is unabashedly pro-life in his personal life, and as an obstetrician, he speaks with conviction – from wisdom and personal professional experience. He will own the Christian vote on this issue, obviously. But Paul argues that the federal government holds no jurisdiction over the issue, and if individual states wish to pass more restrictive or permissive laws, those states should pursue the legislation that best fits their unique populations.

It’s a compromise, in other words. So even if pro-life Christians can’t be enthusiastic about Paul’s lack of advocacy for a federal ban on abortion, "pro-choice" abortion supporters can’t credibly be existentially threatened by Paul’s 10th amendment approach, which is less strident than sound-bite saber rattling over a federal ban. In other words, don’t look for this issue to serve as a convincing single-issue rallying cry for Obama supporters, which qualifies it as a win for Paul.

Ron Paul wins the homeschool, pro-organic, anti-mandatory vaccination, and other pro-liberty niche crowds. Who else but Ron Paul has argued for the rights of the people to consume raw milk? Who else but Ron Paul has proposed granting tax credits and more freedom to homeschooling families to set their own curricula? Contrast this with Obama’s attempts to nationalize education standards further on the back of Bush’s overreaching "No Child Left Behind," and the more recent viral images of armed FDA goons raiding organic food store Rawesome Foods in Venice, California. Yep, even more Californians sympathetic to Paul.

Republicans will turn out en masse to support the GOP nominee – even if it’s Ron Paul. Consider how anti-Obama the lowest common denominator of GOP talking points has become, as voiced by pundits, talk radio, and primary candidates in the debates. Making Obama a "one-term President," repealing "Obamacare," and so on.

Republican voters, long accustomed to "lesser of two evils"-type calculated rationalizations, won’t bat an eye when pulling the lever for Ron Paul. After all, Paul’s single heresy from current GOP orthodoxy is over his principled resistance to interventionism abroad. But he’s the first to point out that it’s the current GOP that’s out of step with the traditional Republican Party platform, not him. Those voters whom Paul can’t convert on morality can also be swayed by fiscal arguments. Wars cost trillions. The U.S. is broke. Rationalizations abound.

Either way, expect a giant anti-Obama Republican turnout in November, 2012 – regardless the GOP nominee. The advantage with a Paul nomination is that Republicans can expect Paul supporters to support the Republican nominee – something they can’t do if they nominate Romney or Gingrich.

The Tea Party rallies behind Ron Paul because his Trillion Dollar Plan is a perfect ideological match. After all, Ron Paul supporters are the ones who started the Tea Party movement in 2007 – the proto-Tea Party. As far as the electorate recognizes the problem to be government spending, Ron Paul is the clear answer.

Ron Paul wins on auditing and ending the Federal Reserve. Who can claim that the US has a "free market" despite artificial price fixing of interest rates at the very core of the economy? What free market advocate supports crony secret taxpayer-funded bailouts of speculators and foreign banks? The Tea Party and the entire GOP field now parrots Ron Paul on the Federal Reserve.

But there’s yet more upside here for Paul: the Occupy movement makes a special point to protest crony capitalism and the abuses of a corrupt, insider financial oligarchy. If Paul can tap that sentiment, which clearly overlaps with his arguments against crony capitalism and the lack of transparency of the Federal Reserve System, he can convert a portion of those Occupy voters into voting Paulistinians. Rest assured, Paul volunteers are already performing this outreach on the ground.

Ron Paul wins on torture and the Bill of Rights. Let Obama attempt to characterize water boarding as something other than torture, as his neocon counterparts have, and Ron Paul will provide a stark contrast – an iconic symbol of authentic, principled "hope and change." As for the Bill of Rights in general, Ron Paul wins clearly with any voter who cherishes the idea of not having to present his or her papers at random checkpoints; for whom government surveillance of citizens is anathema; who cherishes the idea that the government is the slave to the people and not the other way around; or in particular relevance to the Obama record – to anyone who cherishes the idea that we have a right to be left alone.

Circumstances and current events in November, 2012, will play right into Ron Paul’s wheelhouse. This one is the clincher. After repeated, nefarious inflations of the money supply through bailouts and Fed treasury purchases, Obamaflation will be unmistakable at the grocery store, the doctor’s office, and at the fuel pump. Gold will be well over $2,200/ounce. And after an eleven-year string of templated, bankrupting, and needless interventionist wars abroad, voters won’t be easily convinced that high gas prices are solely Iran’s fault. Ron Paul is expertly capable of clearly articulating the causation between interventionist foreign policy and poor economic circumstances at home – including the inflation that will be hitting voters right smack in their wallets as they head to the voting booths.

So there you have it. If only Ron Paul can win the Republican nomination, global and domestic current events in November, 2012 will assure that a Ron Paul victory in the general election is a very high probability. Compared to the primary fight, some might even describe that general election matchup as a cakewalk for Paul.

One word of warning for pro-war Republicans: if you fail to nominate Ron Paul and instead nominate an establishment neoconservative like Romney or Gingrich, expect Paul to run on a third party ticket, and due to the reasons outlined above, expect him to win a higher percentage of the overall vote than Perot did in the 1992 general election (greater than 18.9%). That would undoubtedly reelect Obama.

Is that what you want?

Save your outrage and answer instead this question: given your less than courteous opinion of Paul, how can you possibly explain your sense of entitlement toward his supporters and their votes? Answer: you can’t.

Besides, even if Ron Paul did not run third party, and even if he were to endorse the neoconservative Republican nominee, his supporters wouldn’t necessarily follow his lead. I know I wouldn’t.

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I would also like to add that he wins the gun control issue. He has consistently been pro-gun, no compromise whatsoever.

I declared war on them, and I now present a decisive victory.

2011-11-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sure y'all remember my massive rant objecting to a significant portion of the content of the "Patriot's History of the United States." Well, it got worse. Seriously.

First - blatant fabrications. I kid you not. They make several claims about the Confederate Constitution "externalizing" the costs of slaveholding by making non-slaveholders pay court expenses for fugitive slave cases. Problem. I have a copy of said Confederate Constitution, and the clause they rant about... doesn't exist. They made it up out of thin air. I checked and re-checked the CS Constitution, especially the areas relating to the judicial branch, and it wasn't there. I suspect most people don't keep a copy of the document, so the authors apparently rightly assumed that they could get away with such deception. Here's a very convenient copy of the Confederate Constitution - make sure you read the key at the top.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/csconstitution.htm

Second - citing a forgery. This really ticked me off. They claim that President Davis, in response to the Emancipation Proclamation, unilaterally declared on January 5, 1863 that as of Feb. 22, 1863, all free blacks within the Confederacy would be enslaved. Problem - he never made the speech. Here's a copy of his actual January 5, 1863 speech. It's actually a pretty good speech, in my opinion.

http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=94

And here's a copy (courtesy of Harper's Weekly) of his actual response to the Emancipation Proclamation. Racist? Yup, but what do you expect from a slaveholder? But unilaterally declaring all free blacks to be slaves? Uh, nope.

JEFF DAVIS'S MESSAGE.
Jeff Davis has issued his annual Message to the rebel Congress. He speaks of the early determination of England, France, and other European Powers to confine themselves to recognizing the self-evident fact of the existence of a strict neutrality during the progress of the war, but draws from this the conclusion that their course of action was but an actual decision against the South, and in favor of the Union, at the same time tending to prolong hostilities. He denounces the conduct of the Union armies as atrocious and cruel.

HIS VIEWS OF THE PROCLAMATION.
In relation to President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, he says he may well leave it to the instincts of that common humanity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellow-men of all countries to pass judgment on a measure of which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere, are doomed to extermination; while, at the same time, they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation to abstain from violence, unless in necessary self-defense. Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable massacre recorded in the history of guilty man is tinctured by a profound sentiment for the impotent rage which it discloses. As far as regards the action of this Government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, I confine myself to informing you that I shall, unless in your wisdom you deem some other course more expedient, deliver to the several State authorities all commissioned officers of the United States that may hereafter be captured by our forces in any of the States embraced in the proclamation, that they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those States, providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in exciting servile insurrections. In its political aspect this measure possesses great signification, and to it in this light I invite your attention. It affords to our people the complete and crowning proof of the true nature of the designs of the party which elevated to power the present occupant of the Presidential chair at Washington, and which sought to conceal its purposes by every variety of artful grace, and by the perfidious use of the most solemn and repeated pledges on every practicable occasion. He gives extracts from President Lincoln's inaugural, and comments fully upon the subsequent acts by Congress and the Administration.

"Fast and Furious" and more ranting about gun control

2011-10-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

This is freaking ridiculous. Are you a law-abiding citizen who's never committed a crime? Sure, you can get automatic weapons if you have more money than is good for you and go through a TON of paperwork and registration, in addition to a $200 tax. Are you a member of a Mexican drug cartel? Congrats, the BATF will sell you automatic rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers! I can't help but suspect that the regulation-happy BATF may be trying to manufacture reasons for gun control. Don't you dare object to them or they'll spew flammable tear gas into your home, cause an explosion, and then say you did it. Or they'll make up a charge, then have a gullible jury convict you.

They call Fast and Furious a "sting," but as far as I can tell, the people shot with these guns are just as dead as with any others. Nice job, you jackbooted thugs - sorry, benevolent protectors.

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Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer's home
Guns illegally purchased under the ATF operation were found in April hidden in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, court records show.

This arsenal uncovered by police in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in April turned out to include weapons from the ATF's ill-fated Fast and Furious operation. (Associated Press)

October 8, 2011, 8:46 p.m.
Reporting from Washington— High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The smugglers' tactics — quickly moving the weapons far from ATF agents in southern Arizona, where it had been assumed they would circulate — vividly demonstrate that what had been viewed as a local problem was much larger. Six other Fast and Furious guns destined for El Paso were recovered in Columbus, N.M.

"These Fast and Furious guns were going to Sinaloans, and they are killing everyone down there," said one knowledgeable U.S. government source, who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. "But that's only how many we know came through Texas. Hundreds more had to get through."

Torres Marrufo, also known as "the Jaguar," has been identified by U.S. authorities as the enforcer for Sinaloa cartel chieftain Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. The Fast and Furious weapons were found at one of Torres Marrufo's homes April 30 when Mexican police inspected the property. It was unoccupied but "showed signs of recent activity," they said.

The basement had been converted into a gym with a wall covered with built-in mirrors. Behind the mirrors they found a hidden room with the Fast and Furious weapons and dozens more, including an antiaircraft machine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.

"We have seized the most important cache of weapons in the history of Ciudad Juarez," Chihuahua state Gov. Cesar Duarte said at the time, though he did not know that many of the weapons came from the U.S. and Fast and Furious.

Torres Marrufo has been indicted in El Paso, but authorities have been unable to locate and arrest him.

In the U.S., intelligence officials consider the Sinaloa cartel the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. Weekly reports from U.S. intelligence authorities to the Justice Department in the summer of 2010, at the height of Fast and Furious, warned about the proliferation of guns reaching the Sinaloa cartel.

Under Fast and Furious, begun in fall 2009, the ATF allowed illegal buyers to walk away with weapons in the hope that agents in Phoenix could track the guns and arrest cartel leaders.

Three months into the program, El Paso began to emerge as a hub, perhaps the central location, for Fast and Furious weapons. On Jan. 13, 2010, El Paso police stumbled upon 40 firearms after following a suspicious dark blue Volkswagen Jetta that backed into a garage at a local residence, according to federal court records.

Alberto Sandoval told authorities he acquired the weapons three days after they were purchased from someone he knew only as "Rudy." He said he was paid $1,000 to store the guns and "knew the firearms were going to Mexico."

Sandoval pleaded guilty in federal court in El Paso and was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison. A month later, on Dec. 17, 2010, he escaped from a minimum-security prison in Tucson; officials believe he fled to Mexico.

Two others, Ivan Chavira and Edgar Ivan Galvan, were subsequently charged in that gun recovery, along with the recovery of 20 Fast and Furious weapons on April 7, 2010, in El Paso. Those guns also were discovered by chance by local authorities, and ATF trace records show that the weapons were purchased in Phoenix two weeks before they were found in El Paso.

Chavira and Galvan pleaded guilty. Chavira received eight years in prison; Galvan is to be sentenced next month.

Gun Control - it's not about guns, it's about CONTROL

2011-10-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of reading on gun control, lately, and I noticed something. Both sides were arguing the purely practical aspect - guns cause crime/guns prevent crime.

Typical pro-gun position - guns are good because they help prevent crime, and allow people to protect themselves, in addition to hunting and sport. Military rifles are fine, since they're useful in self-defense.

Typical anti-gun position - guns are BAD, but it's okay to have them if they're kept locked away, that way they can't be used in crimes. Definitely no military rifles, since they have no practical purpose.

Congratulations, different portions of the population. Both of you are COMPLETELY missing the point. The Second Amendment protects a right, and whether or not guns increase or decrease crimes, it is my right to own them. The right to bear arms has nothing to do with hunting, and little to do with personal safety. The purpose of this right is to be able to resist attacks on liberty.

The right to bear arms is there to allow us to protect ourselves FROM OUR OWN GOVERNMENT. Anti-gun guys, I understand your intentions. But when the government tries to restrict guns, it is NOT to protect people - it is to solidify its CONTROL of the people. Pro-gun guys, once again I understand your intentions. But stop arguing from the crime-related position. Seriously. Start arguing from the position of the fact that IT IS A RIGHT, and the government CANNOT take that right away. All else is a red herring.

Now, if the government is so bent on controlling us, WHY is it not restricting our right to free speech and instead focusing on the right to bear arms? Well, first of all, it is actually trying - the PATRIOT Act, for example. Second, they are a LOT more worried about people with guns than people with blogs. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns - outlaws and the government. Personally, I'm a LOT more concerned about the government. The evil Chairman Mao of China acknowledged that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Thus, for Communists, only the government should have guns - can't risk the people having political power! Take a quick look how that worked out. Thomas Jefferson, arguably the most important of the Founders, stated that "No free man shall be debarred the use of arms." Alexander Hamilton and James Madison made it abundantly clear in the Federalist Papers that the right to bear arms is for protection against possible usurpations of power by the Feds.

In short, the REAL question with "gun control" is purely about control. Do the people control the government, or does the government control the people? "Practical" guns are all well and good, but good luck defending your freedom with a shotgun and a pistol, if it ever comes to that. Military rifles are easily targeted by the gun control lobby, since they have relatively little use for hunting, and pistols or shotguns do fine for personal defense. But they are arguably the most important category of guns to allow the people to own! Take a look at what every military on the planet uses - military rifles. The US uses the M-16. The Russians use the AK-whatever-number-is-preferred-at-the-moment. Either one is superior in almost every way to "practical" guns like bolt-action rifles, shotguns, and handguns when it comes to warfare - the exception being that bolt rifles tend to have ridiculous range and power, making spectacular sniper rifles. Military guns have higher capacity, greater versatility, a MUCH higher rate-of-fire, faster reloads, and tend to be better for combat generally. They're also a heck of a lot scarier looking than "practical" guns.

When the government wants to ban military ("assault") weapons, they are NOT trying to protect you. They are trying to eliminate your ability to resist.

Can we say, "Media bias?"

2011-09-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you're following the Republican debates, you know that the two top candidates are Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, right? Wrong. Dr. Ron Paul, according to polls, is in the top two - in fact, according to a Yahoo poll, he won the recent debate. Of course, to look at the title of the article, you'd never guess that he existed. The following is the actual title of the Yahoo article:

Poll: Romney leads New Hampshire, Huntsman in third, Perry in fourth

Notice anything really, REALLY weird about that title? Romney first, Huntsman third, Perry fourth. I could have sworn that there was a number called "two." Sadly, them not including the runner-up in the title doesn't surprise me. Know why? Because Dr. Paul was number two, and the media insists that he not exist. The media has declared him to be a "non-person" in a way strikingly similar to the Soviet Union.

The article gives him ONE SENTENCE, devoting much more time to Perry, the Bush rerun, even though he placed fourth. Heck, it devotes plenty of time to all of the top four EXCEPT Ron Paul. Here's the article if you're wondering: http://news.yahoo.com/poll-romney-leads-hampshire-huntsman-third-perry-fourth-150212964.html

Ron Paul MUST win the Republican nomination. If he does not, it will prove that there is NO hope for this country, and our only option left is taking it back from the bottom up.

All you libertarians who don't vote on some principle or another - I beg you, vote just this one time. Get Ron Paul in office, and maybe we can finally get some REAL change for freedom. Believe it or not, it IS possible to shrink government. Jefferson did it in 1800. If Ron Paul wins, this would literally be the single most important and revolutionary election in over two hundred years. If not? It'll be more of the same, with the next president advancing us ever more rapidly to our inevitable destruction. More war, more taxes, more regulation, and less freedom. That's the inevitable result of another business-as-usual election

The absurd myth of macroevolution

2011-08-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

I was just read the book, "Now, That's a Good Question!" by R.C. Sproul, and a certain quote inspired me to finally get back to this blog and post this. Sproul described macroevolution as "one of the most unsubstantiated myths I've ever seen perpetuated in academic circles."

Here's the thing - Darwinists have tons of evidence showing that a degree of evolution can happen. That's basically a confirmed fact. Just look at dogs. Wolves, wild dogs, coyotes, foxes and domestic dogs all probably share a common ancestor. The same probably goes for a lot of bear species and felines, among others. However, that's microevolution, not the all-encompassing, life-from-one-cell macroevolution that Darwinists believe in.

So, you ask one of them to show you evidence. They'll come up with all kinds of things supposedly showing how it can happen. It all sounds very convincing. Here's the problem: showing that it "can" happen does not prove to any degree that it "has" happened. So where's their evidence that it HAS happened?

Nowhere.

It's not here.

It cannot be found.

It doesn't exist.

Proof that macroevolution happened exists the same way unicorns and fairies exist - in people's imaginations.

In other words, they expect reasonable people to accept that something happened against all odds that they have ZERO evidence for. They do not have a tape of matter appearing from nothing, or a primitive bacterium being spontaneously generated from chemical goo. Even according to atheists, the odds of such things happening are infinitesimally small.

First, we must assume that all matter in the universe appeared out of NOWHERE. We must then accept that this tiny ball of matter exploded and formed the entire universe, that some of that matter formed a spiral galaxy, and in that galaxy was formed a star just the right size, with eight planets at just the right size and positions to promote life on the third of them - Earth.

We must also convince ourselves that a planet-sized object then rammed into Earth, scattering enough debri to form a perfectly-sized moon that causes tides required for life in the oceans.

As if that's not impossible enough, we're then expected to believe that on this perfectly-sized planet there is just enough oxygen to promote life, but not enough that said life would spontaneously burst into flames. Next, supposedly, chemical goo somehow assembled itself into a fully-functioning reproducing, feeding, reacting proto-bacterium, which then, via mutations and natural selection, changed over eons into jellyfish, eels, dinosaurs, crocodiles, hamsters, trees, algae, eagles, and people.

Interesting thing - the odds of even ONE of these things happening are unbelievably small. Suddenly God doesn't sound so ridiculous, does He? The modern Darwinist flat out tell us that we should ignore our common sense and believe that all this happened. Why? What could POSSIBLY make the above absurdity ANY more plausible than the Bible's account? Especially considering that the Bible, over and over again, is being proven right, and even Richard Dawkins at least acknowledges that nature "overwhelmingly impresses us with the illusion of design." (FYI - a certain atheist I have debated claimed I was taking that out of context. I am not. I clearly included the word illusion, and my point still stands. Dawkins admits that nature looks designed, and we must convince ourselves that it is not.)

Just for kicks, here's an issue with biological evolution that throws it down for good. It can't happen. There is no way for organisms to gain genetic information. Mutations can alter or destroy genetic information, but it can't create new information. Oops. I just wrote a paragraph that kicks the legs out from under the current scientific paradigm.

For the record - I truly respect Charles Darwin as a scientist. He was intelligent, honest, and more than willing to acknowledge gaps in his theory - which is much more than can be said for those so-called "scientists" who blatantly say that they will only accept evidence that supports Darwinism. Did he take it back? No, because at his death it still seemed perfectly reasonable. A hundred years of science, though, and it has not held up. Darwin would have acknowledged this if he had been alive to see it.

This. Means. WAR.

2011-05-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have recently had the immense displeasure of reading Challenge III's history textbook, A Patriot's History of the United States. The title should give a lot away about the book - that, and the fact that it's been endorsed by Glenn Beck. I have been writing down the major historical errors I've found in first third of the book, and I will address them here.

This is gonna be a loooong post.

First off - they refer to Northern colonies as "non-slaveholding" and Southern ones as slaveholding. Minor problem - the colonies all had slaves in 1763, the year that was being discussed. Oops.

Moving forward thirty or so years, we come to the great Adams/Hamilton vs Jefferson/Madison years. The guys who wrote this book defend Adams and the Federalists to a ludicrous degree. Remember the Alien and Sedition Acts? The latter of the two was a blatant violation of the right to free speech and freedom of the press as protected by the First Amendment. The Patriot's History guys, however, say it was "arguably" unconstitional. Arguably? REALLY? That's just pathetic.

Throughout the book so far, the authors repeatedly associate states' rights with racism and attack the doctrine of nullification, never mind that it was and is a critical check on the government's power.

They also defend the position that a president can unilaterally declare preemptive war by citing an incident in which President Jefferson dispatched troops to the Barbary States. Minor problem - the Barbary States had declared war first (so much for "preemptive"), and Mr. Jefferson consistently sought Congressional authorization. There goes "unilateral."

It just gets better, though! According to these poor deluded fellows, the "necessary and proper" clause allows Congress to do pretty much anything. Unfortunately for them, it also states that said "necessary and proper" laws must be made within the Constitution's limits.

Now the REAL fun begins - the "crisis of union" in their words. They EXPLICITLY call secession treason, forgetting that the colonies seceded from the British Empire. I can only assume that this was treason as well. In reality, Constitutionally speaking, using force against a seceding state is the real act of treason. They also fail to mention the fact that Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, John Adams, James Madison, and others explicitly or implicitly stated that secession was a necessary means to secure liberty.

Oh yeah, and a certain Illinois lawyer said the same thing.

Yes, I am referring to Abraham Lincoln. When he came into the picture, this book got a LOT more annoying. My gosh. This is one of most embarrassing Lincoln-worship sessions I have ever read. They attempt to portray him as a champion of black rights. This is new information to me, 'cause last time I checked, he explicitly said that whites were superior, and was a member of the Colonization Society, the purpose of said Society being to free the slaves - then boot them to Africa and Central America. They then claim that in the 1860 election, only Abe stood "squarely against slavery." I nearly gagged when I read that. I'm sorry, but the authors must have come from a different universe, because in this one, Lincoln explicitly stated that he had no intentions to interfere with Southern slavery, and he also supported the Corwin Amendment, which would have made slavery permanent and literally untouchable by the government. Oh, and there was an Illinois law prohibiting the immigration of blacks - guess who voted for it?

As far as Lincoln's Republican party buddies go, the Patriot's History kooks portray them as egalitarian, black-rights free-soil saints. Eh, not so much. They were the same ones who voted along with Lincoln to prohibit black immigration to their states. Their free soil position was not so much a moral opposition to slavery as it was an overt attempt to reserve the territories for free WHITE labor.

To top it all off, in reference to the secession conventions they say, "Given that the South was bent on violating the Constitution no matter what..."

I hope for the authors' safety that they never say something that stupid in front of me.

After 10 long years...

2011-05-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

Osama Bin Laden is finally dead. This is undeniably a good thing. But before we get caught up in the excitement caused by killing the Big Bad, we should do two things.

Number one - realize that a monster has been killed. A monster that the United States' government created in the first place. Keep that in mind.

Number two - we need to ask ourselves, "At what price did we stop this man?"

Thousands of United States soldiers dead...

...Iraq and Afghanistan still war-torn and occupied...

...and to top it all off, infuriated radical Muslims.

Obviously, it is a good thing that bin Laden was brought to justice. But always keep in mind the cost, and the fact that were it not for the United States arming him during the Cold War, he would never have become a threat.

Leigh Bortons interviews Tom Woods

2011-04-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering who Leigh Bortons is, she's basically the one who started Classical Conversations, the homeschooling method we use. In the following interview, she and THOMAS E. WOODS discuss a number of economic and political issues. I found it very interesting.

Listen to internet radio with 1 Smart Mama on Blog Talk Radio

Are all religions basically the same?

2011-04-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

I know, I typically don't talk about religion. If I haven't offended you with my politics, odds are I'll now offend you in some other way. Sorry, but I've been running into the "all religions are the same" BS quite a bit recently, and feel the need to address it. Oops, just gave away my position. Now I shall elaborate.

One of the most insidious versions of this one is the claim that the God of Christianity and Islam are the same. They most certainly are NOT. The Bible makes it clear that God is Three and One. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Muslims consider this polytheism - Allah is NOT a triune god. Already, we've plainly distinguished that Islam and Christianity are incompatible. Also, Christians believe that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God, sent to die for our sins. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, but nothing more.

The rest of the "all religions are basically the same" argument falls apart. Islam is one of the religions that is most easily compared to Christianity. Buddhism? It teaches that there is no God. Hinduism has MANY gods. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity, and believe that Jesus was in fact the archangel Michael.

Jesus Himself said that He was the only way to Heaven, which makes Christianity 100% incompatible with other religions. There is only room for ONE religion to lead to eternal salvation, only room for ONE religion to be true.

That religion is Christianity. It's not a matter of personal taste, as liberals like to make it out to be. It's a matter of life and death.

More Obama brilliance

2011-03-24T16:56:00.001-07:00

OH MY GOSH! A president didn't tell the truth! This is completely and totally shocking and unexpected!

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Obama: No U.S. Forces on the Ground in Libya… Except For Those Guys.

By Jim Geraghty

NPR: “President Obama said Wednesday it was ‘absolutely’ out of the question that U.S. ground forces would be used in Libya.”

How would the president describe the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit? There is no such thing as a purely air-based combat mission; planes have problems and pilots end up on the ground, and then U.S. forces have to end up on the ground, hopefully briefly, to rescue them and bring them home safely. Ask Scott O’Grady how much time you can spend on the ground while patrolling a no-fly zone.

Details on the recent rescue:

The Kearsarge then sent up two MV-22 Ospreys carrying Marine rescue teams. As they were en route, the Harriers dropped two laser-guided bombs near the crash site, apparently to keep Libyans on the ground from approaching the pilot.

With additional helicopters hovering overhead for security, one of the Ospreys landed and picked up the pilot. He was then taken aboard the Kearsarge.

The weapons systems officer was recovered by what U.S. officials described as Libyan opposition forces. He is safe, officials have said.

There are about 2,200 Marines off the shore of Libya right now.

UPDATE: God bless Matt Drudge and the Drudge Report.

With the sudden influx of attention, permit me to further clarify the original point of this post: President Obama’s tendency to speak in broad, sweeping terms that are not accurate (see Tim Carney for more illustrations of this) and to underline the folly of the notion, implied by much of this administration’s rhetoric, that any military action can be quick, clean, easy, or minimal risk. Thankfully, the rescue of the downed pilots earlier this week went off without a hitch, and God willing, any future rescues will end successfully and with minimal contact with the enemy. But that’s up to chance; Operation Eagle Claw and the Battle of Mogadishu demonstrate that there’s no such thing as a simple rescue mission. At some point, the U.S. may need many “boots on the ground,” despite repeated, broadly-worded assurances from the president and commanding officers that such a scenario will not occur.

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Know what's REALLY sad? This does not surprise me in the least, especially considering how well Obama's previous promises have been fulfilled. Let's take a quick look at a few, shall we?

Getting the troops out of Iraq/Afghanistan - Well, that worked out well. And now we're in Libya.

Closing Guantanamo - It's still there, Mr. President.

Stopping the Bush regime's trampling of civil liberties - Oops. That didn't work out as planned. Because Mr. Obama has continued.

Please do this - if a president makes a promise, prepare for the OPPOSITE of that promise.

Iraq... Afghanistan... Now Libya

2011-03-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

The UN has declared a no-fly zone. US units have launched Tomahawk missile strikes.

Great.

Peace-Prize winner O-bomb-a has gottent the US involved in a stupid war. Again. It is only a matter of time before air strikes turn into troops on the ground. Again. It's only a matter of time before we get involved in an endless war. Again. Odds are, we'll end up causing more problems than we solve. AGAIN.

I can't help but get the feeling that this has happened before. Oh, well. The President's approval ratings with the neocons should soar, and that's what really matters.

I'm sick of Obama. I'm sick of Congress. I'm sick of half-witted goons started idiotic wars that will accomplish NOTHING. I'm just plain sick of Amerika. I want America back!

The Tragedy in Japan and Nuclear Power

2011-03-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

I WOULD do a post on the actual disaster in Japan, but it would be a little late, and there are many, many better places to read about it. Instead, I am going to criticize media reporting. You may have noticed that for every report on the actual tragedy, there are two or three screaming "NUCLEAR MELTDOWN!!!" I can guarantee you, this will be turned into an anti-nuclear crusade, even if (like at Three Mile Island) nobody is actually harmed by the plants. A "meltdown," even if by some freak chance one happened, would not harm anyone except people stupid enought to be literally inside the plant itself. That's what happened with Chernobyl - the only people killed died INSIDE the plant, and nobody died from "fallout" - in fact, nobody was even harmed.

Now, one thing I've seen claimed is that uranium fuel rods are dangerous because they have such a long half-life. This is both true and a flat out lie. It IS true that uranium has an extremely long half-life, but that is what makes it SAFE, except in obscenely high amounts, by which I mean being literally surrounded by it. Half-life is the amount of time it takes for 50% of a radioactive compound to "decay" - that is, emit radiation and cease to be radioactive. When a compound emits a particle of radiation, it ceases to be that compound, and thus no longer emits radiation. Something with a short half-life, such as radon gas, is quite dangerous, because a LOT of radiation is emitted in a short time. On the other hand, if you take the same amount of uranium, it will take FAR longer to emit the same amount of radiation. So yes, it is radioactive longer, but it emits very little radiation.

Please, news outlets, stop with your ridiculous crusade against safe, clean, affordable power! In fact, stop taking tragedies and using them as an excuse to condemn those you disagree with.

Go, South Carolina!

2011-03-07T15:35:00.001-08:00

Lightbulb tyrants, tremble in fear! There are some legislators that are actually trying to get some good accomplished.

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SC State Reps Have More Than Their Heads Screwed on Properly
by Jerry McConnell

According to Robert Romano of NETRIGHTDAILY.com two State Representatives in South Carolina want to get their heads screwed on right by allowing the people of their state to be able to continue to screw incandescent light bulbs into the lighting fixtures in their homes in that state.

These two screwy, in the most commendable way, legislators Bill Sandifer and Dwight Loftis, have authored and submitted a bill that would allow for the manufacture and purchase of incandescent bulbs in South Carolina. As Romero points out, these bulbs are currently subject to a federal ban that begins to take effect in January, 2012, just a mere nine months from now.

NetRightDaily’s reporter Romano explained what motivated the two State Representatives Sandifer and Loftis as told by Bill Wilson, the President of Americans for Limited Government when he said they “are taking the lead in protecting the rights of South Carolina consumers, who don’t want the federal government telling them which light bulbs they must use.”

“The basic concept of the bill” according to State Rep. Bill Sandifer, Chairman of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, “is to allow the citizens of South Carolina to be able to continue to buy incandescent bulbs.”

“It is my strong belief that the feds have overstepped the Tenth Amendment, and now are venturing into telling us what kinds of lighting we can have in our homes,” Sandifer added.

“But how can the federal government ban light bulbs?’ asked Romano, “They are trying to use again as they have so often done, the Commerce Clause. But I have a real problem with Big Brother intruding in how I live in my home,” Sandifer declared.

Explaining what the bill does, Representative Loftis said “it provides for the option of an entity manufacturing these bulbs in South Carolina to be sold in South Carolina.”

Wilson explained, “since the bulbs would be made entirely in South Carolina and sold in South Carolina, the federal government has no power to regulate it under the Interstate Commerce Clause.” Romano’s report went on saying there would be more hearings in the subcommittee before coming to a final vote in the full committee. Chairman Sandifer was hopeful for a full house approval of the bill.

After regaining control of Congress in 2006 a piece of legislation passed by the Congressional majority of Democrats in 2007 called Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which requires that all general-purpose light bulbs be more energy efficient than the existing incandescent bulbs starting on January 1, 2012 on a graduated basis beginning with 100 watt bulbs and ending with 40 watt bulbs in 2014.

It seems like that legislation was enacted just this past year it is still so fresh in people’s minds along with the unpopularity of its requirements. Except for a few chronic worry-warts I know that would be happy to ban almost any activity we humans take for granted, just about everyone else I speak with would prefer to keep the old reliable bulb Thomas Edison brought to us over a century ago.

The “Greenies” as environmentalists are often known, might be happy with their coup of replacing incandescent with the compact fluorescent lamps but our modern day rival China is ecstatic over this new ruling, as they have gained the lion’s share of the market for CFLs as they are commonly known.

So the Democrats once again proved their leadership in moving jobs away from American citizens and blessing foreigners with their largesse, reminiscent of the job shift from American citizens to foreign illegal aliens for the sake of gaining more votes, illegal in many cases, right here at home.

So OK, maybe they’re better for us in terms of environmental issues; but much of the opposition to these bulbs do not agree with that assessment. And the cost factor is also being argued in some circles that the excessive extra cost can, in some instances, never be recovered through cheaper operating costs. Time will settle that issue.

But these new corkscrew looking bulbs may be MUCH more dangerous to our health and the environment as the heavy content of mercury poses long-term additional risks and the very costs of necessary burdensome methods of exact clean-up of broken bulbs is onerous, particularly indoors where nearly all of the breakage will be concentrated. Another time-will-tell issue. But can we wait to find out?

One more complaint with these bulbs is the inability to provide a dimmable bulb which is very popular in many households. It is believed that this will be worked out in due time; but as stated above, can we wait to find out?

Robert Romano furnished these closing remarks by Dwight Loftis, one of the South Carolina Representative authors of the bill who blasted the federal ban on incandescent light bulbs, saying, “On the one hand, the feds say we need to do something about cleaning up the environment, and on the other hand, they impose requirements that we use this particular light bulb that has hazards with the disposal of it.” The new fluorescent bulbs are laced with mercury, raising concerns over the costs of proper disposal and over mercury seepage back into the environment.

“All in all, it’s just something that the feds really I think have no business in regulating,” Loftis said, saying that the supposed cost savings from using the bulbs simply will not be there for consumers.”

I agree. Why in the world would we Americans want to mandate a foreign product of highly questionable merits, and of higher costs along with attendant loss of jobs going to other countries?

Are all those negatives worth seeing Democrats get more votes to perpetuate their terms in office? Good luck to the two South Carolina solons and may their zeal spread rapidly to other states if the Republicans in Congress can’t repeal this bad piece of legislation.

-------------------------------------------

What is this?! A sane statement by a politician? This is very, very good. If this passes, it will be VERY interesting to see how the Feds respond. Will they attempt to strike out at SC over lightbulbs? Or will they sit back and destroy their own credibility by being beaten by a State? I seriously hope it's the latter, simply because it's been ages since States' Rights have been effectively used to stop any government infringement.

Oh, one other thing. Hold me to this - unless it is literally impossible, I will make sure to post at least once a week on here. I am SO sorry for not keeping this blog updated with stuff on Egypt and the like.

(Late) Happy Birthday, Lincoln!

2011-02-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

America's first dictator was born 202 years and one day ago! In his honor, let's take a look at the results of his reign.

His legacy includes introducing the police state and martial law to America, as well as the tradition of declaring war under false pretenses. Without him, we may have actually stuck to the Constitution, and later presidents would not have a hero to justify their illegal actions. In fact, without him, the Confederate States of America just might still be a free nation, and slavery would have been abolished peacefully, as in every other country in the world, without 600,000 soldiers and countless civilians dead, without razing entire towns to the ground, without depriving innocents of much-needed medicines and supplies. Let us not forget, Lincoln single-handedly introduced the concept of the powerful executive.

Where would we be had he not happened? Well, we'd be much freer, the government would be far more sane, we would still keep within the Constitution to some degree, and the racial tensions resulting from Reconstruction would have been dramatically mitigated by a peaceful abolition of slavery. Presidents would have had no Great Hero to justify their obscene power grabs. The world would be a horrifying place indeed.

The United Police States of Amerika

2011-01-24T18:30:00.001-08:00

Nice. Superbowl 2011 gives us a gigantic show of force from our Benign and Almighty Protectors. Just read the article.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Robots, guns, horses highlight Super Bowl security demonstration
Parking lot A at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington was a bad guy's nightmare on Friday, as officers from 12 law enforcement agencies -- including the FBI, ATF and ICE -- showed off the equipment they will use to secure Cowboys Stadium on Super Bowl Sunday.

The event, billed as the Super Bowl XLV Joint Information Center Public Safety Media Day, drew everything from bomb dogs and robots to mounted patrol officers to haz-mat teams.

The coolest demonstration I saw was the Arlington Fire Department's bomb robot, which has a long official name but which I -- as a technology fan -- would like to call Awesome.

Arlington firefighters remotely helped the robot pick up a "suspicious backpack" and stuff it into a container that can withstand a pretty big bomb blast. (See short video below.)

The equipment will on site Super Bowl Sunday, just in case.

Special Agent Matthew Segedy, senior SWAT team leader for the Dallas field office of the FBI, had some high-powered weapons and sniper scopes on display. Segedy said FBI agents will be stationed inside Cowboys Stadium for the Super Bowl, in case of emergency.
He said agents from the Houston field office are helping out, just as Dallas agents helped out in 2004 when the Super Bowl was in Houston.

The Arlington Fire Department folks were also on site during the NBA All-Star Game at Cowboys Stadium and the World Series at Rangers Ballpark. (It's been a rather big year for sports in Arlington, huh?)

But Segedy said the FBI was not involved in those events because they were not at the same security threat level as a Super Bowl -- which is a Level 1 national security event.

--------------------------------------------------------------

And he calls it awesome. I call it creepy. The fact is, if a terrorist sneaks in with a bomb, all the snipers in the world won't do any good. In fact, come to think of it, what idiot would try to snipe an individual in such a crowded place?! Then there's the massive amounts of security personnel decked out like the United States' freaking Army. Personally, I'm not a football fan, but if I were, I sure wouldn't want to walk past a few rows of faceless paramilitary goons with riot shields and M-4s.

The Arizona Massacre

2011-01-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else noticed anything REALLY odd about the reporting on it? Every single article I've read on the subject from a major news outlet makes no mention of the fact that at least two of the people who stopped the shooter were armed. They felt confident in going after him because they had their guns with them, and one opened fire. Why no mention of this fact?

Another issue - "right-wing rhetoric" is constantly blamed for this guy's rampage. That makes perfect sense, right? After all, he made videos about the gold standard! Of course, they were also completely incoherent ramblings that made no degree of sense, and there's the minor fact that most of those who knew him described him as left-wing. One of his favorite books is the Communist Manifesto, not exactly a right-wing staple. His target was a "blue-dog" Democrat who is opposed to gun regulation. BUT HE MADE VIDEOS IN FAVOR OF THE GOLD STANDARD!!! Well, I'm convinced. Who else here is willing to bet that even if he had never heard Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin he still would have gone ballistic? He was a deranged lunatic, and most of those who knew him KNEW that he was dangerous and violent.

Even better, they're now wanting to ban 33-round magazines for handguns. The fact is, he would have gone on a rampage ANYWAY, even with standard 10-round mags. It's called "reloading" - it actually doesn't take that long with a Glock. Speaking of which, sales of the Glock 19 have skyrocketed. Get 'em while they're available - and legal.

Some thoughts on WikiLeaks

2011-01-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe that I haven't posted on this subject yet. We all know what the statists say - "WikiLeaks is a threat to national security! Julian Assange is a traitor!"

First of all, it is NOT a threat, in any way, to national security. The only thing that MIGHT be dangerous in some vague way are the documents listing "vital" locations across the world. They consist almost entirely of mines (palladium, cobalt, etc.) and undersea cables, with a few other locations that aren't in either category. My thoughts are:

#1: Just how do you expect terrorists to get to undersea cables?
#2: If terrorists thought strategically, most of these places would have been attacked already. Listing them isn't doing any damage.
#3: Terrorists DON'T think strategically. They want to kill as many people as possible, and visibly destroy as much as possible. Attacking a mine, no matter how important or how valuable, is not going to achieve the same effect on the public as bombing buildings, turning them into very visible ruins, which causes TERROR.

I'm also still curious as to how Assange could be a "traitor," considering that he's not a citizen of the United States.

Went shooting today

2010-12-29T15:34:00.001-08:00

Thanks to our friend Landon (who can be seen prominently dissing the AK-47 in the comments of my previous posts), my dad and I had the opportunity to shoot the living daylights out of paper targets with a wide variety of weapons. I'm just going to run down the list and give my impressions of each one.

#1: 9mm Glock. Excellent, once I figured out how to hold it properly so that it doesn't jam after every shot. Fun to shoot.

#2: .357 Ruger revolver, 6-inch barrel. We tried this one with both .38 Special and .357 magnum rounds. Three words describe this thing: Simple and awesome. The magnum rounds just felt good to shoot, though the .38 Special rounds were extremely fun, as well.

#3: Mossberg tactical shotgun - not sure of the model: It's a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun. Do I really need to say anything else?

#4: Double-barrel shotgun: There's not really a lot to say about it, except that I managed to screw up loading it.

#5: Romanian WASR-10 AK-47: The performance was absolutely astounding - the rifle fired every shot accurately and without fail, despite the cheap, low-quality ammo and magazines we used. A perfect assault rifle if ever there was one.

Okay, so that was a lie. It literally jammed every second or third shot, in the end becoming a makeshift bolt-action rifle that ejected every other bullet. It consistently failed in a number of ways, despite being in apparently good condition for an AK-47. I was baffled. Landon, on the spot, disassembled the gun and found that there was a teeny-tiny piece of metal sticking out. Sorry for the poor terminology, but I don't remember the term that was used. Anyway, he filed it off with his knife, and the last 6 shots went perfectly. I am going to look for an opportunity to shoot a higher-quality AK, as the Romanian WASR-10s are not especially well-made, being some of the cheapest on the market. It was fun when it worked, though.

#6: Mosin-Nagant: Aaahh, the original Soviet weapon. It has a nasty kick, but it's fun as heck to shoot. Bolt-action. I somehow managed to jam it, as well as scraping my hand 5 times with the bolt before realizing that I was doing it the wrong way.

#7: K98 Mauser: Moving on from Commies to Nazis. The Mosin had a nasty kick - this was worse, sounded like a cannon, and was even more awesome. I somehow managed to jam this bolt rifle as well, but not as badly. Didn't scrape my hand, either. If I'm not mistaken, the specific rifle we fired was made in 1944, but it worked splendidly when we used it.

#8: AR-15: Along with the M-4, the current weapon of choice for the US armed forces. A fine weapon in its own right, this particular rifle was, for lack of a better term, very fancy, having enough add-ons and features that it is, in fact, superior to the ARs issued to the US Army. It looks cool as heck, and is pretty scary, though not quite to the level of terrifying as the AK-47. Sorry, Landon. Humorously nicknamed the EBR - Evil Black Rifle. Had a slightly odd grip, but it was actually rather nice once I got used to it. Having actually FIRED it, it's earned some more respect from me.

#9: Ruger 10/22: Yeah, I know. Anticlimactic. But it was fun to shoot, and a nice, light, low-recoil breather after the shoulder-breaking Mauser, the rather jumpy AR-15, and the AK-47, the barrel of which was nearly flying after the first shot. The 10/22 also provided relief for our ears, which had nearly been split by the Mosin and Mauser, which I assure you are extremely loud, despite earplugs.

Altogether, it was a pretty awesome day, and I now have a little experience in the guns most hated by liberals - semi-auto handguns, AR-15s, and AK-47s. So thanks, Landon, for giving me the opportunity to try some real power rifles!

Best Truck Salesman EVER.

2010-11-19T17:41:00.001-08:00

Buy a truck, get a Kalashnikov. Does it get any better than that?

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Buy a Truck, Get a Free AK-47

AOL News (Nov. 15) -- A truck dealership in Florida is firing up sales with the promise of a rapid-fire machine gun.

Customers have been streaming into Nations Trucks in Sanford, near Orlando, purchasing two dozen vehicles since the sale campaign began on Veterans Day last week. Each new truck owner also walks out with a free AK-47.

"We've tripled our business," general sales manager Nick Ginetta told AOL News. "We knew it would be controversial, but it's been a phenomenal response."

An image of the semiautomatic rifle is taped to the showroom's window to lure shoppers.

Buyers receive a $400 voucher good for one Kalashnikov at Shoot Straight, a weapons dealer with several locations in the Sunshine State.

All prospective gun owners must meet state and federal gun-control laws, but Ginetta has still drawn fire from anti-gun activists and alarmed neighbors.

"I've had calls from mothers who say, 'You're giving my son a machine gun.' But once I explain exactly how it works, people are understanding," he said.

If drivers don't want to bear arms, Ginetta will apply the money to the price of the truck or give them cash back. But he said most people opted for the Romanian-made AK-47 model, famous for its durability in extreme environments.

Gun-control activists criticized the marketing ploy at Nations Trucks.

"These aren't deer rifles that he's giving away," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "He's saying here's a gun that bank robbers use."

There's been a bit of a backlash for introducing the promotion for a weapon manufactured by a Cold War enemy of the United States on Veterans Day.

"There are a lot of veterans that would like to take him up on that deal. I'm not one of them," Dana Rouch, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, told local news station Channel 13.

But Ginetta said the decision was strictly an economic one.

"They're so many made that the cost of the weapon is so cheap," Ginetta said. "We would have loved to offer an AR-15 made in this country, but the cost is tremendous."

American-made vehicles are the bread and butter of the dealership, he added.

A Missouri auto dealer also threw in a complimentary AK-47 to customers last year, Fox News reported.

The discount expires at the end of November.

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This is GREAT! More people get a great semi-auto weapon, the local economy improves, and the dealer gets more cash! What's not to love? Notice the hilarious cluelessness of the article. "Rapid-fire machine gun" they say. No, it's a semi-auto rifle. Notice the Brady Campaign guy's rant. "These aren't deer rifles" is what he says. Actually, they can be deer rifles. Very good ones, too. Roughly .30 caliber, very effecient at game-getting. Plus, ammo is cheap compared to other deer rounds. "Here's a gun that bank robbers use." So? Bank robbers also use knives, shotguns, Uzis, the occasional MP5 or AR-15, and a wide variety of handguns. What Mr. Gun Control is REALLY thinking is "Oh no! This is a Russian gun that looks scary and wet my pants! BANK ROBBERS!!!" It's big and scary, yes. But I know of a bunch of people who own these things and have never considered robbing a bank.

Anyway, I want one of these guns. Big, scary, reliable, relatively powerful, and cheap. Tough to beat.

Joe Biden's Apparent Election Strategy

2010-10-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

That is, open mouth, insert foot. This HAS to be the most inane, historically inaccurate statement EVER. Just read the article.

----------------------------------------------------

VPOTUS Joe Biden: Dems Will "Keep The Senate And Win The House" »
By Celeste Katz

Sorry for the delay -- had my hands a bit full with the meltdown at the NYC Board of Elections -- but here is the pool report filed by Newsday's Reid Epstein on Vice President Joe Biden's fundraising visit to Manhattan today:

.VPOTUS spoke Tuesday in a wood-paneled second-floor bar at the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South at a fundraiser for incumbent Democratic NY-1 Rep. Tim Bishop.

Wearing a blue suit and a bluer tie, VPOTUS reminded the 70 people who paid a minimum of $1,000 to hear VPOTUS's remarks and eat a menu of cold-cut sandwiches, salad and coffee that the nation’s economic malaise is the fault of the Bush Administration and is improving under Democratic stewardship.

“We’ve done a lot in the last 20 months,” VPOTUS said. “The economy has grown four quarters in a row, not what it needs to, but it’s growing, it’s not shrinking. Just since January, 860,000 private sector jobs, not nearly enough. But guess what? That’s more jobs than were created in the entire eight years of the Bush Administration. That’s factual.”

VPOTUS did not mention Bishop’s Republican opponent, businessman Randy Altschuler, by name, but predicted the federal government will grind to a halt if the House or Senate fall under GOP control. He predicted Democrats would “keep the Senate and win the House.”

“This is a real important election,” he said. “It’s more important than the one that got Barack and me elected, it literally is. Because there at least we would have continued to drift another four years, which would be bad. Now at least we’ve stopped the drift and are starting to head in the right direction. If we lose in the House or the Senate, we’re now in a position where we are in a stalemate and this thing is just going to go in reverse and our most powerful weapon will be a veto pen, and that’s bad.”

VPOTUS, who stood next to Bishop and grasped the four-term Democrat’s shoulder at several points during his remarks, waded into the audience as he discussed the nation’s need to compete with education and infrastructure investments made by nations like China and India, and Republican opposition to such spending.

“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States. … No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”

Bishop, who represents the East End of Long Island, touted VPOTUS as “an adopted son of Southampton” - Bishop’s hometown - who spent time this summer at a home to which Bishop, as a teenager, delivered groceries.

VPOTUS replied: “When I die, I want to be reborn in Southampton… You’re the only Democrat I know in Southampton, well, that’s not quite true.”

---------------------------------------------------------------

Well. Every great idea in the last 200 years, huh? So I guess the following ideas aren't great:

The airplane
Air conditioning
Google
Replaceable parts
Automation in industry
The telephone
Electricity
The MP3 player
Countless medical advances

And dozens upon dozens of other ideas that I was under the delusion of thinking were great and useful. What a goon. Now, notice his ignorant little statement about the trans-continental railroad. He says private industry wouldn't have done that for another 35 years. Apparently, we live in different universes, since in this universe one James Hill did it well within 35 years of it, completing it in 1893. Construction on the "official" Great Northern began in 1889 from existing railways. Construction of the preexisting tracks, of course, began long before that. Interesting fact - the famed transcontinental railway went BANKRUPT, and right after being completed had to be closed again due to crappy workmanship, causing it to easily be washed away by floods. Since when was that thing a "great idea?" The Great Northern out-competed all of its Federally-aided rivals, and was laid on far more effecient routes. Proof positive that great ideas typically are killed by government aid.

Christine O'Donnell's Non-Gaffe

2010-10-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

Just copy and paste the address; I can't get the link to work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/19/christine-odonnell-church-and-state-gaffe

Really, she's ignorant of the Constitution? I have a copy of the Constitution and its amendments, and I see nothing about so-called "separation of church and state." The First Amendment does nothing but prohibit Congress from establishing a national religion. In fact, the States used to have their own official religions.

The Left (actually, the Right, too, on occasion) cracks me up sometimes. They know nothing about the Constitution besides little sound bits they've been trained to spew, yet accuse Christine O'Donnell of being "ignorant" of the Constitution. In her "gaffe" she demonstrates a greater understanding of it than most Americans.

These people are nothing but smear artists, and if anyone's ignorant of the Constitution and its associated history, it's these Establishment mouthpieces. Yet, this is all that many Americans hear. Bring up nullification: "SLAVERY! RACISM!" Dare to bring up secession: "NEO-CONFEDERATE! RACIST!' Defending the Constitution? "IGNORANT! EXTREMIST!" Or how about militias? "WHITE SUPREMACISTS! NEO-NAZIS! TERRORISTS!" Ever seen a discussion between a libertarian and the media goons? It's all the good guys can do to say anything over extended versions of these sound bits. It's an embarrassment to the country. I don't know how anyone maintains any degree of respect for these people.

Thoughts on schooling

2010-10-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

I've recently been reading an excellent book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, by John Taylor Gatto, and it's gotten me thinking about what I've learned. As you probably know, I'm homeschooled, and I love it. Still, I've noticed something odd. The subjects that I know in-depth have not been a major part of our curriculum. Economics, for instance. Last year it was a part of our "official" school, but I knew most of what we learned already thanks to independent study.

Global warming, another subject I know fairly well, has not been in the curriculum at all. Almost all of my knowledge about it came from my own interests and spare time, and doing my own research. Then there's government. Again, it was a subject last year, but most of my knowledge about it was gained independently of the curriculum. Then, of course, there's Abraham Lincoln and the War for Southern Independence. That has never been a subject, but it's my specialty.

I'm not trying to bash our curriculum - I think it's great - but I can't help but notice that my best areas are not taught primarily in "school." This actually, as pointed out by Gatto, is the case with most successful people, whether statesmen or businessmen. School might be a good foundation depending on the curriculum, but it WILL NOT lead to success. Education is the key, not schooling, and there is a difference. What I've come to believe is that education is rarely provided by a school curriculum, rather it is provided by one's own studies and experiences. In fact, from what I can tell, most schools, especially public, are actually designed to SUPPRESS education, and instead create good, pliable, uncomplaining citizens. It's a propaganda machine. I, for one, am glad that we still have the freedom to homeschool!

S - 510 Terror

2010-10-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long. I'll try to post more regularly after this. However, this article from Lew Rockwell demands to be posted here. If you doubted that things are going DRAMATICALLY downhill, you won't after this.

S. 510: 12 Reasons Why the Food Safety Bill From Hell Could Be Very Dangerous for the U.S. Economy
Economic Collapse Blog

As you read this, there is a bill before the U.S. Senate that has the potential to change the U.S. food industry more than any other law ever passed by the U.S. Congress. In the name of "food safety", the U.S. government would be given an iron grip over the production, transportation and sale of all food in the United States. Hordes of small food producers and organic farmers could potentially be put out of business. If this bill becomes law, the freedom to grow what you want, eat what you want and to share food from your gardens with your neighbors could be greatly curtailed. It would give the FDA unprecedented discretion to regulate U.S. food production. A version of this bill was already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last summer, and now S. 510, also known as the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, is in front of the U.S. Senate and it is expected to pass easily.

Because of how vaguely it is written and because of how much discretion it gives to the FDA, it is potentially a very, very dangerous law.

So who is actually in favor of it?

Well, big food corporations and big agriculture are actually very much in favor of this bill.

Why?

Is it because they are so concerned about food safety?

No.

In fact, virtually every major case of food contamination in recent U.S. history has come from large-scale industrial agriculture or large-scale industrial food production.

The real reason why they are backing S. 510 is because it will devastate their primary competition – small food producers and organic farmers.

In recent years, the demand for organic food has skyrocketed as the American people have learned the truth about how our food is actually made. Big agriculture and the giant food producers are losing profits as Americans increasingly vote with their wallets.

So now the food giants are using "food safety" as a way to get market share back. It is an open secret that many of those involved in drafting this bill and in pushing it through Congress have ties to food industry giants.

Thousands of small food producers and organic farmers will have their very existence threatened by this bill. It imposes a bureaucratic nightmare on all food producers that the big corporations will be able to handle easily but that will cripple much smaller operations.

Already, many farmers can see the writing on the wall. One small farmer recently described the mood among her fellow small farmers to the Wall Street Journal....

"I know people who have been small farmers for 25 to 30 years who are looking to get out of the business because food safety is becoming so alarmist."

But the bureaucratic nightmare is just the tip of the iceberg. To get an idea of just how dangerous S. 510 could potentially be to the already staggering U.S. economy, just check out the following quote from one opponent of this bill....

"If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God."

~ Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistle blower

It would be hard to understate how dangerous this bill potentially could be. This bill gives the FDA the ability to exercise a ton of discretion. The FDA could end up exercising that discretion in a very reasonable way, or they could use it to shut down small food producers left and right.

When it comes to S. 510, the question that you need to ask yourself is this....

Do you trust the FDA?

If not, then there are some very real reasons for you to be concerned.

The following are 12 reasons why S. 510 could be absolutely disastrous for small food producers and for the U.S. economy....

#1 All food production facilities in the United States will be required to register with the U.S. government. No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it.

#2 Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.

#3 The FDA will hire an army of new inspectors to enforce all of the new provisions in the bill.

#4 The FDA will be mandated to conduct much more frequent inspections of food processing facilities.

#5 The fees and paperwork requirements will be ruinously expensive for small food producers and organic farms.

#6 S. 510 would place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major "contamination" or an "emergency". What exactly would constitute a "contamination" or an "emergency" is anyone's guess.

#7 S. 510 mandates that the FDA facilitate harmonization of American food laws with Codex Alimentarius.

#8 S. 510 imposes an annual registration fee on any facility that holds, processes, or manufactures food. It also includes draconian fines for paperwork infractions of up to $500,000 for a single offense. Just one penalty like that would drive a small food producer out of business.

#9 S. 510 would give the FDA tremendous discretion to regulate how crops are grown and how food is produced in the United States. Basically, small farmers and organic farmers will now be forced to farm exactly how the federal government tells them to. It is feared that the U.S. government would soon declare that many organic farming methods are "unsafe" and would outlaw them. In addition, there is the very real possibility that at some point the U.S. government could decide that the only "safe" seed for a particular crop is genetically modified seed and would require all farmers to use it.

#10 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to impose a quarantine on a specific geographic area. Basically the FDA would have the power to stop the movement of all food in an area where a "contamination" has been identified. This would be very close to being able to declare martial law.

#11 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken.

#12 Opponents of S. 510 believe that it would eliminate the right to clean and store seed. Therefore, control of the U.S. seed supply would be further centralized in the hands of Monsanto and other multinational corporations.

As mentioned above, this bill gives the FDA a ton of discretion. It is written very broadly and very vaguely. It opens the door for all kinds of abuses, but that doesn't mean that the FDA will behave unreasonably.

So should we trust the FDA?

Is there a viable future for small food producers and organic farmers in America?

Or is the handwriting already on the wall?

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

~ Thomas Jefferson

Lincoln's Humanitarianism at Work

2010-07-16T19:02:00.001-07:00

The first group of pictures in this montage are rather graphic, not to mention depressing, but it really gets the message through.

Long live the American Union. May its bayonets never grow dull.

Tea Partier Blasts the NAACP

2010-07-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

This man is a hero. He provided the best ever description of the Nation Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ever, in a highly quotable context.

Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams delivered a startling, and accurate, response when asked to tell racists that they are not welcome at the Tea Parties. He said, "Racists have their own movement. It's called the NAACP." He then described them, accurately, as "a bunch of old fossils looking to make a buck off skin color."

I never would have expected such a brutally frank comeback.

The Judge on the Oil Spill

2010-06-27T04:54:00.001-07:00

Here's Judge Andrew Napolitano blowing up the statists again.

By the way, how many Congressmen does it take to stop the oil spill?

Only three or four, if they're wedged in just right.

Somalian Gun Stupidity

2010-05-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

I just happened to find that video on Youtube. Did you hear what he said? The cause of anarchy was being able to buy a gun so easily. Right. He clearly has never been to the famously stable State of North Carolina. Anyone 18 or older can stroll to a gun show and buy an AK-47, M-16, Uzi, and any other non-explosive gun you can think of. I even saw a .50 caliber machine gun for sale. That's right, the big guns you put on tanks and armored cars. Also, genius guy, there's this country called Switzerland. Nearly everyone there has a military-grade assault rifle in their home. Last I checked, there wasn't violence in the streets.

The cause of Somalia's trouble is a combination of Islamic culture, an inept government, and other factors too numerous to name here.

So, Youtube guys, I appreciate your bravery walking into what amounts to a war zone, but you have it all wrong. Like the NRA says, guns don't kill people, people kill people. The Somalis would kill each other with swords and spears if they didn't have guns.

*EDIT

I'm sorry the video won't show all the way, just click it to watch on Youtube.

Oh, Goody...

2010-05-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

Tensions between North and South Korea are heightening. Apparently North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship, and the two Koreas are starting up with more irritating saber-rattling.

At this point, US citizens reading this will likely ask, "Does this really matter to the United States?" Well, no, but if there's war, we'll probably get involved anyway. Heck, why don't we just go ahead and simultaneously attack North Korea and Iran? It's glaringly obvious that Peace-Prize Obama is hungry for war with these two nations.

Some Thoughts on Iran and Nukes

2010-05-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

The guy above is a psycho dictator who is disarmingly likable in interviews. That's well established. However, this post is not about psychotic mini-Lincolns.

Alright, we've all heard how a nuclear Iran is BAD. In my opinion, a nuclear ANYONE is BAD, but that's another topic. The thing is, how do we know that the 2 tons of uranium that Iran has is for weapons? I somehow doubt that what borders on a third-world country has the technology to refine the stuff to weapon capacity. Anyway, here's what really bothers me. Tehran (Iran's capital) is on the verge of agreeing to ship half of its uranium to Turkey and have it refined into fuel rods for treating cancer patients. That would leave Iran just one ton of uranium, not exactly a huge stockpile. This is almost identical to a proposal by the Obama administration last year, but now they're up-in-arms about this. Huh? It seems glaringly obvious that the Peace-prize winner is hungry for war. It's funny, but there's nothing like a pointless war to boost your approval ratings as president.

The following is an excellent article by Pat Buchanan.

Take the Deal, Mr. President
by Patrick J. Buchanan

If Barack Obama is sincere in his policy of "no nukes in Iran – no war with Iran," he will halt this rude dismissal of the offer Tehran just made to ship half its stockpile of uranium to Turkey.

Consider what President Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah himself have just committed to do.

Iran will deliver 1,200 kilograms, well over a ton, of its 2-ton stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey. In return, Iran will receive, in a year, 120 kilograms of fuel rods for its U.S.-built reactor that produces medical isotopes for treating cancer patients.

Not only did Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Lula da Silva of Brazil put their prestige on the line by flying to Tehran, the deal they got is a near-exact replica of the deal Obama offered Iran eight months ago.

Why is President Obama slapping it away? Does he not want a deal? Has he already decided on the sanctions road that leads to war?

Has the War Party captured the Obama presidency?

If Iran ships the LEU to Turkey, she would be left with only enough low-enriched uranium for one test explosion. And as that LEU is under U.N. surveillance, America would have a long lead time to act if Iran began to convert the LEU to weapons grade.

How is the Iranian program then an "existential threat" to anyone?

Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons – America thousands.

Critics say Iran still refuses to shut down the centrifuges turning out low-grade uranium. But if Iran stops the centrifuges, she surrenders her last bargaining chip to get sanctions lifted.

Critics say Iran is trying to abort Hillary Clinton's campaign to have the Security Council impose a fourth round of sanctions. Undeniably true.

But if the purpose of sanctions is to force Iran to negotiate its nuclear program, they are already working. Tehran's latest offer represents real movement.

Critics say Iran will weasel out if we take up the deal. Perhaps. Internal opposition caused Ahmadinejad to back away from Obama's original offer, after he had indicated initial acceptance.

But, if so, Iran will be seen as duplicitous by Turkey and Brazil.

To the world today, the United States appears enraged that Iran is responding to America's own offer, that it is we who do not want a peaceful resolution, that we and the Israelis are as hell-bent on war and "regime change" in Iran as George W. Bush was on war and regime change in Iraq.

While the Brazilians and Turks have surely complicated Hillary's diplomacy, their motives are not necessarily sinister or malevolent.

Lula may be trying to one-up Obama and win a Nobel Prize as he leaves office. But what is wrong with that? Bill Clinton had a Nobel in mind when, in his final days, he went all-out for a Palestinian peace.

And Erdogan leads a country that cannot wish to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons. For Shia Iran shares a border with Sunni Turkey, and the two are rivals for influence in the Islamic world and Central Asia.

Moreover, an Iranian bomb would force Turkey to consider a Turkish bomb. Erdogan thus has every incentive to seek a resolution of this crisis, to keep Iran free of nuclear weapons, and avert a war between yet another neighbor and his NATO ally, the United States.

If Obama refuses to take the Iranian offer seriously, it would appear a sure sign that the War Party has taken him into camp and he is departing the negotiating track for the confrontation track that leads to war.

Months ago, Time's Tony Karon asked the relevant question: "What if Ahmadinejad is serious?"

And there are obvious reasons why he might want a deal.

First, Iran runs out of fuel this year for its reactor that produces medical isotopes. And despite Tehran's braggadocio about making fuel rods itself out of its existing pile of uranium, there is no evidence Tehran is technically capable of this.

Iranians dying of cancer because Ahmadinejad failed to get those fuel rods would create enmity toward him, as well as hatred of us for denying them to Iranian cancer patients.

Second, as the U.S. intelligence community yet contends, there is no hard evidence Iran has decided to go nuclear. For this would instantly put Iran in the nuclear gun sights of the United States and Israel. And what benefit would Shia and Persian Iran, half of whose population is non-Persian, gain by starting a nuclear arms race in a region that is predominantly Arab and Sunni?

Third, Ahmadinejad leads a nation that is united in insisting on all its rights under the Nonproliferation Treaty, including the right to enrich. But his nation is deeply divided over his regime's legitimacy after last June's flawed, if not fixed, election.

If the United States were to accept Iran's counter-offer, it would be a diplomatic coup for Ahmadinejad.

Maybe that's the problem. The powers that be don't really want a deal with Iran. They want Iran smashed.

May 21, 2010

The Gulf Oil Spill

2010-05-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. This is fairly old news. I'd like to share my thoughts on it, though. First, I've noticed a disturbing tendency in articles about the spill. It's almost always in this vein: "Oh, no, the animals! Oh, no, the environment! Oil is evil! Oh yeah, some people got killed in the blast, too. But the ANIMALS!" Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds this disturbing. Why is the massive economic damage ignored? Why are the lost lives drowned out by cries of "OH MY GOSH, THERE ARE PELICANS GETTING COVERED IN OIL!" You know, those are some pretty stupid pelicans. Question: Does anyone actually care about a bird that's stupid enough to land on an oil spill? Natural selection at work.

By the way, I wouldn't be too concerned about the fish. They will be almost completely unharmed by the spill. Also, NOAA estimates that one third of the spill has already evaporated. Go figure.

Something else that bothers me: I have now seen several people attacking our use of oil. Okay, great! Now go get rid of your car and halt all electricity use. Geez. Oh, yeah, and Obama and co., in their infinite wisdom, have decided to halt all future coastal drilling indefinitely. I usually don't say things like this, but only an economic moron would do that. Dang it, there's oil reserves abounding in Alaska, and likely some in Antarctica, but drilling is not permitted in those areas. In fact, I've read that there's oil off the Carolina coast. Wouldn't more drilling provied more, um, JOBS? Yeah, aren't we trying to fix the unemployment problem? Halting expansion of an industry ain't gonna do that.

By the way, global warming caused the Iceland eruption.

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Oh, wait, it's not Earth Day, it's Vladimir Lenin's birthday. Wait, no, it IS Earth Day. Hold on, it appears to be BOTH! Yes, folks, Earth Day is on Lenin's birthday. You know, Communist, mass-murderer, all that good stuff? If this wasn't so disturbing it would be hysterically funny. Apparently, when Earth Day was started, the ones who started it said, "What better day than Lenin's birthday, since capitalism destroys the environment?"

Riiiiiiight. And Communism has such a sterling track record. Frankly, I don't feel like going on a long rant (I know what you're thinking: "Drake doesn't feel like ranting?! Take cover, the world is ending!") so I'll just recommend a great book.

The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You To Know About-Because They Helped Cause Them

If you just want quick proof of socialism's environmental record, Google "Aral Sea Dried Up."

Defense of the Confederacy is racism

2010-04-11T13:57:00.000-07:00

At least according to this guy.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Southern Discomfort
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CloseLinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink By JON MEACHAM
Published: April 10, 2010
IN 1956, nearly a century after Fort Sumter, Robert Penn Warren went on assignment for Life magazine, traveling throughout the South after the Supreme Court’s school desegregation decisions. Racism was thick, hope thin. Progress, Warren reported, was going to take a while — a long while. “History, like nature, knows no jumps,” he wrote, “except the jump backward, maybe.”

Last week, Virginia’s governor, Robert McDonnell, jumped backward when he issued a proclamation recognizing April as Confederate History Month. In it he celebrated those “who fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth” and wrote of the importance of understanding “the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War.”

The governor originally chose not to mention slavery in the proclamation, saying he “focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.” It seems to follow that, at least for Mr. McDonnell, the plight of Virginia’s slaves does not rank among the most significant aspects of the war.

Advertently or not, Mr. McDonnell is working in a long and dispiriting tradition. Efforts to rehabilitate the Southern rebellion frequently come at moments of racial and social stress, and it is revealing that Virginia’s neo-Confederates are refighting the Civil War in 2010. Whitewashing the war is one way for the right — alienated, anxious and angry about the president, health care reform and all manner of threats, mostly imaginary — to express its unease with the Age of Obama, disguising hate as heritage.

If neo-Confederates are interested in history, let’s talk history. Since Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate symbols have tended to be more about white resistance to black advances than about commemoration. In the 1880s and 1890s, after fighting Reconstruction with terrorism and after the Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act, states began to legalize segregation. For white supremacists, iconography of the “Lost Cause” was central to their fight; Mississippi even grafted the Confederate battle emblem onto its state flag.

But after the Supreme Court allowed segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Jim Crow was basically secure. There was less need to rally the troops, and Confederate imagery became associated with the most extreme of the extreme: the Ku Klux Klan.

In the aftermath of World War II, however, the rebel flag and other Confederate symbolism resurfaced as the civil rights movement spread. In 1948, supporters of Strom Thurmond’s pro-segregation Dixiecrat ticket waved the battle flag at campaign stops.

Then came the school-integration rulings of the 1950s. Georgia changed its flag to include the battle emblem in 1956, and South Carolina hoisted the colors over its Capitol in 1962 as part of its centennial celebrations of the war.

As the sesquicentennial of Fort Sumter approaches in 2011, the enduring problem for neo-Confederates endures: anyone who seeks an Edenic Southern past in which the war was principally about states’ rights and not slavery is searching in vain, for the Confederacy and slavery are inextricably and forever linked.

That has not, however, stopped Lost Causers who supported Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation from trying to recast the war in more respectable terms. They would like what Lincoln called our “fiery trial” to be seen in a political, not a moral, light. If the slaves are erased from the picture, then what took place between Sumter and Appomattox is not about the fate of human chattel, or a battle between good and evil. It is, instead, more of an ancestral skirmish in the Reagan revolution, a contest between big and small government.

We cannot allow the story of the emancipation of a people and the expiation of America’s original sin to become fodder for conservative politicians playing to their right-wing base. That, to say the very least, is a jump backward we do not need.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Let's discuss this loopy idea. Let me address his, quite frankly, stupid next-to-last paragraph first. In this paragraph he acts as if the war was originally about the fate of the slaves. It was not, it was not, it was not. My gosh, how historically clueless can this man be? If it was actually about slavery somebody PLEASE explain the bizarre phenomena known as "border States." The most prominent of them is Kentucky, and these had slavery and yet sided with the dang Yankees. Also, how on earth do you explain the generals? Lee and Jackson (CSA) were both anti-slavery. Lee freed all his slaves, and Jackson helped run, illegally, a Sunday school for slaves, in which they taught them how to read. Yet these two sided with the Confederacy. Grant, meanwhile, owned slaves but fought for the freakin' Yanks.

Now let's look at his little talk about Confederate symbols. Let's see... Yes, the KKK does use Confederate imagery. They also use Christian imagery, but are clearly not representative of Christians as a whole. Mississipi putting the CSA flag into its State flag? It's called "defiance," buddy. Ever heard of it? Conquered people tend to not accept the conquerer. Also, he does not demonstrate -at all- that the flag-waving in the 60's had anything to do with racism. It was the War's centennial, for Heaven's sake. This "point" of his needs no further discussion.

Why don't we take a look at the history of Virginia and slavery now? After all, the article was inspired by its governor decreeing Confederate History Month. Let's look at the Old Dominion's past. *Ahem* Before Independence from the British Empire, the State made no less than TWENTY-EIGHT attempts to abolish the slave trade, but all were struck down by the Brits. Afterwards, in the mid-1800's, the Virginia legislature nearly passed a compensated emancipation measure, however Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion pretty much killed that. Earlier that century, Thomas Jefferson, a Virginian and a slave owner, actually created a plan for emancipation that -sadly- never made it to the legislature.

Heck, the Confederacy itself wasn't near as racist/slavery-oriented as this guy makes it out to be. Up to 8% of the Confederate Army at any given time was composed of blacks, including combat troops. I know of several stories about black Confederates, and I'll share one here. During one battle, a shotgun-wielding black Confederate cornered a Yankee cavalryman. The Yank wrote in his diary, "Here I was fighting to free this man [this was after the Emancipation Proclamation] and if I had made one false move on my horse, he would not have hesitated to blow my head off." Doesn't exactly fit the mold, does he? Also, the CS Constitution actually banned the slave trade. Sorta yanks the moral high ground from the North, doesn't it?

This entire post can be summed up in one sentence: This guy doesn't have the vaguest idea what he's talking about.

NASA gets a spanking of epic proportions

2010-03-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

Some British dude spent $747 and got excellent space photos and videos. NASA has been put to shame with its gigantonormous budget.

Article: http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-balloon-home-photos-space,0,5393976.story

Photos and video: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30721501@N05/collections/72157621244472915/

We're done for...

2010-03-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you already know about this, but the health "care" bill passed. It was a somewhat close vote, and good 'ol Virginia didn't let me down. To nobody's surprise, North Carolina had mostly "Yes" votes. Where does it all end?! Souther States voting FOR this horrible, unconstitutional expansion of government? What has the world come to? Curse the Radical Republicans and their Reconstruction. Oh well. The one positive thing about this is it will help bankrupt the Feds. Once they can no longer keep States restrained with funding, maybe we'll start seeing a secession movement getting somewhere. After all, nullification movements are making real progress, and the next step is a successful nullification of the HEALTH CARE BILL. This bill may have some unpleasant and unforeseen consequences for Washington... I can't remember which State, but one or more has a bill under consideration nullifying the health bill if it passed. Y'know, this bill is sorta like a kidney stone. It sits there for what seems like ages, but inevitably passes. Next up, I guess, is cap-and-trade.

Random Babbling About Various Random Things

2010-03-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in so long. This is just an assortment of things that I meant to post weeks ago. Brace yourself.

CHICKEN PICTURES!!!
These are our four-egg-a-day hens.

Here we have a chicken captivated by the camera...

...And here we have one terrified of it.

In other news, here's this funny video.

And here's something funny and completely random. I recently bought the video game, The Conduit, and it has lots of unintentional humor. First, as you play through one level, you discover a neuro-toxin that turns people into mind-controlled "puppets." The guy giving you orders, John Adams (yes, as in the 2nd president) tells you that if the toxin enters the water supply, it could infect the entire DC area. Think about that for a minute. DC area full of mindless puppets. Apparently the toxin has already gotten into the supply, just look at Congress. Second, you find out that Adams is evil and leads an organization called "The Trust," which is behind the toxin. Turns out, there IS an actual "Trust" in real life, except that it is nongovernmental and has to do with government schools. Funny, both "Trusts" involve manufacturing drones and mindless puppets.

Further randomness. What is my opinion on conspiracy theories? I don't think the government caused 9-11, but it is entirely possible that they ignored warnings about the attacks. Don't say our government is above that, it happened on December 7, 1941 as well. I believe that global warming is a HOAX. I think Abraham Lincoln engineered the Fort Sumter incident. I don't think HAARP is some kind of weather-altering superweapon. I don't believe in 2012 doomsday. I don't think the world is run by shapeshifting alien lizard people. I don't know anything about the JFK murder. Area 51 doesn't hold aliens. I don't have a clue why I listed all these conspiracies, except that I had been planning to do an in-depth analysis of some of them a few weeks ago. Sometime I'll go on a rant about the atom bomb.

Chris Matthews hates freedom

2010-02-10T14:46:00.000-08:00

He doesn't like states' rights. Of course, anyone who says "nullification" is a racist. Good grief.

Allow me to tear his amusingly silly arguments to pieces.

First off, he says "Who does she think she is, John Calhoun?" I wish! He'd come in handy right now.

Apparently, Martin Luther King Jr. is an authority on what nullification means. Riiiight. Hey, Matthews, all these "firearms freedom" acts are nullification. Last I checked, the second amendment wasn't racist. This guy is utterly clueless. So what if some freakshow racist governor said favorable things about nullification 40 FREAKIN' YEARS AGO?! That doesn't make it racist.

One of the other folks with him talks about the "racial aspect" of secession/nullification. What racial aspect? It has nothing to do with race at all! Unless you count the fact that for some obscure, probably silly reason certain people associate states' rights with racism even though it is purely political. The New England states in the 1800's favored secession. Last I checked, they didn't have slaves. Another claim was that if Democrats were running around screaming "SECESSION!" they would be denounced as anti-American. Wrong. It's called Vermont. Y'know, little obscure state in the Northeast, trying to secede, filled with, um, FLAMING LIBERALS. And yet, by most secessionists, they are admired despite their liberal ideas. And to top the insanity off, Matthews, a liberal and major Obama worshipper, comments that people who support secession/nullification think they are more American than people who want to abide by the Constitution. My response: Hey, genius, where ya been for the past 250 years? You're the one who is abusing the Constitution. Nullification and secession are specifically to GET RID OF unconstitutional laws. Frankly, secession is fully justified as of right now. Nullification is nice, but secession is better.

Finally, I would like to make one last statement. Hey, Matthews, ever heard of these neat little things called the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions? By Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. What? Never heard of 'em? How 'bout the Declaration of Independence? It's a document of secession, and arguably the most American document ever written. Stop making silly blanket statements. I'm not racist, nobody I know personally who supports secession is racist. Do your research next time.

As an amusing side note, somebody pointed out that one of the guys says that the Texas voters aren't a diverse crowd. He says this while on a show with two other white, liberal, middle aged guys. Go figure.

This is supposed to be a good thing...?

2010-02-08T11:34:00.000-08:00

Oh. My. Gosh. The freaks who made this commercial are portraying "green police" as a good thing. Yes, I called them freaks. That wasn't harsh enough. Fascist, Communist loopy environmentalist maniacs! There. I feel better now.

Yes, I am aware that this is a car commercial. That doesn't take away from the fact that they're freaks. Seriously, this is disturbing even as a joke. The fact that most Americans wouldn't be infuriated by the mere suggestion of "green police" scares the living daylights out of me.

Interview with Thomas Jefferson

2010-01-26T13:30:00.001-08:00

Good afternoon, everyone! For anybody from Challenge 1 who was wondering about those questions for Jefferson, this is what it was all about. After completing the time machine and bringing Jefferson up to speed on what has happened since the early 1800s, he has agreed to do this interview, in which he will answer YOUR questions! At least, I hope he will. Anyway, here he comes now. Welcome to the twenty-first century, Mr. Jefferson.

Me: Let's start off on a light note. Brent*, a friend from my homeschool group asks, "What do you think of the future?"

Jefferson: Well, I must say first of all that I am very impressed by the advances in medicine and other sciences. I find it hard to believe the incredible prosperity achieved in just over 200 years. However, I am quite shocked at the overbearing government.

Me: Well, we're the freest country around.

Jefferson: That's rather sad. We didn't fight the British just to install another form of dictatorship, you know. I am also greatly disturbed by the erosion of states' rights. After all, I myself was a proponent of nullification.

Me: Yes, it is really sad. If anyone today talks about states' rights, secession, or nullification you generally get a bunch of angry looks. But on to other questions. Mr. Bowman, my Challenge tutor, asks, "Did you really believe in the Constitution?"

Jefferson: No, not really. I made it perfectly clear that I am an "anti-Federalist," and opposed the Constitution, it being a great expansion of government power. What particularly concerned me were the "general welfare" and "necessary and proper" clauses.

Me: I'm thinking we should have listened to you.

Jefferson: Indeed. However, I still thought that the Constitution could effectively restrain the government, but it appears that I was wrong. I am greatly disturbed at the way so many sections of it have had their obvious meanings changed.

Me: I know, it's pathetic. Anyway, Alex, also from Challenge, asks, "What do you think about the deficit?"

Jefferson: It's horrifying.

Me: If I'm not mistaken, your administration went into debt from the Louisiana Purchase.

Jefferson: Yes, but I believe that would be far easier to pay off than several trillion dollars. Not to mention, that was a vast amount of territory and would help pay off the debt. Would you have turned it down?

Me: Of course not, that would be downright stupid. Now, Christian asks, "What is your religion?"

Jefferson: I consider myself a Christian.

Me: But you reject the divinity of Christ and question a number of biblical events, correct?

Jefferson: Correct.

Me: Then in today's terms, I think you would fall under the "Deist" category.

Jefferson: Well, definitions have certainly changed.

Me: True enough. Now then, Ashley-

Jefferson: Wait, who? You also never stated who "Christian" was.

Me: Both from my homeschool group. Anyway, Ashley asks, "If you could give any advice to President Obama, what would it be?"

Jefferson: Well, if it had to be short, I would say that it all boils down to this: Do not overstep your constitutional boundaries. The same could be said for Congress.

Me: I strongly agree. Now, the last viewer question is another from Mr. Bowman. He asks, "Why did you take a slave as your mistress?"

Jefferson: *Sighs* I cannot believe that this is still being brought up. That was a false accusation made in a newspaper in 1802 by some fellow named James Caller. In his accusation, he included absolutely no evidence, and later changed the details and the number of children supposedly produced. Besides, my moral standards are far above that.

Me: Then why didn't you reply to it publicly?

Jefferson: I felt that if I did, it would give the accusation more credibility than it deserved.

Me: That's interesting. Funny how the press will take a story and run with it. Now, I would like to know how you feel about the wars that America has been in since the War Between the States.

Jefferson: I think that the Second World War was, at least mostly, justified, but World War One and the "wars" after that were most certainly not! Particularly the Korean "war" and afterwards, since Congress didn't once actually declare war. The other wars, there is very little written about them.

Me: What do you think about the War Between the States, and which side would you have fought on?

Jefferson: Absolutely horrific. It's sad that the Union broke apart, but I would have fought for the Confederacy, of course. The precedents set in that war were truly chilling. Unilateral declaration of war, suspension of habeas corpus, and the worst by far, total war, all are disgusting, but unless I'm mistaken, they seem to have become rather common over the past century.

Me: Sadly, that is very true. Now, I would like to know your opinions on the Patriot Act, suspension of habeas corpus, and the war on terror.

Jefferson: The Patriot Act is completely unconstitutional. Congress's powers are enumerated for a reason. Article I, Section 8 lists, specifically, every single power Congress should have. Spying on its own citizens is not in there. As for the suspension of habeas corpus, the Constitution specifically says that it is permitted only in the cases of rebellion or invasion.

Me: But doesn't habeas corpus only apply to citizens?

Jefferson: Most certainly not! The writ of habeas corpus is a natural right that applies to every single human being. Just like everyone has the right to bear arms, to peaceably assemble, and many others, everyone has the right to due process. Unless, of course, they are an enemy soldier captured in combat. The idea that our rights only apply to our fellow citizens is, in essence, saying that the government gives the rights, instead of simply protecting them.

Me: Once again, agreed. Sadly, it appears that we are out of time. There were a number of other things I would have liked to ask you. It has been an honor talking with you, Mr. Jefferson.

Jefferson: Well, it has certainly been a pleasure talking to you as well. Hopefully this will correct your sloppy historians and politicians.

Me: *Laughs* Sloppy indeed! Well, folks, that's all for now. Next time I will be interviewing the "Father of the Country," George Washington! Feel free to leave your questions in the comments.

*Full names have been omitted.

About that paranoia mentioned earlier...

2010-01-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

This is how big tefillin are. Bomb, indeed.

I sense a high paranoia level...

2010-01-23T10:36:00.001-08:00

Seriously, I understand the fear of terrorism, but this is way over the top.

Jewish teen’s prayers spark jet security scare
Flight is diverted after religious item is mistaken for a bomb, police say

PHILADELPHIA - A Jewish teenager trying to pray on a New York-to-Kentucky flight caused a scare Thursday when he pulled out a set of small boxes containing holy scrolls, leading the captain to divert the flight to Philadelphia, where the commuter plane was greeted by police, bomb-sniffing dogs and federal agents.

The 17-year-old on US Airways Express Flight 3079 was using tefillin, a set of small boxes containing biblical passages that are attached to leather straps, Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore said.

When used in prayer, one box is strapped to the arm while the other box is placed on the head.

"It's something that the average person is not going to see very often, if ever," FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said.

The teen explained the ritual after being questioned by crew members of the flight, which had left LaGuardia Airport around 7:30 a.m. headed for Louisville and was operated by Chautauqua Airlines, authorities said.

Officials with the airline, however, said crew members "did not receive a clear response" when they talked with the teen, according to a statement issued by Republic Airways, which owns Chautauqua.

"Therefore, in the interest of everyone's safety, the crew decided to land in Philadelphia, where a more complete investigation and follow-up with authorities would be possible," the statement said.

The flight landed in Philadelphia about 9 a.m. without incident and was met by police, bomb-sniffing dogs and officials from the FBI and Transportation Security Administration.

‘They were more alarmed than we were’
Authorities said the plane was searched and passengers were questioned. The teen, who is from White Plains, N.Y., and was traveling with his 16-year-old sister, was very cooperative, Vanore said.

"They were more alarmed than we were," Vanore said.

Klaver said the teen and his sister were never in custody and were cleared to continue their travels.

The teen's grandmother, who was waiting for him at Louisville International Airport, said the early flight left no time to pray before leaving New York.

"He hadn't had the opportunity to pray, so that is why he did it on the plane," Frances Winchell said.

She said the episode was traumatic for the boy, whose mother requested that he not give interviews.

"But in any event," she added, "all's well that ends well, and maybe some good will come to the world because of it."

The teen, who belongs to the congregation Young Israel of White Plains, is "a brilliant student" from "the sweetest family," said Shmuel Greenberg, the synagogue's rabbi.

The morning prayer ritual is supposed to take place within a few hours of sunrise, so it's understandable that the teen was doing it on the plane, Greenberg said.

‘Aware of ignorance’
Binding the boxes of holy scrolls to the arm and head serves as "a reminder for the person that their actions during the day, and what they think about during the day, should be on a level of holiness and should inspire them to do productive, good things," he said.

The rabbi said he could see how someone unfamiliar with the tefillin could be alarmed.

"Security today is a serious issue. You can't become educated up in the air," Greenberg said. "I can definitely see a pilot or a crew that never saw it before in today's environment be very, very concerned."

Another rabbi, however, said tefillin have been used for thousands of years and he found it hard to believe no one recognized it. Benjamin Blech, an assistant professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York, said he found the incident "both humorous and outlandish" and called it a "wake-up call" for religious sensitivity.

"We should be aware of ignorance just as much as we should be aware of terrorism," he said.

Concerns about passengers carrying bombs have been heightened since a Nigerian man was accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight using explosives concealed in his pants on Christmas Day.

The Republic statement said the airline would use Thursday's event "to further strengthen our commitment to both security and customer service."

The flight was carrying 15 passengers and three crew members; travelers were rebooked on other flights, US Airways spokesman Morgan Durrant said.

My rifle

2010-01-14T13:53:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read that right. I have a brand new, old, .22 rifle. This is really old news to anybody who knows me, but I haven't thought to post about it until now. While at my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving, my grandpa gave me a rifle that his dad had given him. Needless to say, I was feeling very thankful! It's fairly old, but it shoots like it's brand new. Below are two pictures that were taken this morning.

In this one, sadly, I am not actually shooting anything. Does anyone know of any shooting ranges near me?

Whoo! First egg!!!

2010-01-14T13:37:00.001-08:00

FINALLY! Those dumb birds have finally started paying their rent. I was checking on their food this morning, and looked to see if we had any eggs. Before I looked closely, however, I thought, "Nope. No eggs again." Then I actually looked closely, and, amazingly, there was an egg sitting among the poo. Here are the photos of it after being cleaned off.

This is the photo I took.

This is the photo my sister took... She posed the egg.

National Geographic... Again

2010-01-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

Wow, National Geographic has lately been giving me lots to talk about. In this issue, there are two, no, three articles I want to discuss. First, there's a great article on bionics. It's really cool, the advances in artificial limbs. Second, there's the article on illegal wildlife trafficking. It goes through the usual, "People are -gasp- using endangered species! Even worse, they're making a profit! How horrible!" It then talks with dread about the possibility of raising tigers for profit, farming basically. Personally, I would prefer having a huge range in Africa for the tigers to breed in, but also allow adventurers and thrill seekers to go on safari and hunt the beasts, then selling the product. For a price, of course. But no, farming tigers is somehow horrible, despite the fact that it would save the species from extinction. As one book put it, the environmentalist thinks, "Tigers going extinct: bad. Capitalism: worse." That about sums it up.
The last article I want to talk about is their article on Singapore. You know, the tiny little country off the coast of Southeast Asia that is unbelievably prosperous compared to its neighbors? Well, the folks at NatGeo attribute its success to the tight regulations on personal liberties. Obviously, they think that the prosperity of Singapore is thanks to socialism. Minor problem: The article mentions not one economic regulation, and Singapore is actually more capitalistic and economically free than the USA. The lack of personal liberty is wrong, of course, but as far as economics goes, Singapore is a shining example of capitalism run wild. Not as scary as some people would have you think, is it?

It Just Gets Better and Better...

2009-12-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

...And I don't mean that sarcastically. Read the following article for some major laughs at the expense of the apparently weather-altering Al Gore.

The Gore Effect strikes as the UN climate summit begins

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) begins today in Copenhagen, Denmark and brings together politicians and scientists from across the globe to address manmade climate change. As if on cue, the Gore Effect has struck much of the United States with record setting cold and snow.

The Gore Effect was coined in recent years for the unseasonable weather that oftentimes accompanies appearances by former vice president and Nobel Laureate Al Gore or when a global warming event is held. Cold and snow have followed Al Gore and these events across the globe with amazing frequency since 2004.

See the list of events where the Gore Effect came into play below
In just the last week, the United States has been besieged by cold weather events from coast to coast with more on tap for this week. Is it the Gore Effect being felt as a result of the climate summit?

Last Friday, snow fell in Houston, the earliest it ever has and it marked the first time it has snowed in the Texas city in back to back years. Other cities across the Lone Star state and Louisiana reported similar records. Near the Great Lakes, Grand Rapids, Michigan had more snow on Friday than it had ever recorded on that date.

The weekend brought snow to Denver, Colorado and temperatures 30 degrees below normal. Baltimore, Maryland had snow on December 5th – the same date it has its first snowfall of the season for six out of the eight last years.

In all, over the three day span from Friday through Sunday, 370 new record low temperatures were set or tied across the United States according to the National Climatic Data Center. Similarly 333 new record low maximums were set or tied over the same period.

Plenty of folks also saw record rain and snow. Over 130 new snowfall records were reported during the period and more than 100 record rain reports were made.

Today, in Sacramento, the California city is expecting record cold temperatures and a chance at its first snow since 2002. In the Midwest, blizzard conditions are expected across Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois tomorrow.

Certainly it is most likely just coincidence but these types of events do seem to occur with a startling frequency at the most inopportune time for advocates of the manmade climate change theory.

Below is a partial list of various events over the last five years in which the Gore Effect was in full force:

January 15, 2004 – A global warming rally held in New York is subdued by one of the coldest days in New York City history. Gore tells the audience it was caused by global warming.
November, 2006 – Al Gore visits Australia two weeks before the start of summer. Ski resort operators are caught off guard by the snowfall.
February, 2007 – A hearing in the House of Representatives on global warming is cancelled after a snow and ice storm strike DC.
April, 2007 – Two feet of snow arrive on Itaca, NY in time for an Earth Day rally.
April, 2007 – A rally in Reno, Nevada held by the Northern Nevada Coalition for Climate Change is cut short by heavy rain and sleet.
March, 2007 – A media briefing on the Senate’s climate bill is cancelled due to a snowstorm.
December 5, 2007 – Washington DC receives its first snow of the season as the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee debates global warming legislation.
January, 2008 – A global warming rally in Baltimore, Maryland is held amidst falling snow.
October 22, 2008 – Al Gore appears at Harvard amidst temperatures that approached 125 year old low temperature records.
October 28, 2008 – The House of Commons debates a climate change bill as London gets its first October snow since 1922.
October 28, 2008 – John McCain and Barack Obama campaign in Pennsylvania. A wet, wintry mix causes McCain to cancel a rally while Obama goes forward. He teases people holding ‘stop global warming’ signs saying, "This is probably not the weather to hold up those signs. I'm not into global warming either but it's a little chilly today."
November, 2008 – The “People’s Power for the Climate” protest in Newcastle, Australia is canceled after one day due to rain and cold. Participants had been told to bring sunscreen and hats.
December, 2008 – The former vice president speaks to an audience in Milan, Italy about global warming. Outside it is snowing, a rare event in the area. Snow and freezing rain also strike Rome, Naples, Palermo and Sicily.
January 17, 2009 – President-elect Obama on his train tour to the capital stops in Philadelphia. He tells those gathered, “A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil." Temperatures were 18 degrees with a wind chill below 10 degrees.
January 28, 2009 – Al Gore is set to testify to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about global warming. A winter storm arrives at the nation’s capital.
February 5, 2009 – Temperatures down to -6 degrees freeze a major global warming conference in Buffalo.
March 2, 2009 – A major global warming rally billed as “the nation’s largest act of civil disobedience” sees low turnout after a blizzard blanketed the nation’s capital with snow. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi cancels an appearance at the event after her flight was delayed due to the storm.
July, 2009 – Leading up to a visit from Al Gore to launch Safe Climate Australia, Melbourne suffers through temperatures approaching zero degrees.
October 9, 2009 – Al Gore is in Madison, Wisconsin for a convention of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Record cold temperatures arrive with him.

Why I Like the Discovery Channel

2009-12-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

Given the choice between my three favorite channels, History, National Geographic, and Discovery, I would pick Discovery hands-down. Why? For a lot of reasons.

Reason #1: Bigger variety.
The Discovery channel has a far larger variety of subjects than the other two, from Dirty Jobs to Survivor Man.

Reason #2: Reliably good programs.
With Discovery, you know what to expect. From Mythbusters and Timewarp, you know you'll get lots of explosions and more than likely laughs. From Man vs Wild and Survivor Man, you can expect good information and a lot of "Gross, did he actually eat that?!" It's very consistent.

Reason #3: You actually learn something.
I'm not kidding. You finish an episode of, say, Mythbusters, and you feel like you just watched a really good comedy. You then realize, "Hey, I didn't know that before!"

Reason #4: They're not shoving a freaking agenda down your throat every other show.
This is one of the biggest reasons. On NatGeo or History, nearly every show is throwing an agenda of some kind in your face. The agenda ranges from environmental fanaticism to big-government propoganda to Darwinist lies. With Discovery, of course there's a bias, but it's far harder to detect. They mention evolution a lot, but they don't shove it in your face like National Geographic. There's also pretty much no anti-human lean like on the others. Instead of promoting an agenda, it appears dedicated to proving what they state in one of their commercials: "The world is just awesome." No government propoganda here, folks!

This Man is INSANE.

2009-12-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, National Geographic has inspired yet another post. I was reading an article on some hunter-gatherer tribe in Africa, and came across quite possibly the most idiotic, stupid, loony, and utterly insane idea ever to disgrace the pages of that magazine. The idea was taken from the INSANE man mentioned earlier, Jared Diamond. He is the producer of the poorly-researched Guns, Germs, and Steel, which attributes medieval to Victorian Europe's success solely to those three things. His INSANE idea, however, is far crazier than his claims about Europe. He says-prepare yourself-that agriculture is the worst mistake mankind has ever made. Yes, you read that right. Apparently, Mr. Diamond would not mind not having a sure food supply, effective medicine, modern technology, and an insanely high standard of living, none of which are possible without agriculture. He blames agriculture for warfare, class stratification, disease epidemics, and major famines. Okaaayyy... You gotta wonder about the mental health of goons who claim things like that, but I'll address his claims one by one.

Class stratification: The problem with this claim is that it's so stinking vague. If he means loosely defined "classes" as in, upper, middle, and lower class in terms of income, too bad. It's a fact of life. Some people are rich, others are poor. I believe several countries tried to eliminate classes. What were they...? Oh, yeah, I remember! Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, Nazi Germany, and a bunch of others. That worked nicely, didn't it?
If he means special treatment for the rich and permanent class seperation, I have no clue where he's getting it. In a capitalistic society(another benefit of that "mistake"), you can go from poor to rich with a little luck and a lot of skill. Permanent and semipermanent stratification last occured back in medieval times, and I'm not really sure if that counts.

Disease epidemics: Mr. Diamond is obviously ignorant of one benefit of agriculture that counters this. Most people refer to it as "medicine." We now have cures for almost all infectious diseases, and medicine that helps counter almost everything else. Not possible without agriculture.

Famines: Again, he is obviously clueless to the fact that there has not been a major famine in developed areas for hundreds of years. I think we can all agree that agriculture prevents starvation rather than increases it.

Warfare: I sincerely hope that he's kidding with this one. Indians, people. When European settlers first arrived, the majority of Indian tribes were hunter-gatherers. Funny thing, they still killed each other. I am amazed that anyone can take this guy seriously.

This is spooky...

2009-10-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Prophetic.

Pakistan Preemptively attacked by the US

2009-09-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

I knew we were after Iran, but this is horrible.

Hey, Obama Supporters!

2009-09-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

So, you voted for Obama because you wanted Change? This is directed mostly at you who voted for him based on his position on the Iraq war. Look what you got. The Iraq war continues. He plans to begin focusing on Afghanistan. Wow. Talk about "change." He hasn't "changed" anything. He's just continued what our past Communist-in-Chief Bush was doing. Not saying McCain would be any better. The government wouldn't have messed with the economy quite as much, but we'd probably be at war with Iran by now. Besides, if you wanted to end the Iraq war, you should have voted Ron Paul. He has been a Congressman for how long? He has voted consistently the whole time. Yes, I am rubbing it in your face. Next time you vote, look at how consistent each candidate is in his/her voting record, and look at their other ideas as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read this rant.

Another National Geographic Inspired Post

2009-09-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading the September issue of NatGeo, and I see an article about solar power. The genius who wrote the article kept talking about how great solar was. No emissions! They show lots of neat pictures of solar plants, but those pictures are what reminded me of solar's greatest weakness. They take up lots of room, and are not effecient. The following picture is of two of the plants shown in NatGeo. Not the same picture, but it has the same effect:

A single nuclear power plant would produce far more energy than these two solars put together, ZERO emissions for you environmentalists, and would take up the same amount of space as one of the central buildings in the above photo. Remind me why we don't just switch to nuclear?

Great News!!!

2009-09-02T13:15:00.001-07:00

Ron Paul's new book, End the Fed, is #4 on the Amazon nonfiction bestseller list. Be afraid, Bernanke. Be very afraid.

The Libertarian Theater presents "The Government Can!!!"

2009-09-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

This is great!

2009-08-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman (BIG liberal) is in favor of socialized health care. This video is priceless.

Chicken pictures

2009-08-08T18:43:00.001-07:00

Okay, the chickens are still alive after 2 nights, so that's a good sign. Anyway, here's the chickens.

CHICKENS!!!

2009-08-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

That's right, we got our new chickens on Wednesday. Unfortunately, our dog broke in sometime the next morning. When I saw her sitting in the coop, I ran outside only to find two chickens missing, one whole dead chicken, and one 3/4 of a chicken. That same day, while I was at a friend's house, my dad bought new METAL wire and installed that over our other wire, AND bought four new Rhode Island Red chickens. The coop survived two hours with Hannah (the insane dog), and she has learned not to bother the coop... I hope. The chickens are still alive as I type this, and I'm pretty sure that Hannah is sleeping. The little birds are funny. They refuse to do things alone, and always stay in a group, usually looking like a little cheeping mass of fuzz. If all goes well, we will be getting eggs in just a few months. Will post pics as soon as possible.

Freedom Watch

2009-08-02T13:24:00.001-07:00

This is scary

2009-08-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

Just watch, and you'll see what I mean.

Coop pictures

2009-07-20T17:39:00.001-07:00

Coop complete!

2009-07-20T16:57:00.001-07:00

Okay, I should have posted this earlier, but I was busy as a Roman guard at the vacation Bible school. Anyway, we finally finished our chicken coop, and we didn't use the original design at all. We basically built it from pictures that I got from a chicken forum (yes, those exist). I'll post pictures as soon as possible. All we need are a feeder, waterer, and chickens.

Is it just me, or does the Obama administration have really bad timing?

2009-07-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

Guess what? The minimum wage goes up this Friday to around $7, right in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Depression. Now, of all times, they decide to make it more expensive to hire people. What's next? Energy taxes? Oh wait, they're trying to pass that already. When will it end?!?!?!?! Now all we need is a gigantic program with a fancy title along the lines of the New Deal. It seems like the government is bent on ruining the economy. Again.

New Freedom Watch

2009-07-15T18:53:00.001-07:00

Okay, sorry I haven't posted Freedom Watch in a while, but here you go!

NOOOOOOOO!!!

2009-06-27T04:30:00.001-07:00

I can't believe this. I feel like screaming. Dangerous carbon emissions?! Just read the terrifying article below to see plenty more stupid phrases

Hours after the House passed landmark legislation meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions and create an energy-efficient economy, President Barack Obama on Saturday urged senators to show courage and follow suit.

The sharply debated bill's fate is unclear in the Senate, and Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to ratchet up pressure on the 100-seat chamber.

"My call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this," he said. "We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don't believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth."

Obama said the bill would create jobs, make renewable energy profitable and decrease America's dependence on foreign oil.

"It will spur the development of low-carbon sources of energy _ everything from wind, solar and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal," he said.

House Democratic leaders said the bill helped accomplish one of Obama's campaign promises and would make the U.S. a leader in international efforts to address climate change when negotiations take place in Copenhagen later this year.

"We passed transformational legislation, which will take us into the future," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after the 219-212 vote.

"For some it was a very difficult vote because the entrenched agents of the status quo were out there full force, jamming the lines in their districts and here, and they withstood that," Pelosi said.

The vote marked the first time either house of Congress has passed legislation to curb global warming gases. The legislation, totaling about 1,200 pages, would require the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83 percent by mid-century.

Success will be tougher in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid says he wants to take up the legislation by the fall. Sixty 60 votes will be needed to overcome any Republican filibuster.

The "razor-thin vote in the House spells doom in the Senate," said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the top Republican on the Senate's environment panel.

Reid, D-Nev., was more optimistic.

"The bill is not perfect, but it is a good product for the Senate," Reid said. "Working with the president and his team, I am hopeful that the Senate will be able to debate and pass bipartisan and comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall."

Supporters and opponents agreed that the legislation would lead to higher energy costs. But they disagreed on the impact on consumers.

Democrats pointed to two reports _ one from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the other from the Environmental Protection Agency _ that suggested average increases would be limited after tax credits and rebates were taken into account. The CBO estimated the bill would cost an average household $175 a year, the EPA $80 to $110 a year. But Republicans and industry groups say the real figure would much higher.

The White House and congressional Democrats argued the bill would create millions of green jobs as the nation shifts to greater reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and development of more fuel-efficient vehicles _ and away from use of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

It will "make our nation the world leader on clean energy jobs and technology," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who negotiated deals with dozens of lawmakers in recent weeks to broaden the bill's support.

Republicans saw it differently.

This "amounts to the largest tax increase in American history under the guise of climate change," declared Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.

In the Republicans' weekly radio and Internet address, House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio said, "By imposing a tax on every American who drives a car or flips on a light switch, this plan will drive up the prices for food, gasoline and electricity."

But Obama said the measure would cost the average American about the price of a postage stamp per day.

"It is paid for by the polluters who currently emit dangerous carbon emissions," the president said. "It provides assistance to businesses and families as they make the gradual transition to clean energy technologies."

In California alone, Obama said, 3,000 people will be employed to build a new solar plant that will create 1,000 permanent jobs.

Update on the home garden

2009-06-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

In my post about riding out the economic crisis and having a good time as well, I mentioned that we planned to have three 3 by 8 garden beds for vegetables. Well, that has been changed to three 4 by 12 beds, along with two others along our fence which will be used as a sort of trellis for things like peas, green beans, cucumbers, possibly watermelons, and various other climbing plants. Also, we've decided on a coop design and figured out what kind of chickens we're going to get. Oh, yeah, and we've already built one of the garden beds and our compost pile is, er, composting well. Our tomato plant already has six tomatoes on it, and one will be ready to eat soon. My dad also pointed out that we have a wild blackberry patch growing behind our fence. Yum! Our pepper plant is making progress as well. So I guess you could say we're off to a good start.

Interesting fact, aside from actually constructing the beds, the gardening we're doing is virtually no work, so anybody can do it. With the economy tanking, I would advise doing it, even if you have limited space. Just do a little research and you'll be fine! In another post, I'll put up a list of good books on the subject.

FDR was a FASCIST!

2009-06-25T07:39:00.000-07:00

What a surprise. The following is an actual quote from our former fascist of a president:

"Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?"
FDR after his idiotic agricultural program was shut down by the Supreme Court.

For more information FDR, read "FDR's Folly."

By the way, fascism is basically another word for socialism or communism. I'm not trying to imply that FDR was as bad as Hitler.

Obama Saves the day!!!

2009-06-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

This video is awesome.

New Freedom Watch episode

2009-06-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

Freedom Watch #17

2009-06-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

Freedom Watch #16

2009-05-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

Preparing for the economic crisis and having a good time as well

2009-05-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

I didn't know this was possible until recently. My family has been talking about starting a vegetable garden for some time now, but it was just talk. With the economy in trouble, however, we've actually gotten a small start. Okay, REALLY small. Right now it's just a tomato plant and a pepper plant in a square formed out of cinder blocks. Next year, though, we're going to plant three 3-by-8 foot beds, which will most likely contain corn, green peas, onions, etc. At least, that's the plan. Something like that will save a lot of money, since we won't need to buy near as much from the store. Not only that, but it'll give us something to do during the summer and finally put the wasps to some use killing caterpillars. Another thing that we'll be doing that will not wait for next year is raising chickens. It's odd, but just a couple of days ago that idea would have been really weird. We live in a neighborhood, and have a fenced-in back yard with a dog, so you can imagine why I thought it was wishful thinking only. However, after hearing the idea and doing a little research, we discovered that having backyard chickens is well within the realm of possibiliy. Chickens are actually quite easy to care for, and pay for themselves and their coop in a matter of months. They also make entertaining pets, as we've seen with some of our friends. The great thing about doing all this is that even if the economy doesn't collapse, we still benefit by having fresh produce, fresh eggs, fewer expenses, something to do when we're bored, and amusing pets.

Memorial Day: Just who are we honoring?

2009-05-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

If it's only the soldiers who truly fought for freedom, then I guess we're just celebrating the patriots in the War for Independence, possibly the War of 1812, and the Confederate soldiers. Now, I have nothing against the soldiers themselves, but look back at all the wars we have fought (and are fighting) and ask yourself "Are/were our freedoms threatened?" Looking back, aside from the wars mentioned above, the answer is no. In fact, wars are more of a threat to our freedoms than any country around today. Most wars have been a means to gain more government power by scaring the daylights out of citizens. I'm not saying we shouldn't honor the soldiers who have died, but it should be in memory of those killed by the government who were essentially tricked into believing they were fighting for freedom. Memorial Day should give everyone a feeling of anger toward the government and its pointless wars and power grabs.

Freedom Watch #15

2009-05-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, I'm going to begin posting episodes of Freedom Watch. The show is hosted by Judge Andrew Napolitano, and deals with issues affecting your freedoms and rights. Regular guests are congressman Ron Paul, Mises Institute chairman Lew Rockwell, and Thomas Woods, author of the bestseller "Meltdown." Follow the links after the video is over to begin the next segment. Enjoy!

Absurd Conclusions About the Secession of Texas

2009-05-02T17:17:00.001-07:00

It's really weird. It seems like almost any liberal talking about the possibility of Texas seceding reaches the conclusion that it will be taken over by Mexico. Huh? If Mexico would take over Texas, why don't they also take over Ecuador, El Salvador, any of those little countries in Central America? They'd be easier than Texas.

Obama Teleprompter Mutiny!!!

2009-05-02T17:11:00.000-07:00

This is to funny. You'll have trouble bringing yourself to watch this video if you get embarassed for the person (like I do), but after watching, you'll want to see it again and again and share it with the world.

Just why is everyone so scared of the Arctic melting?

2009-05-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

I'm serious. Even if every last bit of Arctic ice melted, it wouldn't affect sea levels to any noticeable degree. I'm including Greenland's ice in this. The floating ice at the arctic would have approximately 0 effect due to the fact that it's ALREADY IN THE WATER. When ice melts in a cup of water it has no effect. This is because the ice is parially sunk in the water, which forces the water level up. When the ice melts, it stops forcing the water up but provides more water from itself, which keeps the water level at the same height. As for Greenland's ice, it would turn into a giant lake due to the topography of the area (specifically, it's in a giant bowl created by its own weight). Now of course there is other ice in the area that could affect sea level, but only to a minimal extent. As for Antarctica, it's getting colder. In other words, the worst we have to fear is new shipping lanes, a rise of a few inches, and easier oil drilling. Shudder.

One of the Most Absurd Claims I've Ever Heard

2009-04-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I was at Barnes & Noble (the book store) wandering in the history section. I picked up a book titled "Lies My Teacher Told Me," and flipped to a section about the War Between the States. Of course, they referred to it as the "Civil War." After reading for roughly 2 seconds, I gave up all hope of a politically incorrect book. Below are the claims the author makes, and my responses.

Insane Claim #1: Textbooks are slanted toward the Confederacy. Yes, the author actually made this claim.

Response: Yeah, that explains why the public is generally convinced that Lincoln was a saint, the Confederates were racist Nazis, and that Gen. Grant was a hero. This applies, pathetically enough, to Southerners as well.

Insane Claim #2: South Carolina seceded almost completely because of slavery and tried to control the actions of other states.

Response: No, they didn't, and no, they didn't. Granted, the author backs up the first subclaim, which is better than what I see from most liberals, but it's still highly inaccurate. Of course slavery was one of the reasons, but the author claims that the tarriff was only a minor issue and fails to mention the cultural/religious differences, which gave secession a boost. The tariff was in fact a huge issue. The way it worked was this: The government raised large import/export taxes, which delivered three blows at once. It hurt the cotton industry, which relied on Europe to buy most of its cotton. It made it expensive for the South to buy goods from Europe and forced them to rely more on Northern goods, which were more expensive and often lower quality. Last, all the tax money was spent on projects in the North, and not a penny went to the South. Lincoln also promised higher tarriffs. Now, as for trying to control other states' actions, the author cites South Carolina's complaint about some Yankee states discouraging officers from enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law. That's not an attempt at control, that's just a complaint! Sure, it may have INFLUENCED those states, but that's not control. Oh, yeah, and if good old South Carolina seceded over slavery, why did the C.S.A. Constitution ban the slave trade?

Insane claim #3: Sherman never burned Columbia, it was because the Confederates burned cotton and bridges, which started the fire. See why I call these claims absurd?

Response: Fortunately, the author never denied Sherman's burning of Atlanta (to my knowledge, at least). As for this claim, everyone knows that Sherman's men burned a whole lot of small, unimportant towns as well as some major ones, and we're expected to believe that he never touched the capitol of the first state to secede! The author completely neglected to mention the eyewitness accounts of drunken Yankee soldiers running around with torches. Of course, those eyewitnesses were biased, so we can't trust them! However, we can trust whatever Mr. Sherman says, because he wasn't biased! I don't believe a word of it.

And now, on a lighter and yet still Lincoln-related note

2009-03-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

This has to be the best commercial ever.

It just keeps getting worse and worse...

2009-03-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

After watching the following videos, you will feel like running up to D.C. and screaming your head off. You will also probably get an intense hatred for our brilliant government.

Proof that we need to GET OUT.

2009-03-24T15:53:00.000-07:00

I found this horrifying article on my dad's blog, The New Mrs. Gunderson. If you don't think we're at the point that secession is a necessity, think again. This is nothing short of communism. This is EXACTLY what the Soviets did. It DOESN'T WORK.

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms
Goal Is to Limit Risk to Broader Economy
By Binyamin Appelbaum and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 24, 2009; A01

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president's Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.

The administration plans to send legislation to Capitol Hill this week. Sources cautioned that the details, including the Treasury's role, are still in flux.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.

The administration's proposal contains two pieces. First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy. The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed's other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy.

The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.

Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG's most troubled unit.

The Treasury secretary could act only after consulting with the president and getting a recommendation from two-thirds of the Federal Reserve Board, according to the plan.

Geithner plans to lay out the administration's broader strategy for overhauling financial regulation at another hearing on Thursday.

The authority to seize non-bank financial firms has emerged as a priority for the administration after the failure of investment house Lehman Brothers, which was not a traditional bank, and the troubled rescue of AIG.

"We're very late in doing this, but we've got to move quickly to try and do this because, again, it's a necessary thing for any government to have a broader range of tools for dealing with these kinds of things, so you can protect the economy from the kind of risks posed by institutions that get to the point where they're systemic," Geithner said last night at a forum held by the Wall Street Journal.

The powers would parallel the government's existing authority over banks, which are exercised by banking regulatory agencies in conjunction with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Geithner has cited that structure as the model for the government's plans.

Proof that secession is legal

2009-03-22T05:25:00.000-07:00

Now, despite the video, probably not everyone who reads this takes secession seriously. Well, I have one thing to say in response:
Nothing. But the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and various highly respected people sure do!!

Quote #1: The Union "was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right to do so." Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the book Democracy in America, written not to long after the US' founding.

Quote #2: "We should be determined... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government... in which alone we see liberty, safety, and happiness." Thomas Jefferson.

Quote #3: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Tenth Amendment, United States Constitution.

Quote #4: "The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the RIGHT but in the HEART. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political associations will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint." John Quincy Adams.

The last quote means, in short, "Secession wouldn't be good, but it would be a heck of a lot better than being forced to stay together."

I hope I've convinced the rest of you.

In your face, Lincoln!!!

2009-03-05T13:06:00.001-08:00

Now I think you should start taking me seriously if you haven't yet.

Benefits of Secession

2009-02-15T11:49:00.000-08:00

You probably saw my older post suggesting secession, and you probably thought I was crazy. This post, however, should show you that, although I'm still a nut, secession is a good idea. The best part of it would be just getting out of current troubles, and starting all over. A clean start is exactly what we need. We could look at all the mistakes the US has made and in the new country's Constitution make it as difficult as possible to repeat those. Think about it: seeing on the news "major US bailout about to take place" and not having to worry about it at all. Or seeing the crazy-high US inflation rates and knowing that you won't have to worry since your country's economy is solidly on the gold standard. And imagine being freed from the incredibly stupid Endangered Species Act. Or even sending DDT over to the poor countries that are plagued with malaria, something the US isn't allowed to do, since after getting rid of malaria here, the government banned it. Not to mention, no UN!!! Oil drilling!!! Nuclear power plants!!! I for one would be happy with just half of those benefits.

Various Interesting Facts Involving Abraham Lincoln and Secession

2009-02-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Fun Fact #1
Lincoln supported secession until it happened.
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, most sacred right-a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to excercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Abraham Lincoln, Jan. 12, 1848.

Fun Fact #2
West Virginia shouldn't exist.
"but no new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress." Article IV, Section 3, U.S. Constitution.

Fun Fact #3
New Hampshire is trying to secede.
Apparently, libertarian orginizations are requesting libertarians to move there to get a powerful majority, the state already having a large libertarian base. They will then attempt to secede, and if successful, will hopefully convince my home state of North Carolina and my favorite state of South Carolina to do the same.

My baloney detector exploded last night

2009-02-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

Anyone who's read Philip E. Johnson's book "Defeating Darwinism" will understand what I'm talking about in the title. As you probably know, if you know me, a NOVA program on Intelligent Design was run on PBS (Propoganda Broadcasting Service is what it REALLY stands for). I am telling you, that thing was only a little more of a documentary than Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." The whole thing was completely biased, and was just one enormous, reeking smear on Intelligent Design. It was so thoroughly riddled with inaccuracies and thinly disguised smears that I did something I've never done before: I yelled at the TV. It constantly referred to Intelligent Design theory as "creationism," which it most certainly is NOT!!! It gave examples of Christians burning a mural showing the evolution of man and sending hate mail to the parents who filed a lawsuit against the Dover, Pensylvania high school. Yeah, and I'm quite sure that the evolutionists never did crap like that! The lawsuit was filed because the school required that a short statement be read that stated that Darwinism was just a theory and recommended students to a book about I.D. They did not cancel out Darwinism, so what was the big deal? Oh, wait, I forgot that I.D. was "religion," and therefore is unconstitutional to teach. Never mind that the First Amendment specifically states that it is limited to CONGRESS passing laws about religion! In fact, it was expected for the states to pass religious laws, and originally the states were mostly specific denominations. If a school wanted to ban Darwinism and teach Genesis instead, it's perfectly constitutional. Not necessarily right, but certainly constitutional. Then there were the arguments in the courtroom reenactment. Those from the evolution side were absolutely PATHETIC! Archeopterix (hope I spelled that right)! Wierd fish fossil! Mouse trap used as tie clip! Yes, that last one was a real argument against the mousetrap example of irreducible complexity. Those must have been the weakest arguments in favor of Darwinism I've ever seen. I've seen better from comments on Youtube for goodness' sake! Unfortunately, I didn't get to see how the trial ended, but I can probably guess. Oh yeah, and some of the ones that were against teaching "religion" and filed the freaking lawsuit supposedly lead a Bible school as well. It even showed a video of them singing hymns with some kids. Is it just me, or is that kinda contradictory? They file a lawsuit against teaching Intelligent Design, and yet lead a Bible study? That's not right.

Truly Disturbing

2009-01-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

Would you like to know something incredibly twisted? Well, I'll tell you anyway. For my current events in school, I needed to find some articles on euthanasia, which is essentially a doctor purposefully giving a lethal dose of medecine, or something else, to a patient when they request it. This is usually reserved for terminally ill patients, and sometimes for patients in extreme pain, but it's really nothing more than assisted suicide, which is wrong. Anyway, I googled "euthanasia," and was greatly disturbed by what I found. As I looked at the lists, I found that waaaaay over half of the links were protesting animal euthanasia, while the remaining links were mostly in favor of human euthanasia. Now, this may just be me, but I think there's something really wrong with that picture. However, I did find several sites that protested it, so hope is not lost... yet.

My top books for politically incorrect info

2009-01-06T14:33:00.001-08:00

#1: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism
It's an excellent book for people interested in the subject but who don't understand the scientific mumbo-jumbo.

#2: The Politically Incorrect guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design
Again, a great book for anyone interested but who don't want to bother with the advanced stuff.

#3: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science
Sort of a combination of the above two, it also discusses nuclear power and other scientific subjects while keeping it understandable.

#4: The War Between the States: America's Un-Civil War
This book is essentially a history of the war and Reconstruction from a Christian perspective. It's also my main source of Lincoln info.

#5: The Really Inconvenient Truths
A great book about environmentalism in general, it talks about the environmental catastrophes that environmentalists and liberals have caused.

#6: Liberal Fascism
This discusses liberalism's similarities to fascism, but without calling names at all. It also talks about liberal policies and beliefs.

Hooray! More Lincoln!

2009-01-01T12:39:00.001-08:00

Like the picture? I edited it myself. Believe it or not, I've discovered more things with which to ruin Lincoln's reputation! Let's start with before the War itself. After most of the Confederacy had seceded, Lincoln suspected that the Maryland legislature would vote to secede. His solution was very effective: he simply arrested everyone he suspected, preventing the vote. After the Methodist Church sent a letter protesting Lincoln's tyrranical actions (including the War itself), he promptly confiscated all Methodist Church property in Maryland. Nice guy, talk about freedom of speech. One other story involves a senator who spoke out against Lincoln and was promptly jailed. When Lincoln saw that keeping him in prison was only making himself look bad, he exiled him to the Confederacy. Well, I guess I need to find a new president to bash, I'm nearly out of stuff about Lincoln.

Should we Secede?

2008-12-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, another one of my crazy, politically incorrect ideas. All right, it's not MY idea, but it's a really good one. If you read this blog, you probably know me, but if by some crazy chance you read this and have no idea who I am, let me explain how I feel about government. I am convinced that the more powerful the government, the worse. It's been going downhill since a few years after this country's founding, but especially since, guess who, Abraham Lincoln. I think that the South was completely right in seceding, and because of the whopper govt. we have today, I say we should do it again! Insane? Maybe. But the only other options for fixing our situation are:
(a) A magical change in majority opinion favoring deregulation and smaller govt.
(b) Start a revolution.
Answer A probably wouldn't happen based on the current trends, which are quite obviously in favor of socialism, and answer B would probably leave us worse off, not to mention the immense loss of life. This leaves us with secession.

Whale Wars

2008-12-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

Animal Planet has started a new series known as "Whale Wars." I had seen something about environmentalists boarding a Japanese whaling ship on Youtube, so I suspected that they may be the same thing. Unfortunately, I was right. The story goes something like this: The co-founder of Greenpeace apparently also helped start a group to protect whales from, well, whalers. So far, so good. The group called themselves the Sea Shepherds, and have several ships operating in different areas, at least that's what they imply on the show. All I've seen is about the Antarctic unit, ship named the Steve Irwin. Here's where things go illegal. They desperately want to stop Japanese whaling, which is currently being done under the title "scientific research", which makes it legal, even if no one believes them. However, the Sea Shepherds wanted to stop it by less-than-legal means. All the following can be seen on the show. The Steve Irwin chased down one of the Japs' ships. They then launched a small boat equipped with lots of small packets filled with a type of acid powder and a huge coil of rope. The boat came up alongside the ship,and the goons started throwing the packets onto the ship. ILLEGAL. One type of the powder makes it too slippery to walk, and the other leaves an awful reek for days. The boat then pulled in front of the ship, and dropped the rope with the intention of fouling the ship's propeller and stopping it. ILLEGAL. The fouler missed, so they performed their next stunt with the ship moving. They launched the boat again, and two of the people on board actually BOARDED the Japanese ship. They didn't ahve weapons, but boarding a ship is always illegal. Of course, they're saving whales, so Animal Planet's portraying them as heroes, leaving out the fact that next to nothing they're doing is legal.

National Geaographic and the E.S.A.

2008-12-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

You know how in my post about Reader's Digest and National Geaographic I said that N.G. gained a lot of respect from me? Well, they just lost it. Every last bit, and then some. E.S.A. stands for Endangered Species Act, but it should be called the Endangering Species Act. In this issue of N.G., they dedicate one section to the glorification of the worthless Act. They claim that it helped save several different species, including the American alligator and grizzly bear. However, the alligator was saved by a drop in the demand for its skins, which took place BEFORE the E.S.A. was passed, while the grizzly bear that was supposedly saved was only ONE POPULATION. N.G. also says that polar bears are endangered by habitat loss, which they most certainly are not, despite being on the endangered list. They have a picture of one with the number 3500 beside it, which implies there are only 3500 left. However, if you looked closely at one of the little tiny notes, you would see the words "in Alaska." The notes really are tiny, and located so that the average reader wouldn't look at them, since the picture and number are all that most folks care about. The environmentalist argument is that loss of sea ice threatens them, but they happen to be perfectly capable of living on land, and are common in northern Canada. 11 out of 13 populations are stable or rising. Wow, funny how easy it is to go off-subject. Anyhow, the ESA actually encourages elimination of species. Here's how it works: When the government finds out about an endangered species on your land, they essentially take it from you, by not allowing you to do anything
with it. In California for instance, you're not allowed to build a firebreak to protect your home from a wildfire. Why? It might disturb the kangaroo rat! What? You would rather save your house than avoid harming a kangaroo rat?! Get your priorities right! This idea causes harm to the rat by not allowing development for protection, which does two things: either the owner wishes to protect his/her home, so they kill the critter before the Feds find out, or the Feds find out, regulate the land, and a fire kills the things. Same with a certain tree farmer. The gov. discovered a rare type of woodpecker on a section of his land, and, of course, regulated it. He understandably wanted to use the rest of his land (which NG villifies) and promptly clear-cut the rest of his land. I would probably do the same thing.

Honest Abe was a Tyrant

2008-12-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read the title correctly. And yes, I am fully aware that this is a perfect excuse to hate me. But, it's a historically accurate title for President number 16. Very soon after Lincoln took office, he sent supplies to Fort Sumter, even though he had promised he wouldn't to South Carolina's governor, which forced the Confederates to act on their threat to fire if they were sent. Just reading this little fact makes it plain that Lincoln was looking for an excuse to invade, and it shows that he was at least partly responsible for the death of over half a million Americans. He began the invasion without calling Congress into session until long after the first major battle. I've read excuses that he didn't have enough time, but it was three months into the war that he finally did it. Since several battles had been fought at that point, he knew that they would never vote against war after blood was shed. One of his most well-known crimes was suspension of habeas corpus. Although the Constitution allows it, it's only in the case of rebellion, which my previous post shows was not going on. He threw many newspaper editors into prison for opposing the war, and shut down many others. Most were in prison for saying things far less harsh than what modern people often say about George W. Bush. Imagine the outcry if HE began shutting down opposing papers, magazines, etc. on charges of "treason." Although this also happened in the Confederacy, it was only very late in the war and they had to deal with actual, armed internal opposition. Lincoln said that if a group of men were discussing his policies and one kept silent, that counted as a crime. Another brilliant, unconstitutional idea of his was the draft. Now, again, this happened in the Confederacy a bit earlier than in the Union, but I don't know anything about their Constitution. Oh, I forgot to mention that a huge import tariff was raised before the war, and he threatened to invade any state that didn't raise it. All the tax money went, you guessed it, up North. Not a penny was spent on the South. Also, Lincoln supported the infamous Gen. Sherman's policy of burning every other town and looting everyone. Look what the "best government ever created" was doing. Acting like a tyrant!

The Truth About 1861-1865

2008-11-23T04:04:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, the period in the title of this post is commonly known as the "Civil War." However, it was not a civil war any more than the American "Revolution" was an actual revolution. In fact, the two terms mean the same thing. During one, citizens of a country take up arms and attempt to overthrow their government. The "Civil War" is more accurately called the War Between the States, or even more accurately and much less politically correct War for Southern Independence or even War of Northern Agression. I'm pretty sure you almost never hear those last two names because they equate the South's secession with the early Americans' leaving England. Actually, on secession, the South had just as much if not more reason to secede than the early Americans. Yes, I said they seceded. First among the South's reasons was an extremely damaging import tariff. They depended on imports for many of their supplies such as farming equipment and carriages. The tariff forced them to rely more and more on low quality goods from the North, and not one cent of the tax money from the tariff went to the South, being used instead for building projects in the North. Another common myth is that the war was about slavery, to which I respond: yeah, and maybe pigs can fly. There's no doubt that the issue played a part, but it was mostly with the plantation owners. Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson, the two most well known Confederate generals, both despised slavery, Lee freeing ALL his slaves and Jackson starting a Sunday school for blacks. General Grant, one of the North's most well known, was a slaveowner and said, "If I thought this war was about slavery, I'd hand my sword to the other side." Also, the border states, such as Kentucky and Maryland, were slave states but stayed with the Union. And then there's Lincoln's beloved emancipation proclamation, which made him quite a hero. It didn't take effect until 1862 or 1863, can't remember which. It ONLY applied to the Confederate states, completely ignoring the border states and the absolutely gigantic slave market in D.C. that Lincoln walked past every time he went to visit wounded soldiers in the hospital. I hope you will read your next book on the war with a better understanding of who had the moral high ground.

Reader's Digest vs. National Geographic: The Orangutan

2008-11-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

I am really sorry that I haven't posted in forever. I've been meaning to for the past two and a half weeks, but haven't gotten around to it. Anyway, in the latest issue of Reader's Digest there was an article discussing the endangered orangutan. Predictably, they put almost all the blame on evil loggers cutting down habitat, and, predictably, not stating that they probably had to do it to make a little bit of money to survive on (In fact, the Indonesian government pays $16.50 for the right arm of an orangutan, further reducing their numbers). The main cause of habitat destruction in Indonesia is, prepare yourselves, BIOFUELS! As usual, they fail to mention that demand for palm oil for ethanol and other uses encourages more palm oil plantations, and in fact dedicate most of another article to glorifying biofuels. In the latest issue of National Geographic, however, they point out the underlying reason for the problem of constant palm plantation expansion: it's a pretty poor country, and more foreign buyers equals more money. Put yourself in the position of the average Indonesian. Would you rather kill orangutans and end up better off, or save them and remain dirt poor? One study found that when per capita GDP reaches $8000, the public starts to be more concerned about things such as habitat preservation and saving endangered species. I was surprised when NG actually pointed out these problems and including biofuels in the blame. Needless to say, they earned a whole lot of respect frome me.

Global Warming: What do you think?

2008-10-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, I set up a poll about global warming. I already have an opinion, but I'd like to feel out what the general opinion is. Comments explaining why are welcome.

Prison Reform: What do you think?

2008-10-07T13:33:00.002-07:00

In school recently, for current events I had to research prison reform. It's basically a debate over the purpose of prisons, rehabilitation or punishment. I'd like to recieve some comments about what you think prisons should be for.

Global Warming Stupidity

2008-09-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm sorry I haven't posted in forever, but I haven't thought of anything to post. In fact, I had thought about deleting the blog. Until, that is, this month's issue of Reader's Digest came in. As I flipped through, I found an article about a little village in Alaska called Kivalina. The caption below the title claimed that it was "melting into the sea." The island that it's located on has been shrinking for the past fifty years, mostly because of erosion. However, with the current warming trend and the global warming hysteria, they're starting to blame climate change. The inhabitants of the town were going to have to move, and since it's because of "global warming", they filed suit against TWENTY FOUR oil, electricity, and coal companies for causing climate change. That was not a typo. And the insanity doesn't stop there! They claimed that some of the companies conspired to create a "false debate" about global warming to "fool the public." First of all, the debate is real, and if anyone's attempting to fool the public, it's the other way around. Second, does Reader's Digest protest this stupidity? No! They claim that "global warming and its effects on the arctic are well-documented", implying that it's proven. I'll post again if I find out if they win the case.

Code Red!

2008-08-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

What would we do without liberals?

Stupidity... Sheer Stupidity

2008-08-21T14:52:00.000-07:00

I found this article at townhall.com. It's unbelievable how easy it is to "offend" someone! I understand being offended by racist jokes, but black hole? I fail to understand how comparing something to a collapsed star is offensive to anyone.

At a recent meeting of city officials in Dallas County, Texas, a small racial brouhaha broke out. County commissioners were hashing out difficulties with way the central collections office handles traffic tickets. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield found himself guilty of talking while white. He observed that the bureaucracy "has become a black hole" for lost paperwork.

Fellow Commissioner John Wiley Price took great offense, shouting, "Excuse me!" That office, the black commissioner explained, has become a "white hole."

Seizing on the outrage, Judge Thomas Jones demanded that Mayfield apologize for the "racially insensitive analogy," in the words of the Dallas Morning News' City Hall Blog.

Houston Chronicle science blogger Eric Berger notes that everyone should be "very glad that the central collections office has not become a white hole, a theoretical object that ejects matter from beyond its event horizon, rather than sucking it in. It wouldn't be fun for Dallas to find itself so near a quasar."

Maybe so, but speaking metaphorically, if it were a white hole, that might suggest central collections was actually doing its job, ejecting paperwork in a timely fashion.

Call me nostalgic, but there was a time when this sort of stupidity actually generated controversy. Remember the Washington, D.C., official who used the word "niggardly" correctly in a sentence only to lose his job? That at least generated debate.

But these days, stories like this vomit forth daily and, for the most part, we roll our eyes, chuckle a bit and shrug them off.

Obviously, there's something to be said for ignoring the childish grievance-peddling that motivates so much of this nonsense. But the simple fact is that ignoring political correctness has done remarkably little to combat it. Meanwhile, people who make a big deal about it are often cast as the disgruntled obsessive ones.

The only people allowed to take political correctness seriously are the writers for "South Park," "Family Guy," "The Simpsons" and the like. Of course, they take it seriously because it's their bread and butter to mock the absurd pieties of daily life. But nearly everywhere else, the rule of thumb is that we should either defer to this stuff or quietly ignore it.

Now, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush. There is stuff that gets labeled political correctness that is entirely defensible. Because of the erosion of traditional authority that has marked the last half-century, for good and ill, society has been forced to re-create what defines good manners largely from scratch. Women, blacks and other historically marginalized groups have finally and deservedly gained an equal place in society. Treating fellow citizens with respect and dignity shouldn't be lumped in with the more radical agenda that also exploits political correctness.

For example, ditching the word "colored" from the vocabulary when it comes to describing blacks might have been seen as political correctness by many in the 1960s (though the phrase wasn't widely used), but that in no way means it wasn't the right thing to do. Or consider the idiots who shouted "iron my shirt" at Hillary Clinton (assuming it wasn't staged to help Clinton burnish her victim status). That's not bravely fighting political correctness. It's just rude and stupid.

But there's a separate agenda that parasitically clings to the more defensible aim of crafting new good manners. The left uses Western society's admirable desire not to offend to bludgeon competing ideas and arguments. Inconvenient facts are ridiculed as "insensitive." Refusal to go along with the multicultural agenda, for example, is cast as a sign of backwardness and bigotry. We're told we must have a frank conversation about race, but when conservatives take up the challenge, they are immediately demonized for the insensitivity of their honesty.

One of my favorite recent examples is when Newt Gingrich argued last year that bilingualism makes it more difficult for Hispanics to learn English, which has the unfortunate result of leaving some Latinos trapped in the "ghetto." He was immediately denounced by the usual suspects and forced to issue an apology, which he promptly did.

Harvard President Lawrence Summers was tarred and feathered after merely hypothesizing about the data on cognitive differences between the sexes.

In Britain this week, the National Children's Bureau advised that day-care centers treat aversion to unfamiliar foreign food by children as "racist." It was also reported that two children were punished for their bigoted refusal to kneel and pray to Allah in a religion class.

This strikes me as something beyond mere tolerance. This is will-to-power masquerading as tolerance. This sort of thing needs to be resisted, because there is no end to where thinking like this can lead. Indeed, if it doesn't cause too much offense, one could even say it's a black hole.