Tonewah's Various Curiosities

All-American Ron Paul

2012-02-13T13:02:00.007-06:00

Is the candidate you support for President as American as Apple Pie? If you're voting for Ron Paul, he is. Ron Paul is an all-American with the credentials and history to back it up. He even holds a national baseball record!

Ron Paul was a high school sports star, class president and married his high school sweetheart. He is a working class person who, through hard work and determination, became successful. Later in life, when he saw the country was leaving its principles, he ran for office.

Ron Paul's first job was in 1940, at 5 years of age, collecting and cleaning milk bottles. Throughout his childhood, he worked mowing lawns and running a newspaper route. Paul lettered in multiple sports in high school and was a state track champion. He was offered an athletic scholarship, which he turned down, choosing to work his way through college. He earned enough at his high school jobs to pay for his first year of college.

While in college, he married his high school sweetheart, Carol.

After having children, he was drafted into the military. He served with honor as a flight surgeon during the early years of the Vietnam War and was stationed in the same country in which many US soldiers are stationed today, Afghanistan.

Returning from the military, Paul finished his college, and became a medical doctor.

After being a medical doctor for years, Paul became alarmed that our government took the radical step of removing gold backing from the dollar. After being tied to gold for almost 200 years (196 years), the United States now had a floating currency, and inflation. Because of this, he decided to run for congress.

Every position that Ron Paul takes is in agreement with the traditional Republican Party Platform. When Nixon went against the GOP platform and ended the gold standard, Paul went to congress as a Republican. When the GOP moved even further away from traditional conservative values, Paul ran against George W. Bush in 1988 as a third party contender, returning to run again on the GOP ticket in the 90's.

In congress, Paul introduced and supported legislation that protected the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the ability of our nation to defend itself. Known as Dr. No, Ron Paul has consistently voted against all tax increases and un-Constitutional bills. With the GOP's foreign and economic policies looking more like FDR than the Monroe Doctrine and a gold standard, it is once again Paul who is looking to correct the path of our nation.

As for his baseball prowess, he is the only person to hit an out-of-the-park home run in the 103 year history of the Annual Congressional Baseball game. That includes even the pro-baseball players who were elected to congress!

None of the other pretenders for the Presidency can say that!

Newt Gingrich's Wesley Mouch physique probably keeps him from being good at sports, but his multiple liberal stances, Mitt Romney's Romneycare and Santorum's history of voting against principle with anti-right to work legislation, supporting the failing government-funded Amtrak, and pro-collectivist rhetoric, contribute to making them all fall short of the high mark set by Ron Paul on the political stage.

Nevada: You Voted... or did you?

2012-02-06T07:13:00.000-06:00

Here we go again...

The caucuses in Nevada were Saturday and there are questions about how the vote totals were counted. It is 2 days later, and the votes are still not counted, yet, somehow, the state GOP has declared a winner. As of 2AM election night, when this blogger went to bed, less than 50% were counted.

The caucuses where the votes were counted live on television went like this:

58% Paul
19% Romney
16% Gingrich
4% Santorum
3% OTHER

It took all night to get to 48% of the vote totals from the other precincts' caucuses... You know, the ones that weren't counted live on national TV. The results of those? Not anywhere near the same:

50% Romney
20% Gingrich
19% Paul
11% Santorum

I really hate to speculate on items like this, but watching movies like 'Hacking Democracy' really makes me distrustful of those who count the votes. These people tend to be party hacks who have motivations to make 'errors' that swing elections. Simply writing a number in front of the actual single digit number of votes he received gave Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum potentially thousands of votes they DID NOT receive in Iowa precincts, as I blogged, and has been widely reported.

South Carolina and Florida have Diebold machines, so I don't trust those results, either. I simply can't. I've seen too many examples of them returning erroneous results.

We need to have randomly numbered paper ballots that are hand counted in public. Print the number on the ballot twice, and make one detachable so you can take it home. Then, even if the votes were machine counted, a number would be assigned to the ballot that only you would know. You could then look up your ballot number to see how that ballot was recorded. To prevent ballot stuffing, you compare the number of people who signed in to vote at each precinct vs the number of ballots returned from that precinct.

Voting is the ONLY say we have in how our country is run. If it isn't trustworthy, then we really have NO say in how our country is run. Lost votes, and unconfirmed vote totals are unacceptable. We pride ourselves on allowing the people to control their own government, but if the vote totals aren't real, what do we really have?

GAH!

2012-02-02T05:34:00.000-06:00

My truck was stolen almost 5 years ago. I recovered the vehicle myself, after seeking help from police and receiving none. After recovering the vehicle, I told the police I knew where the people were who stole it, they asked me why I was still bothering them, since I already had my truck back.

I took pictures of the thieves and gave them to the police, along with names of witnesses who saw the vehicle stolen. I followed up for several months with the 'detective' who was supposed to be investigating this. He finally told me they had 'more important things' to investigate.

Then, yesterday, I saw helicopters, unmarked police cars, and dozens of officers at a gas station.

What were they doing? Blowing $700,000 dollars on drug busts. Their target? Synthetic drugs at convenience stores. They claim to have been planning the bust for a year, but the synthetic stuff has only been illegal for a few months. Maybe they were planning to make it illegal in order to make the busts.

Why do I think they blew the money and that it wasn't well spent? Because prohibition never works. The demand will still exist. Even if you reduce the supply to almost zero, which isn't really possible, that just makes the price skyrocket. It is simple economics. New suppliers will spring up, making a much greater profit than the previous suppliers.

So, instead of eliminating the problem, you've exacerbated it. You now have wealthier suppliers and drug addicts with a need to obtain more money to get their fix. This means more property crimes, which law enforcement around here practically ignores, already.

The drug busts look good on TV. It makes it look as if law enforcement is doing something. They aren't. Drug busts increase crime, make criminals wealthier, and cull the herd of weak black marketeers, making the black market stronger.

Trillions spent on this drug war have resulted in more types of drugs, a wider distribution base, and more powerful drug lords. THIS IS A FACT. Cartels south of the border have been armed, equipped and emboldened by a steady supply line from our government. The drug runners drive Hummers given to them by our government to fight drugs. Prohibition is what has made the drug trade such a lucrative endeavor.

If you truly want to eliminate drug abuse in this country, you must accept that prohibition doesn't work. Then, when these substances are not making drug suppliers wealthy, the market will correct. There will always be those among us who choose to abuse substances. But when the users are only paying a few cents for a hit, there will be no need to commit crimes. They will simply be killing themselves.

My property isn't important to police. Your property means nothing to them. They let known thieves continue to steal, while doing these made-for-tv drug busts which do nothing but make the real crimes they are supposed to prevent more prevalent.

Good job.

Primary Math

2012-01-30T05:52:00.000-06:00

Many people seem confused about the process for selecting a presidential candidate to go on the ballot in November. Every four years, as long as anyone alive today can remember, either one or both of the parties that currently control our government has gone through the process. So how do they select a candidate?

To start, when the political parties meet, they not only decide their platforms, but how the selection of candidates will be handled. Political parties are not a part of government, therefore the rules of who can be nominated are not decided by elected representation to government, other than the basic qualifications for the office. A lot of power is vested in state party leadership. The process they decide upon will vary from state to state, but will include either a primary, a caucus or both.

Primaries typically allow voters to select delegates which have pledged support for a candidate by selecting their name from a ballot. Caucuses are similar, but are typically an open forum where voters are sometimes required to make their selection publicly. In both, delegates are selected, sometimes as part of the first vote, sometimes as part of a second selection process.

Each state is allotted a number of delegates by the national party. This number is three times the number of representatives to Congress from that state, plus some 'bonus' delegates, typically having to do with rewarding a state for electing Republicans. For example, Alabama has 50 GOP delegates, based on 7 Representatives to the House of Representatives (21), 10 at-large, 3 party, and 16 bonus delegates. 47 of these will be selected on the ballot and 3 go to prescribed elected Republicans, who typically vote with the majority of the state.

Some states award all delegates to the candidate with the largest number of votes. Others award them in different ways. Alabama, for example, awards delegates by district. The candidate with the most votes in the district over 20% is awarded 2 delegates for the district. If the winning candidate has over 50%, the candidate is awarded all 3 delegates. If the winning candidate does not have 50% of the vote, and the second place candidate has over 20%, the 2nd place candidate is awarded 1 delegate. If not, the remaining delegate goes to the winning candidate.

The candidates will receive a proportion of the 26 at-large and bonus delegates using statewide totals if no candidate receives more than 50% of the statewide vote. If a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote statewide, that candidate is awarded all of the at-large and bonus delegates.

Alabama State Party 2012 Presidential Primary Rules

There are a total of 2286 delegates to the GOP convention. 1144 delegates (50%+1) are required to win. If at any point during the race, three candidates obtain 572 delegates, it will become a near impossibility to win the 1144 delegates. The same results if 2 two candidates get 572 delegates and the remaining two split 572 delegates between them.

When a delegate is elected, they are bound to vote for the candidate at the national convention. If no candidate has 1144 delegates, the delegates are released to vote for other candidates after the first vote. Superdelegates would most likely cast their vote with their state on the first ballot but coalesce around the candidate with the highest delegate total for the second. For example: If the candidate with the most delegates has received at least 1012 regular delegates, the 132 superdelegates would most likely vote for candidate A on the second ballot to give the candidate 1144 delegates, which is enough to win.

If the first place candidate has less than 1012 regular delegates, however, deals would then be made to capture the delegates of other candidates on the next ballot. It is also possible that the superdelegates might not coalesce on the second ballot. Either way, if a third ballot is reached, regular delegates will begin brokering.

From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2012/i/delegate.strength.overview.pdf

There are two basic components to calculating the delegate strength score -- how close the frontrunner is to winning a majority of the delegates, and the gap between the frontrunner's delegates and his or her closest rival. That gap is measured in terms of how many "outstanding delegates" remain. Finally, a factor is applied that essentially creates a range of scores from zero to 100, which makes the score a little easier to comprehend. For the math junkies, the calculation is:

Delegate Strength = (((C1-C2)/O) * (C1/L) * 333)

where...
C1 = Number of delegates the leading candidate has won
C2 = Number of delegates the candidate with the second-highest number of delegates has won
O = Number of delegates that have not been chosen
L = Number of delegates needed to win the nomination

To give an example of how this works, Gingrich currently has a delegate strength of .03, based on the races so far in South Carolina, New Hampshire and estimates of the Iowa delegate apportionment. Remember: A delegate strength of 100 or more is required to win. Gingrich, with the current delegate lead, doesn't even have a tenth of a percent in delegate strength. If Mitt Romney wins Florida, he will have a whopping .34 delegate strength, which is still 99.66% shy of enough delegate strength to win, barely one third of a percent.

If you do the math, this race is still wide open.

Iowa Caucuses Inconclusive/Rigged

2012-01-19T06:03:00.000-06:00

Well, it is official: Iowa was not won by Mitt Romney. Who really won? We will never know. The results from 8 precincts will never be certified due to the fact that THEY ARE MISSING. Isn't that curious?

http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2012/01/19/register-exclusive-2012-gop-caucus-count-unresolved/

From the article: "GOP officials discovered inaccuracies in 131 precincts, although not all the changes affected the two leaders. " I wonder which of the other candidates these 'inaccuracies' affected? Depending on the size of the precinct, there could be several thousand votes missing. Maybe three thousand or so?

"The biggest shift happened in Fayette County. In two cases there, Rick Santorum gained more votes than the entire gap in the statewide certified total." That seems odd, right? In one county, votes for Santorum magically appeared that were more than the gap in the statewide totals. If only 50 votes were added to Santorum's count per county, that'd be over 4000 made-up votes for him. And he wasn't the only one to get magical votes. Romney got about the same number per county.

Unbelievable.

No to SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-18T04:23:00.000-06:00

The recent pate of governmental snooping and intrusion reminds me of a situation that arose about a decade ago. I was asked to give my opinion about a 'manager of the future' program which allowed screen-sharing of any PC on our network without the knowledge of the users. I asked if there were productivity issues which prompted this decision. When told there weren't, I asked if this software and its implementation would be a productivity drain.

It seems that someone passed a co-worker's cubicle and saw a news website on the screen while the PC was not in use. The perception, of course, was that there was misuse, therefore some form of loss. The reality was, although resources were not being utilized for an intended purpose, those resources being misused did not result in a net loss of productivity.

We didn't get the software.

The same is true for the new SOPA/PIPA bills which are threatening to be passed into law. Someone raises an alarm, yet no one is analyzing whether there truly is a loss. Websites will be shut down that do not violate any law to protect a victim that may not have taken a loss, at all. The perception of loss overrides the logical analysis that should be taken before something like this passes.

Everything deserves a cost-benefit analysis. You set values to everything included in the analysis. In the case of over-reaching government, you must first ask if there truly is a violation of life, liberty or property before assigning resources to counter this violation. If the cost in collateral rights exists to at least an equal level, you do not have an efficient process by which to protect said life, liberty or property.

With SOPA/PIPA, the mere accusation of loss, without any trial, is enough to cause loss with the shutdown of a website. Violations of intellectual property, or IP, are highly subjective, as are the damages sustained from the violation. At the mere accusation that IP is being violated, however, a business could be completely destroyed. This is not an efficient process AT ALL.

As the 'manager of the future' would have put all the employees on edge, leaving PCs unused while other more resource consuming and less efficient processes replaced them, SOPA will have a chilling effect on those who use the internet. In an age where free speech and communication relies heavily on this technology, such a law would be a huge step down towards the ant-hill of tyranny. This is not something a free society should embrace.

Attacks from "Conservatives"

2012-01-17T06:31:00.000-06:00

It seems that the dirty tricks are getting pretty vile. There are several groups who have organized to pretend to be Ron Paul supporters in an attempt to discredit Paul.

Here is an example from a group called "Stop Ron Paul" from their Facebook page, where they pretend to be Paul supporters and make phone calls:

"I am pretty sure that lady I was telling how much I like firemen and wanted Ron Paul to do a fireman calendar might not be voting for Paul. The guy who said he was for Newt that I called a neo con will tell some friends."

"Always try to get three numbers and call, well now around midnight in SC. There is a household not voting for Paul."

"Need to call some folks I wrote down four numbers for late night calls for Ron. Do I go lizard people or David Duke next???"

"Oh man, I just pissed this guy off. He is definitely not voting for Paul. The conversation went like this Hey, this is Nathan Bedford Forrest calling on the behalf on Ron Paul-Do you know what time is?-It is never too late for liberty-I will not vote for Ron Paul-Your filthy neocon zionist."

"As soon as they say they are supporting any candidate other than Paul; I instantly start yelling and cursing at them and accusing them of hating liberty and telling them that their families should be ashamed to be related to such an ingnorant moronic goat humper."(sic)

Where I come from, that's called wire fraud, and is a crime. They don't seem to mind implicating themselves, though.

At a Paul rally early in the election cycle, a man wearing tin-foil on his head claimed to be a Paul supporter, yet was later found, dressed normally, at another politician's rally.

Another group got some publicity over the weekend for trying to organize a rally where they dressed as Klan members pretending to be Paul supporters. When people protested, they claimed a Paul supporter made threats against them, again attempting to cast aspersions on Paul supporters, when it was THEIR GROUP that was using the disgusting racial tactics.

There have been others, and they seem to be getting worse and worse. That they've come to breaking the law in order to slander the supporters of a candidate means they just have no understanding of what made our country great.

These groups are wicked. It is unbelievable how they can be outright liars, yet can claim to be religious conservatives. I have chosen to not indicate which candidates these people support in order to not do the same thing they're doing. Needless to say, though, they don't support Ron Paul.

The REAL Conservative is RON PAUL

2012-01-13T05:34:00.002-06:00

Everyone is searching for the true conservative. The majority of the party doesn't want Romneycare, nor do they support policians who take money from lobbyists or big-government programs. They want real, conservative values.

To the person who's been paying attention, Ron Paul is the only real alternative. However, many pundits and other Johnny-come-latelies have been questioning Paul's overwhelming conservative credentials. Let us take a look at these attacks, and compare them to the words of someone most people consider the standard-bearer of the GOP.

At the debates, or in TV interviews, they ask Ron Paul about third parties, speaking as if he committed a sin when he doesn't utterly rule out a third party. But Paul is supported by the words of a previous GOP leader... A fairly famous one, at that. When asked, "Governor if the Republicans were to nominate a candidate that was unacceptable to you in 1976, could you support a Libertarian third party candidate?" Ronald Reagan replied, "I have to wait and see what you’re doing and what you are standing for." Not exactly the absolutist, 11th commandment answer the neo-cons want.

When Paul points out that there is no real left and right, anymore, but a fight between liberty and tyranny, he has the words of Reagan to back him, "You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: up- man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."

When Dr. Paul stands alone at the debates, attacking the neo-cons for their so-called 'Patriot Act' and Department of Homeland Security, he may be all alone on that stage, but he is in good company. "These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury, and they can seize and sell his property in auction to enforce the payment of that fine." Ronald Reagan said that when he was fighting Mitt Romney's father and the Rockefeller wing of the establisment GOP in the early 60s.

Reagan also said, "I don’t believe in a government that protects us from ourselves." This is exactly the point Ron Paul is trying to make that gets taken completely out of context. Reagan went on to say, "That’s one of our sacred rights–to be stupid." For example, wearing a seatbelt is smart, and Paul has never said you shouldn't wear one. Failing to do so shouldn't warrant a police stop and violation of your 4th Amendment right to privacy, though, and that's the important point that both Reagan and Paul were trying to make. What you do with yourself is your business, and no one elses. If you take that away, you lose the whole point of liberty.

I also take issue with those who say Ron Paul's position on foreign policy sets him 'at odds' with Republican ideals. It is no different than when another Ron, Ronald Reagan, chastised those who wanted to continue sending troops to Vietnam in the 1960s, saying, "I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely." In his memoirs, he expressed great regret over sending troops to Lebanon. "The irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there. If there would be some rethinking of policy before our men die, we would be a lot better off. If that policy had changed towards more of a neutral position and neutrality, those 241 marines would be alive today." "The sending of the marines to Beirut was the source of my greatest regret and my greatest sorrow as President."

Both Reagan and Paul advocated the traditional Republican ideal of peace through strength. Make your military and economic might so formidable that enemies fear you too much to even attempt an attack. This could have been shown after the 9-11 attacks with Paul's plan to get the terrorists. He would have done what took a decade within the first few months of the attack using the traditional republican methods of dealing with rogue characters. Instead, we borrowed a page from the neo-liberals and neo-cons by going into nation-building mode.

When Ron Paul, unlike so many of his GOP rivals, attacks raising the debt limit and supports a return to some sort of gold standard, he is again supported by Reagan. Reagan complained about raising the debt limit, saying, "We have raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations in the world. We have $15 billion in gold in our treasury--we don't own an ounce." "I believe the only way to acheive price stability is to return America to some form of gold standard." He further promised to attempt to return the country to a gold standard. In this charge, he failed. The neo-con establisment fought him every step of the way. Only two congressmen helped him in his attempt to get America back on gold, and, wouldn't you know it, one of them was Ron Paul.

Don't get me wrong, though. Under pressure from the neo-con wing, Reagan's 11th commandment to never speak ill of someone in your party basically gave up the ship to the neo-cons. The only ones to benefit from the 11th commandment were the dirty, dishonest politicians who quoted it as if it were a free-pass to be as repugnant as they could be. By the 90s, politicians like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were passing for conservatives. Not speaking ill of these nanny-statists allowed the party to become overrun with them.

I believe it is time to clean house, "grow up", and get back to our conservative soul. Again, the words of Reagan, "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism." That heart and soul is only represented by Ron Paul.

SOURCES:

Reagan's Goldwater Endorsement Speech, 1964. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY

Reagan Campaign Video, 1975.

Reagan interview in REASON magazine. http://reason.com/archives/1975/07/01/inside-ronald-reagan/

An American Life: The Autobiography by: Ronald Reagan

ABOVE: Ronald Reagan listens intently to Ronald Paul as he no doubt speaks about the Shining City of America and the Gold Standard.

Spinning like a 45 on a 78 Turntable

2012-01-06T05:41:00.000-06:00

If you have been paying any attention at all to the Ron Paul campaign, you will have no doubt that the media is marginalizing him. He has consistently been first, second or third in most scientific polls, yet his face and name are often omitted from the results. Candidates with lower numbers are touted ad nauseum as 'rising', yet when Paul had the same momentum which carried him into the top tier, he was given little press, and that was almost all negative.

His face has been blacked out on televised poll reports, with no name and his percentage numbers displayed below the cameo, while other candidates, even those with lower numbers, have their name and full color face displayed. More often, he is omitted from results, altogether, with lower and higher polling candidates displayed. Almost every time he is mentioned at the top of a poll, some negative caveat is given as an adjective to describe him.

Here are a few examples that I found by simply typing "Ron Paul blacked out" into a search engine:

And that is just a few, easy to find examples. Most are way worse.

Talk radio, where a lot of people get their 'news', contains some of the worst spin. There is almost no accountability for radio talk shows. They can, and do, say almost anything with no fact-checking or attachment to reality. A lot of dirty work in smearing Paul is done at this level. Listening to talk radio is getting to be like listening to Tokyo Rose.

Poorly researched, debunked reports are repeatedly reported as fact about him, with no retractions or apologies. ALL of the news networks smear Paul. They can't even make up their mind what they want to smear him about. On CBS, he was called 'too far to the right to be electable' by Bob Schaffer. On the Fox News Debate, they accused him of being to the 'left of Obama'. They always follow that up with the 'unelectable' smear.

Technically, anyone is electable who meets the requirements laid out in the Constitution. But, if you want to get down to those issues most people claim to care about, Ron Paul is pretty much the only one that IS electable. They won't report on that, though.

If you ever had any doubt that the media is spinning against Ron Paul, you need only look at the way they're trying to spin the recent sales boost that singer Kelly Clarkson received after tweeting that she loves the Republican from Texas. When a few 'fans' complained, Ron Paul supporters jumped on Amazon and bought all the albums they could afford. The spin doctors are claiming that her double digit ranking jump (triple digit percentage jump in sales, which had most industry people dropping their jaws), isn't from Ron Paul supporters buying her album, but from Christmas sales or people just wanting to 'fill up their new MP3 players.' What?

There is no doubt that Kelly Clarkson is a talented singer and is popular in her own right; She won American Idol and has a lot of fans. But no other artist had that massive a bump for 'Christmas sales'. It was a meteoric rise in sales. There is NO DOUBT that the Ron Paul bump jumped her ranking dramatically. To even imply that the Ron Paul people buying up her album had nothing to do with it is ridiculous and is blatant, unrepentant spin.

The old media is spinning in a dizzying, death spiral.

Why I Choose Ron Paul

2012-01-04T18:13:00.001-06:00

I know that I have repeatedly indicated my support for Ron Paul over the last few years. I've given my reasons for this support, and I've given my reasons why I wouldn't support other candidates. Let me reiterate a few of these reasons for the sake of clarity.

To start, the main reason I support Ron Paul is his consistent conservative message. For 40 years, he's said the same things. You can pull up video from the early '80s and hear the same, conservative values you'd hear from him today.
In the realm of government, I like that he supports the traditional conservative principles of smaller, fiscally-sound, less-intrusive government and the traditional conservative value of sound money. To me, he pushes civilization forward by rejecting collectivism and embracing individualism. He supports the traditionally conservative idea that each person should take responsibility for his or her self.

In his personal life, he represents the strength of the family unit: being faithful to your family and to your savior. I have always been impressed by the way he doesn't act prideful about his salvation, but humbly speaks of Christ in a reverent and respectful manner. This humility is probably one of the things I admire and respect most about the man.

Too many politicians flash their religious credentials, paying lip service while not living the example. They talk about the truth, yet speak in circles and take backroom deals. You won't find Paul doing that. What he says is what he does. Ron Paul leads by example.

He understands that you can't use force to make people do good things. Those good things must come from the realization that personal responsibility requires generosity, and generosity can't be forced. He shows this in the fact that, while he didn't accept government assistance for his patients as a doctor, he would give lower rates and sometimes free healthcare to those who couldn't afford it. He wants people to be taken care of if they happen to fall into unfortunate circumstances, but he doesn't want to use the force of government to do so.

Another big thing for me is that he doesn't compromise away his principles. The rights of man are unalienable. This means you can't sell them, trade them, loan them, or have them taken away... ever. If you compromise any right, you give up the principle that all rights are based upon.

He is willing to work with anyone on anything that doesn't violate his core principles. That is hard to find ANYWHERE, much less in Washington D.C. This is where the true progress can be made in government.

Paul wants me to know what is going on in government. He's pushed for sunlight laws and keeps his constituency up to date on what is going on in Congress. He has never towed the line for anyone if it means violating rights. He doesn't want the cloak of secrecy blinding the people and obscuring their rights.

There are a few less tangible reasons I like Ron Paul. One of them is that he reminds me of a pastor I had back in the late 80s and early 90s. He always pointed out that freedom was more important than picking the winner. I didn't understand it at the time, but, with the benefit of age, I can now say what he taught makes sense.

Another is that he never seems fake. Everything he says seems genuine. It's not something that can be put on a meter and judged, but his delivery and body language seem to be that of someone who hasn't rehearsed what he's saying. It is coming from his deeply-held beliefs.

Every one of Paul's positions seem to come from a core rooted in the Christian beliefs upon which this nation was founded. This core is reflected in the natural, God-given rights of man. You don't steal; this is property rights. You don't kill; this is the right to life. You respect freewill; this is liberty. You can find these rights from the 10 Commandments to the Declaration of Independence.

God ordained this as a nation to be governed by "We the People". It's basic concept is that all people are created with rights given to us by God which can't be taken away by ANYONE. It is plain to see that Ron Paul respects and reveres this notion. Some 'conservatives', who want to rule or be ruled by a President who acts with the power of a king, are destroying the very principles they are supposed to be trying to conserve.

Ron Paul is the only candidate in any party that adheres to the traditional, conservative principles that make our nation free. He's the only one that even comes CLOSE. That is why, in my humble opinion, he is the only choice for President.

That's 5 Delegates!

2012-01-03T23:50:00.003-06:00

Ron Paul's finish in tonight's Iowa Caucus will probably earn him five delegates. Romney and Santorum could wind up with only five each, as well, in spite of having a few more percentage points.

It amuses me, but doesn't really surprise me, that the media darlings Santorum and Romney got a few more votes. Especially with the last week of pumping by the old hag media. The funniest part is that every conservative Republican preaches against Obamacare, yet Romney designed it, and Santorum helped get Obamacare supporters elected. The only candidate who has a history to prove opposition to socialized medicine is Ron Paul.

Santorum lost his 2006 bid for re-election after being named one of the 3 most corrupt US Senators, so he didn't get the chance to vote for Obamacare. It is pretty well known, though, that he endorsed Arlen Specter, who would go on to support Obamacare, and that Santorum was known as a lobbyist's best friend... pushing whatever cause from the highest bidder.

Just what makes someone a GOP candidate, nowadays? Paying lip service to conservative values while bearing a strong resemblance to Al Gore or Bill Clinton? Seems to be the way we're going.

I digress.

If we were going to lose delegates to someone, Romney and Santorum are two you don't really mind having them. Neither of them has a snowball's chance in Haiti. If Santorum is supposed to be the Huckabee of 2012, he did a bad job of knocking off Romney... and Romney just isn't a Republican. Period. Neither of them are electable.

Now I guess we wait and see who the media will push for a boost going into New Hampshire.

The Last Wag of the Old Media

2011-12-30T06:12:00.001-06:00

For many years, the TV, radio and print media has dominated public opinion. If it was on TV, people would take it as fact. If you could read it in the paper, it was 'in black and white'. Like a the tail of a pointer, the media was largely seen as accurate and true.

However, as long as it has existed, the media has used that reliance to mislead the public; Read 1984. If the media couldn't wag the tail, it would use the tail to wag the dog. This is true today.

The vestigial tail we recognize as the old media is in trouble. With the advent of real-time internet and wireless data, the old tail is having a harder and harder time wagging the dog. It has become obsolete. It is losing its supply of blood and turning an ominous shade. Before long, it will dry up and fall off.

Until it does, however, it will continue to try to wag. That wagging is becoming more and more futile as newer, freer media takes over as the source of news for most people. But wag it still does.

You need only watch the cable 'news' networks to watch the frantic, panic-stricken wagging of this old, dried up stump. More accurate and well-sourced news outlets are putting the rubber bands around it, drying it up even more quickly. In a desperate attempt to stay relevant, they update websites, yet still post the same tired, old, and slanted stories. They have no idea which way to point the tail, and it is flailing wildly.

The only thing keeping it alive are the infusions of cash from those who have long counted on it to keep public opinion on their side and away from the real issues. Even this cash infusion isn't enough, anymore. The people are seeing the rotting, decaying hunk of faux-journalistic mess for what it is: unnecessary.

They may be able to keep it moving for a while, but not forever. True, there are still those who refuse to use the internet, or won't believe the 'trusted' allies on their network of choice are lying to their faces. Still, as long as there are so many accurate sources popping up in the free press that aren't controlled, those numbers will continue to decline.

The Ron Paul rEVOLution is doing a good bit of work towards cutting the old thing off. With little to no coverage, Paul has moved into the top GOP hopefuls, and actually leads many scientific polls. This 2012 election is going to be the last hurrah... the last 'wag', if you will, of the old media.

The tail will soon be gone, and good riddance.

Who are the 1%?

2011-12-29T06:56:00.000-06:00

Who are the 1%? According to sources MotherJones and the Washington Post, the top one percent has something like an average income of around $1 million per year and has an average net worth of $8 million+. That average must include some lower net worths to balance out those who have billions.

According to USA Today, there are 57 congresspeople in this percentile. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-11-15/congress-wealthy-1/51216626/1) 7 out of the top 10 are Democrats, although the top 2 are Republicans. As anxious as I'd be to say that these people are the ones capable of controlling much of global politics, I think that is mostly just hype. The ones who contribute to these politicians obtaining a few million dollars might have that kind of power, but a few million dollars just isn't enough to peddle influence on a global scale.

The ones who truly are capable of controlling anything at that level would have to have many times the average income and net worth of the typical one percenter. Not just tens of millions, or hundreds of millions... We're talking in the billions.

Roughly one hundred-thousandth of a percent of Americans have a net worth of $1 billion or more. The .00001%ers. These people actually have the assets to affect politics on a multi-national scale. This doesn't mean that they are actively attempting to affect global politics, although with that kind of economic potential, one could imagine anything they do in any country could have effects in that country.

Some of these are the people who fund the big think-tanks. They are the ones who's ideas are pure gold to the unscrupulous movers and shakers in politics. Their influence is probably why nations go to war, or coup attempts are mounted.

There is no doubt that the biggest power-brokers in global politics are smart enough to mask their actual worth. The most powerful among these are those who influence monetary policy on a global scale and can move money far more silently and easily than the majority of the 1%. Their net worth is likely in the trillions.

The vast majority of the 1% are people with incomes below $1 million per year. These are NOT the people controlling much of anything except their own small companies. If the cost of a good that a company sells is high to produce, it can cost millions a month to run a small, local retailer with a small profit margin. As Federal Reserve policies inflate the amount of currency in circulation, it will require more money for these small American companies to survive. Targeting these people only damages the already faltering economy.

If you truly want to protest those who are negatively influencing the world you live in, you are missing the mark by hitting on the broad group of 1%ers. You should be targeting the .00001%ers like those who were the major contributors to the campaign of Barak Obama.

Does it really matter who the 1%ers are? I know I'm not one, nor is my choice for President, Ron Paul. We don't meet the criteria. But the question shouldn't be, "Who are the 1%", it should be, "Who is pulling the strings of your elected government and which politicians are letting their strings get pulled?"

Dear MSM: We don't need you!

2011-12-27T06:24:00.000-06:00

This is my one-sentence message for the media: We didn't need you to get here, and we don't need you to stay here.

What the elitist media fails to realize is that this election ISN'T about Ron Paul, it is about IDEAS. Ideas can't be killed. We've been listening, and reading every idea espoused by Paul for 40 years; Those concepts of freedom are what we support. Spin doesn't work.

This election isn't about some televised left-right argument; it is about the fundamental principle of liberty vs tyranny: Force vs Free-will. Every 'Patriot ACTion', tea-party-something-or-other, or 'Occupy' group pushed on us by the media claiming to be our 'voice' will be rejected. Every bit of political spin will be ignored. You can't control this opposition with media; it grew with the media trying to kill it and it will not die because of it.

From the time the Declaration of Independence was penned until today, the United States has been moving closer to real independence. We have taken great strides forward. We understand that the archaic requirement of giving up independence in order to huddle together for warmth is no longer valid. We recognize that each mind should be free to explore and to innovate without giving up individuality to the collective. The rules that violate natural laws are being repealed.

This is the movement. It is a fight between the elitists, who have always profited from the fears of the collective, and the person who denies that some elitist knows what is best for the individual. It is also a fight between the frightened collective, attempting to force the individual back into his or her 'place', and the spirit of individual freedom and innovation. The elites have always controlled the collective through fear, hatred and division. This movement is the antithesis of those concepts.

No amount of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX News, print news or any other propaganda is enough to surpass the will and mind of the individual. Group-think is flawed from the very start. Collective thought will be defeated by a group of individuals. Elite media, pushing the agenda of oppressive collectivism, is NOT enough to reverse the tide of individuality, which is the real source of support for Ron Paul.

Let's Talk REAL Issues

2011-12-22T05:54:00.005-06:00

The real issues in the 2012 Presidential election are the economy, foreign policy, and the growing nanny-state.

REALITY: If Ron Paul isn't elected, we will probably go to war with Iran. This will most likely hurt our economy and create a foreign relations nightmare. He is the ONLY candidate advocating a foreign policy of peace.

REALITY: If Ron Paul isn't elected, we will most likely continue down the same fiat path with our currency, facing the failure of the dollar while the cronies and friends of the media elites get richer and the poor get poorer.

REALITY: Ron Paul has always defended individual rights, no matter what race, religion or national origin the individual might be. He has been praised and defended by high ranking officials in the NAACP. That shouldn't be a requirement to prove a lack of bias, but it does go above and beyond what a Newt or Romney would get.

REALITY: Ron Paul has always been a fiscal conservative, voting only to allow spending when he believes it is thoroughly authorized by Congress. If there had been a hundred more Ron Paul's in Congress, there would be no budget crisis right now.

REALITY: Ron Paul would continue to fight against legislation that suspends habeas corpus and indefinite detention from the powerful position President. You wouldn't have to worry extraordinary rendition under a Paul presidency.

REALITY: Although he has never accepted money from medicare or government assistance, he gave reduced-rate and sometimes free healthcare to the needy.

REALITY: Ron Paul predicted the housing bubble bursting 5 years before it happened. There is so much evidence to back this up, it should have been front page news for months.

REALITY: Ron Paul predicted the market crash in 1987. This also has video and audio from multiple sources to back it up, unlike the attacks the political media machine is making against him.

REALITY: Ron Paul has preached against collectivism in any form for 40 years, with overwhelming audio, video and text evidence to back that up.

REALITY: Ron Paul has NEVER received a fair shake from the media. Deal with that.

With all the topics concerning these real issues, why is the media asking Ron Paul about something written by someone he doesn't know 20 years ago, and that he didn't find out about until 10 years later?

Because they have nothing! Paul's record is virtually spotless.

CNN, which has been asking the same questions about these things since 2008, made no attack when their candidate, Obama, had Black Panthers information on his 2008 Presidential campaign site...

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=59398

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/new-black-panther-party-supports-obama

In this day and age, when the equivalent to newsletters are blogs or websites, it is much easier to get rid of that kind of content. It would have been another story completely had his site been hacked and the Panthers' info inserted, but it wasn't, and it allowed to stay up long enough to conceivably allow it to be viewed by millions of people. Still, it is dumb to try to blame the then Senator Obama for this.

Things were different in the late '80s. There is no way you can know what someone is typing and xeroxing. There was no googling your name, back then. Paul didn't even know this inflammatory content EXISTED for roughly TEN YEARS, until a muck-raker dug one of these 'newsletters' up. He wasn't even in politics at the time this stuff was alleged to have been written. It wasn't brought to his attention until it was long out of publication.

The funniest thing of all is that a disgruntled former staffer, after being fired nearly a decade ago for trying to pressure Paul into supporting an attack on Iraq, is considered the 'source' for most of this info. His claim that 'millions' were made off of these mailers is so laughable that no credible news source should touch it.

Come on, CNN, and other statist news outlets, let's talk about something that pertains to reality.

Fox News' Reality Check: Patriot Act Fail

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

Fox News affiliate reports that the "Patriot" Act hasn't stopped the 42 attacks commonly reported, and that most of the few 'victories' were really failures or simply fabricated by the law enforcement that claims them as victories.

"The majority of cases... were not law enforcement victories, they were simply failed attacks.

For instance, shoe bomber Richard Reid. His shoe bombs simply didn't detonate. The Patriot Act powers didn't stop him from trying."

"It is very difficult to quantify how well the Patriot Act has worked in preventing terror attacks, especially when you find that in many of these plots that were broken up the Feds bated suspects, offered in many cases to buy weapons or explosives, and then once that suspect agreed to take part in the plot, they were arrested."

Big Government Liberal Republicans

2011-12-08T16:44:00.001-06:00

I'm talking about Newt and Mitt. Is there even a GOP anymore? How can it be that almost half of the party supports either Mitt or Newt? These are the guys who want socialized medicine, global warming taxes, and to deny 2nd Amendment rights to Americans. What kind of flipped over world is this?

Mitt and Newt now claim to oppose Obamacare. Yet... Obama says his healthcare was modeled after Romney's! Mitt claims he got the idea for socialized healthcare from a white paper that Newt wrote. Can't people see the obvious?

Newt went along with Nancy Pelosi to push for global warming legislation. They made a commercial which played on TV every 30 minutes for a while. How does this jive with a party platform which all but categorizes human-caused global warming as a hoax?

Romney has been for everything before he was against it. It is ok to excuse a politician for changing one or two views, if they are well thought out and you can see the logic, but for Romney, it was a 180 degree u-turn with no signal. I've never heard him say anything about regretting his healthcare mandate in MA.

Newt is much the same. I thought I had lost my mind listening to him criticize the Federal Reserve in one of the debates, a topic which, just 4 years ago, was taboo even for a member of the banking committee. It's like they've flipped a switch in his head.

It's like they've flipped a switch in both of their heads to try to sound like a conservative and to steal Ron Paul's talking points.

The anointed Mitt and Newt do have some detractors, but I'm not sure how much actual opposition those detractors are willing to put up. We want SMALL GOVERNMENT and LOW TAXES. These two clowns stand for the exact opposite. How can a Republican tolerate this mix of fascist, communist and utterly repugnant bile?

You can't just hold your nose to vote for these two, you'd have to rip out your olfactory nerves.

ROLL TIDE!!!

2011-11-28T03:46:00.000-06:00

The Alabama Crimson Tide scored more points against Auburn University in the 2011 Iron Bowl than either team has scored in last 34 years of the rivalry. You'd have to go back to 1977 when Alabama scored 48 points in a 48-21 victory at Legion Field to find a higher score. The 48 point game was in the middle of Alabama's record 9 game win streak against Auburn and a string of National Championships.

With the high-scoring win against their bitterest of rivals, Alabama hopes to win a spot in the BCS Championship, and a chance to redeem themselves from the 4 missed field goals that forced an overtime and ultimately cost them the game against current number one LSU.

Are you a Reagan or a Bush Republican? You can't be both!

2011-11-21T16:28:00.006-06:00

So, you say you're a Republican...

But are you a Reagan or Bush Republican? You must choose one, because they are most definitely NOT the same thing.

Although most Republicans over 40 remember the 1980 GOP primary race, many younger people who identify as Republican do not. Those of us who remember know that Ronald Reagan and George Bush weren't friendly at all in the primary, nor were they even remotely close ideologically.

The differences became glaring in the primary debates. When Bush decided to debate, that is.

Reagan insisted other candidates, regardless of their perceived chances, should get a shot in a primary debate. In typical neocon fashion, Bush only wanted to include Reagan and himself in the debate. After the Federal Elections Commission ruled against the funding of the debate, Reagan PAID FOR THE DEBATE HIMSELF. When Reagan invited all the candidates on stage, Bush insisted that they leave. Reagan, reminding the moderator that he paid for the microphone so he should get to speak, told the other candidates to stay.

Eventually, after the crowd had turned decidedly against Bush, Reagan relented. Bush looked quite foolish, and was seen as acting like a coward by refusing to debate.

Afterwards, the head of the Bush campaign complained, "we’ve been sandbagged by Mr. Reagan and we're not gonna forget that tomorrow." Reagan responded by saying, calmly, that the Bush campaign chairman knew that was a lie, and was simply desperate.

In spite of this, Bush had garnered a following among statist, neocon elites, who would have jumped to the Democratic party in order to avoid voting for a conservative Reagan ticket. When first asked about Bush as a potential VP, Reagan replied, "I can't take him; that 'voodoo economic policy' charge and his stand on abortion are wrong." To satiate the growing neocon wing of the GOP, however, Reagan held his nose and named Bush his running-mate at the GOP convention.

After his election, Reagan's Gold Commission, created by an amendment authored by Congressman Ron Paul, was besieged by the neocon establishment. As already noted, "Voodoo economics" is what Bush called Reagan's supply-side economic strategy. Although he made a commitment to verbally support Reagan's platform completely, Bush never supported Reaganomics.

In spite of this opposition, Congressman Paul was able to get gold coins once again minted by the US Mint and available for sale to the general public by 1986. It was a great first step towards restoring the "shining city on a hill" that was once America. It was a step opposed by George Bush.

Finally, when Reagan's 8 years were up, and riding the coat-tails of Reagan's popularity, Bush was able to take the reins of our economy for himself. It was disastrous. The analysis of Bush Economics by Ron Paul in 1988, when he opposed Bush, proved correct when the early 90's recession hit. In the years following his presidency, Federal Reserve actions increased the money supply by the largest amounts in its history in an effort to cover for the bad economic moves made during his 4 years.

This attempt at a manual correction resulted in an apparent turn around in the economy during the Clinton years, but as those who understand the boom/bust cycle know, it was merely the beginning of a bubble that was doomed burst under inflationary pressure.

When G.W. Bush took office, he took largely the same approach to economics as his father and Bill Clinton had taken: Inflate the money supply and spend. After 9/11, he was given a blank check. many of his missteps were overlooked in the wake of such a tremendous tragedy. The bubble, which was approaching critical mass in the late 90s, could not withstand the huge increases in money supply required by a Bush economy.

Bush had some heavy subjects in foreign policy to deal with. That, however, did not change the fact that he made mistakes, HUGE mistakes, with the economy.

There are many other issues where Bush and Reagan differed prior to 1980. From abortion to foreign policy, from monetary policy and economics to helmet laws, Bush and Reagan were at odds. It is amazing how much parity modern day Republicans put between the two opposing points of view. Most importantly, economics.

20 years of Bush era, neocon/neolib inflationary economics have broken our treasury. Reaganomics was not perfect, but, in all fairness, it was never allowed to be implemented. Reagan relented to pressure in an attempt to keep a united GOP. Some of the worst aspects came from concessions, and the best aspects remained unfulfilled. If Congressmen like Ron Paul had received the help from their party leaders that they were promised, 2 decades of waste and government growth would not have occurred.

At every step, Ron Paul has accurately indicated what would happen if the current policies were kept in place. Unfortunately for the country, although he has been correct in his assessments, his analysis continues to go unheeded. Much like any problem where the variables are accurately identified, you simply plug in the numbers and do the math. Bush economics, which are the economic and monetary policies of the neocon/neolib movement, do not work.

Apparently, this happens fairly often...

2011-11-16T21:30:00.003-06:00

My issue with Herman Cain has always been that he supported bailouts, supports collective bargaining for public employees, claims to have never been in government although he was head of a Federal Reserve bank, among many other inconsistencies or un-conservative short-comings. But he has really begun to prove how detached he is from reality.

I have only posted about him once before, and that was only because I was actually at the event where a video was shot. I posted in an attempt to defend myself and my position from a heavily edited mainstream-media misrepresentation of what occurred. I do not make a habit of attacking. It is much better to talk about my beliefs, and the positives of freedom and liberty.

I don't normally comment on the videos where Cain says something that can be taken as negative or less-than-knowledgeable. Nor will I comment on speculation about rumors and tabloid trash. There are just so many REAL problems with him as a Presidential Candidate for the GOP nomination that there's no need to try to build up some video of him contradicting himself. But I find myself compelled to repost this video, with a few comments.

My issue with this video isn't that he might want to take precautions before hiring someone for a government position, nor is it the apparent backtracking on his answer. My issue is that he escalated the question to a confrontation. I would NEVER want to see him representing the USA in negotiations... I'm afraid he'd be like some tin-pot dictator, yelling at anyone who disagrees with him, or that points out any apparent contradictions in what he says.

I posted this video on my blog because I have personally witnessed Cain going into this nearly-enraged mindset. He has some delusion that the Ron Paul campaign is out to get him, and says so in his book. Due to the fact that he repeatedly gets questions everywhere he goes about monetary policy, he implies in his book that it is a conspiracy by the Ron Paul campaign to make him look bad.

He is a flake. A flake is something that is easily blown about. You can see him flaking out, right before your eyes in the video above. In this audio clip from his book, you can hear the nutty paranoia:

What he says is really inflamatory and more than a little crazy.

It could be extrapolated that he sort of implies Ron Paul supporters aren't Americans, and says that we ask stupid questions. Yet, seeing as how he was the head of one of the 12 Federal Reserve banks, we thought he might have some opinions about how that relates to the economy. Shouldn't he? Other than, "Fix it," I've never heard anything about the fiscal condition of our country fall from his lips that didn't end in 999.

Because someone actually wants him to answer questions about an issue that he should know about, but apparently doesn't, he holds this insane grudge. Instead of formulating a coherent answer, he just attacks. Instead of trying to convince people of his position, he makes vastly generalized attacks.

It would be slightly amusing, yet mostly sad, if it weren't for the fact that he has the support of several million people. I don't think it is their fault, though. They were force-fed Herman Cain through the filter of media, which leaves out his support of the bailouts, collective bargaining for public employees and many other things that would really turn off conservatives.

I just hope that they exercise due diligence and look deeper into his record. Someone with such a small amount of patience and a large amount of paranoia would not make a very good President. I hope they understand, if they read this, how long I held my tongue to keep from openly attacking him. He is an insult to conservatism and an insult to any thinking person and I just finally had to say it.

School Dazed

2011-11-15T06:30:00.001-06:00

On my way to work this morning I passed a boy headed for school. A little bit further down the road I passed another. Neither of them was in a hurry, and neither of them looked happy.

As I drove by the school I realized that the kids must be headed there and would soon enter their classrooms. It triggered a knot in my gut... a familiar knot. Memory reminds me that this knot in my stomach once grew in intensity and remained with me all day until I was on my way home from school again in the afternoon.

When I was pre-school age, I was jealous that my older siblings were able to to go to school. That jealousy didn't last long. Any thoughts of envy went out the car window on the way to school the first day.

Nothing is as dreadful as the thought of school to a kid. There is just so much a kid has to deal with. Peer pressure, bad teachers, and the whole uncaring machine that makes this so-called education seem like a prison sentence. If you learn, it is largely by accident.

I remember joking with a friend when I was in 5th grade that we were released on furlough for Spring Break. The thought of that short time out of school was such a memorable pleasure. When I graduated from High School, it was like getting some sort of pardon from the governor. I don't think I'll ever feel that happy and free, again.

I used to have nightmares about being back in school. The sheer terror of having to be back in that situation made it seem worse than the scariest horror movie. And not just because kids got shot in my school. That never even plays into it.

It's always just the way it was in real life. And I'm back there... against my will, trudging through it... dreading the next class, avoiding those I avoided, trying to be noticed by those I want to notice me. I'm walking the stairs, going down the halls, being late for a class... Suddenly noticing that I'm in the wrong part of the school when I need to be in another class... not noticing until I'm sitting down at a desk that I grabbed the wrong book from my locker... and that I don't have a pen or pencil.

Even going to work as an adult you never feel the same level of dread as going to school. Your ability to feed and support yourself comes from keeping a job, yet the fear of losing that doesn't compare to the anxiety a kid has about going to school. Seeing the blank, hopeless gaze of those kids just reminded me how glad I am that I don't have to do that ever again.

Two Times for the Vets

2011-11-13T21:13:00.000-06:00

For the Troops!

2011-11-11T06:50:00.000-06:00

Ixquick It

2011-11-10T00:01:00.002-06:00

Just a decade or so ago, metasearch engines compiled search results from dozens of viable web search engines. Today, there are really only a handful of commonly used search engines. The dominant engines practice data-mining to turn a profit.

That's not cool.

Yahoo is struggling. Bing is a joke... sorry Microsoft. Google, although it offers so many other free services, has become a scary behemoth. Google probably knows more about me than I do. I try to use it as little as possible. We need another option.

Enter Ixquick. Ixquick doesn't log data about its users, so there's nothing to sell. It also provides a proxy to visit the sites you've searched in private.

It's a fast way to search, too. One of the things I once liked about searching with Google was the ability to type a word and search by hitting enter. The new autocomplete messes up my timing with searches. Sometimes it puts letters in front of the ones I've already typed. Boo! That takes time to correct. Ixquick is a type-and-enter search, making it faster than Google, now.

Ixquick is becoming what the other search engines wanted to be when they first started. Google and Yahoo have been killed by the perception that changing things creates progress. What inspired people to use Google was the no-frills search with decent results. That's becoming a thing of the past.

I've been Ixquick searching for a few years, now. The engine has become faster and results are getting better. I foresee the day when it eclipses some of the other engines.

Will I still use Google for email, blogging and reading newsfeeds? For now, yes. But if a company like Ixquick pops up offering the save services at a nominal cost, I might have to make that leap.

If you still feel like you just MUST get the results you'd get from Google, Ixquick has a sister site called Startpage.com which returns Google search results through a privacy proxy.

Search Ixquick at www.ixquick.com or StartPage at www.startpage.com.

Cain Loses Cool with my Girlfriend

2011-10-30T15:49:00.004-05:00

The female voice you hear saying, "federal reserve" is Amy, my sweet girlfriend.

Amy didn't 'heckle' him at all. We were all being kind to him, answering his call-and-response question/statements. Then he said, "The reason that this economy is on life support is..." and she responded, "federal reserve." He had been saying things along the lines of "Do we want another four years of what we have?" We had all been answering the way he wanted us to answer, and he seemed really pleased. He just heard a response he didn't like and lost his cool.

No one heckled him until he turned on the crowd.

The irony is that he had JUST stated how he enjoyed hearing what people had to say all across the country. She's the only person he singled out for saying anything.

Needless to say, he didn't handle himself very well. He just attacked the audience, who were being VERY generous to him. If Cain can't handle a little Alabama girl giving her honest response to what she thought was ailing our economy without blowing up, how are we supposed to trust him with any kind of diplomacy?

BTO Round Two!

2011-10-19T20:36:00.003-05:00

BLACK THIS OUT!!!

2011-10-19T06:59:00.000-05:00

FOR LIBERTY! (and the heck of it)

2011-10-12T23:31:00.001-05:00

Seeing the Bobs and Stars

2011-10-05T16:41:00.000-05:00

The Great State of Alabama has recently moved from one Bob to another. Two Bobs reminiscent of the characters in the '90s film, Office Space. Bob Riley is more like the older, more personable Bob from Office Space and Bentley is the other Bob. The Bobs are likable guys who fail to understand the complexity and effects of their decisions. After cutting off pay to employees they intend to downsize, instead of handling the situation responsibly, the Bobs say, "It'll just work itself out."

But Bentley isn't as much like the other Bob's character in Office Space as he is the character the same actor played in the movie Platoon. Always sucking up to authority, the character eventually has to fend for himself as chaos ensues. Coincidentally, the same actor played a doctor on a TV comedy, Scrubs. He is less than amiable in that role, as well.

Bobbing aside, Bentley appears to be big government, in spite of his GOP rhetoric. He doesn't care what the Constitution of Alabama or the U.S. Constitution says; it seems he will do as he is told by his big government cronies that lead him through the maze of bureaucracy.

Is he simply misled, or is he so ignorant of the concepts that make this country great that he would so overtly disregard them? Bentley, it seems, has no qualms about using the power of government to force an agenda.

He SIGNED the liberty-mocking immigration bill. He has implicitly stated that he will enforce the national ID card (Hillary-esque) REAL ID Act. Stars on our licenses? That's the most absurd thing he could have done, aside from making us WEAR stars on our clothing. We are FREE AMERICANS, and, more importantly, FREE ALABAMANS.

Alabama IS FREE. We don't need permission to exercise our rights, and no tyrant-minded 'Dr.' who claims to be 'republican' will change that. He may use his thugs to imprison some of us who exercise our rights, but that won't change the fact that we have those rights.

Our rights are not given to us by man, but by a higher power. Some misled, petty tyrant has no authority over the rights of man. To give up those rights simply because a petty tyrant chooses to deny them in order to somehow PRESERVE them is ludicrous!

This nation was established with each individual as the authority in his own life, liberty and property. According to the Alabama Constitution the only reason a law may be written is to protect life, liberty or property and anything beyond this is "usurpation and oppression". To imprison someone, taking away liberty, for exercising a right spits directly in the face of every person who gave their life or put their life on the line to protect these rights.

According to the ultimate law of the land, the United States Constitution, we may only be deprived of life, liberty or property by due process of law, and since the only laws written are to protect life, liberty and property, the only way a person should ever have those basic rights infringed upon is when he infringes upon someone else's rights.

The only security we are promised in the Constitution is liberty. We're not guaranteed to be secure from anything from which we don't individually secure ourselves. The Constitution was written "to secure the blessings of Liberty", not to sacrifice liberty for security.

In Platoon, the enemy enters the perimeter "Bob"'s character is assigned to defend. Instead, he chooses to hide under the corpses of his fallen men rather than lead them to victory. Let us hope "Dr." Robert Bentley is out of office before he has a chance to strip us of enough of our rights to keep us from defending ourselves.

Get up on this!

2011-09-29T22:14:00.001-05:00

PUSH IT REAL GOOD

Wait Until After I'm Dead

2011-09-19T05:05:00.000-05:00

Can they stretch it out until after I'm gone? That's what you have to ask yourself if you think the current monetary policy at work in our country should be continued. The US Dollar has lost 98% of its value since 1970, under our current monetary system. How long until the other 2% is gone?

As long as the USA has the strongest military in the world, we can stretch it out. However, to keep that military strong, the dollar must lose value as we continue to borrow in order to replenish the military supplies. We're already in hock to China et. al. to the tune of trillions. What do we do when our military needs new supplies and China decides it is time to cash in its markers?

It IS a gamble... a huge wager with the future of the freest nation ever to exist put up as collateral. We have sacrificed financial security in the name of political comfort and cast lots on whether or not our ideological opponents will pull the rug out from under us.

But China, or the many other nations to whom we owe large debt, are not the worst problem. We have given up much of what made us great to provide a false sense of security to everyone. That is more detrimental to our economy than owing money to other countries.

One of the many things that made us great was the ability to question our leaders without fear of reprisal. We no longer have that. If you don't believe it, just try to stand in front of your state capital and speak negatively about those in government without being harassed by government representatives. Getting arrested for speaking your mind is NOT freedom. The only time you can get away with it is if you have support of OTHERS in government, basically acting as tools of the government against those they wish to defeat.

Another thing that made America great was the ability to strike fear into our government. Jefferson said that freedom is when government fears the people. Do you think government fears us at all? Of course not, they practically treat us like feeder cattle. The other part of that Jefferson quote is that tyranny is when the people fear the government. That fits a lot more closely to our current situation.

A show on Fox the other night allowed questions from the audience. One older woman, with a thick Eastern European accent, after stating that she escaped communist Russia decades ago, said that she now fears speaking out against OUR officials more than she feared speaking out against the communist officials when she was under communist oppression. Somehow, that just doesn't seem right.

If we don't soon make our government end the irresponsible borrowing and wasting of money in a manner that makes asking them if they think money grows on trees seem like a compliment, the consequences later will be catastrophic. Yes, there will be dire consequences, now, if we try to take responsibility, but those are nothing compared to what will happen if we wait. You don't want to be alive, then. It will be worse than the greatest depression ever recorded. America, as a nation, might cease to exist, either parted out to others or absorbed, wholesale, into a greater entity. You can be guaranteed that entity will NOT have a Bill of Rights for the individual.

Can they stretch it out until after you're gone? It's the question you must ask yourself before supporting candidates who choose not to take immediate responsibility for our debt. The answer is NO, they probably won't be able to stretch it out until after you're gone. You WILL have to deal with the worst economic times in the history of our nation. That raises a new question: Do you want to deal with a depression, now, or do you want to put it off by voting for the status quo, and dealing with something unimaginable in the future?

In the 1970s, Dr. Ron Paul predicted a dramatic drop in the value of the US Dollar following Nixon's economic policies. In 1984, he foresaw events leading to the crash of '87. In 1998, he predicted that terrorist attacks against the US would come from Afghanistan after Clinton ordered the bombing of Afghanistan. In 2003, he predicted the collapse of the housing bubble. In 2006, he predicted the bailouts and their failure.

None of these are prophet visions, but the result of astute and scientific observation. This observation utilizes an understanding of the causes and effects monetary policy in the creation of business cycles and artificial stimulation of the market. Instead of creating policy by polling, Paul starts with the fundamental rules of economics.

He, along with many an astute observer, have predicted a collapse of the dollar, if our current policies are not reversed.

We know that there is no candidate able to pull us from this economic quagmire without some economic destruction. Procrastination will only make it worse. If you choose to take responsibility now, the only candidate is Ron Paul. Not Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Barack Obama, Michelle Bachman, or any of the others who consistently defend the ideas which are already eviscerating our economy... only Paul has taken a stand against these policies. With the foresight of many years of economic study and observation, he has accurately predicted much of our current situation.

Will you cast your lots with those who would tell you what you want to hear, praying that this person will somehow delay the inevitable, or will you go with the one that doesn't promise to treat the symptoms, but to, instead, treat the disease?

FOR THE CONSTITUTION!

2011-09-17T23:32:00.000-05:00

What Cost Freedom

2011-09-12T22:33:00.003-05:00

Hurt feelings are nothing. A few dollars? Nothing. Many have given so much more to merely gain the opportunity to DREAM of freedom. What will we have to deny to ourselves in order to obtain and retain freedom?

Honestly, very little. So much of the price has already been paid. We can see freedom standing at our door. The glimpse of freedom we have inspires us. Yet, for some reason, we refuse to fully open the door.

It must be understood that freedom is the move towards civilization and that civilization is the move towards individualism. For thousands of years, man has been forced into collectives to survive. Individual freedom is raped in the name of security in these collectives. Now, at the true dawn of the fulfillment of the dreams of mankind, we find ourselves bowing at the altar of the false god of collectivism.

This is the reason we hesitate at the door: We have yet to answer the question of whether or not the collective is worth sacrificing in order to be free.

Not only is it worth sacrificing, collectivism is the most antithetical obstacle to freedom; it is the abyss claiming many who seek to be free. Like the ancients before them, many are turned around. They begin to see the illusion of collective safety as some sort of surrogate for true freedom. The enticements into this abyss are the false freedoms... the freedoms FROM things... freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom from hearing ideas that offend. These things are promised, yet never delivered by the collective.

This is not freedom at all, but enslavement of the mind and soul of the individual.

Until the individual will is recognized as the only force of civilization, man will not be free. And, although the cost we would have to pay is potentially very small, the reality is that the collective will protect itself until the bitter end. The collective sees the individual as meat to feed to collective, not as the objective of freedom. The individual is in for a fierce struggle.

WM3 FREE

2011-08-20T23:07:00.001-05:00

I'm just overwhelmed with happiness for them. That's all I can say.

Happy Birthday RP!

2011-08-20T21:58:00.001-05:00

More to the cause!

Another Year Older

2011-07-31T21:19:00.003-05:00

Another birthday. It was nice. My girl took me to lunch. I got a free slice of pie.

I don't feel any older, other than feeling like I might be about to need glasses, even though I'm almost the only person I know who doesn't wear glasses.

My girl made me a wonderful supper, tonight. I hurt myself eating so much, so fast. I'm bad about doing that with yummy food.

Maybe next birthday we'll be looking at a Presidential general election with a majo party candidate worth getting my vote. That'd be cool. It'll be here before I know it.

Black Cat in the Driver's Seat

2011-07-24T23:48:00.002-05:00

The security light in my garage just went on a few minutes ago, so I looked at the security camera for the garage. There was a black cat sitting on the seat of my tractor, like he was about to drive the thing. It started looking out the door towards the yard and craning its neck. It seemed to be looking for something.

I went to the door that opens into the garage and peeked out at the cat. It didn't see me. After a few seconds, it started cleaning itself. A minutre or so later, it climbed down the tractor tires, using the tread like steps, and disappeared.

It could have been sleeping on the trator and something came up and turned on the light, or it may have turned the light on climbing the tractor.

The light just went back off. I'm going to bed.

All the Shuttle Missions in 8 Minutes

2011-07-22T06:26:00.001-05:00

End of the Shuttle Era

2011-07-21T06:19:00.000-05:00

I remember making a space shuttle cockpit simulator out of tinker toys back in the early '80s after watching the first launch of Columbia. Now, with little fanfare, the shuttle program is over. After over 30 years, there will be no more shuttles or shuttle launches. I'm kind of sad about that.

There were a LOT of shuttle missions. Even with the gaps after the tragic accidents in '86 and '02, the shuttle program managed to fly more than 4 times a year for a total of 35 more missions than the intended 100.

However, the shuttle program was never really that great. A lot of science was done on those missions, but was it done efficiently? Imagine all the science that could have been done in those 30 years if we had chosen a cheaper launch vehicle which was less complicated and could be reconfigured to be even more cost effective.

What's next? The government has a shuttle-looking craft that it can launch for long duration flights, but there have been no indications that it is manned. And it wouldn't be for science, or at least not the the kind of science that benefits everyone.

For the first time in half a century, America has no way to send men into space. That is depressing.

But there is hope.

The hope is private industry. There are currently several ventures attempting manned space flight. Some have reached the boundary of space. Soon, no doubt, we will see private citizens going into space, simply for the thrill.

DONATE!!!

2011-07-19T06:56:00.000-05:00

We have to give Dr. Paul the funds he needs... we are SO CLOSE! We are in such better shape than we were at this time in 2007...

We have to push all the way to the finish!

Ready, Ames, FIRE!!!

2011-07-18T05:51:00.000-05:00

Second in fundraising.

Most individual contributions under $200.

The 2nd quarter is really a big victory for small-government, average Americans.

When you look at his opponents, the numbers look almost flipped... with most of their money coming from large donations, and the smallest amount coming from individuals giving less than $200. People who give big bucks are investing in a candidate from whom they expect to see a return. Ron Paul's supporters only expect freedom as a return.

Most average Americans don't HAVE the big bucks to drop. We feel like we're stretching ourselves to give over $200. But with Ron Paul, we feel it is truly worth it.

He can't be bought. Paul won't get the big money donors, so we have to make up for it with what we can scrape up. We did a good job of that in the 2nd quarter...

But, we have to do more.

The next quarter will really determine who spends the big bucks before the primaries. Dr. Paul will not waste our money. He is very frugal, so we have to give enough to inspire him to pop for the big campaigns. He's proven he will do it with the recent ad buys. We just have to give him what he needs to overcome the well-funded statists.

Last go 'round, we had homemade signs, volunteers who weren't a part of the official campaign making their own literature and spreading the word. This really motivated the base. It was inspiring.

But it didn't motivate the average voter who determines who to vote for from the little time he or she has to look into the candidates between work, family and other obligations. Many of them only heard of the candidates through television, radio and maybe a little bit of internet. They may have seen the "Who is Ron Paul?" banners, and meant to search it, but didn't have the time. If they even voted in the primary, it was because their favorite talk show host, or preacher named the person... or because they had heard positive things about the candidate.

We have to motivate these people. They are the backbone of our economy. They believe the same things we do. If we continue to let them think a Romney, Bachmann, or any of the other waffling ne'er-do-wells are going to help them, we are doing them an injustice.

I'm going to give my hard-earned money again, tomorrow, in the hopes that voters in Iowa will receive a political education with that money. If we perform well in Iowa, we will be exponentially better prepared to win the primaries. We won't win Iowa, though, without advertising, paid campaign workers and other outreach to the people of the state.

Donated, Again!

2011-06-30T17:50:00.001-05:00

Donated!

2011-06-24T19:39:00.001-05:00

NPR: Legalization Won't Make It Better

2011-06-23T07:09:00.000-05:00

Foreign Policy: Legalization Won't Make It Better: "

As drug cartels get more creative and more brutal, some are calling for the legalization of certain drugs. Elizabeth Dickinson of Foreign Policy says legalization won't work because the cartels aren't just traffickers anymore — they're the new mafia."

I'm not surprised that NPR published this story against decriminalization. The argument is very pro-state. If you favor limited government, you would favor decriminalization. If you favor big-government, you favor more laws to inhibit personal behavior.

I suppose those who still buy into the left-right, 2 dimensional political spectrum might not understand, since most of them think that Nixon-era drug enforcement laws are on the right, and 'legalization' is on the left. If you understand that the larger argument is liberty v. tyranny, you'd never buy into that.

The article is quite flawed, as well. The biggest error is the argument that you can't end the drug war because the drug was created drug mafias. That's about bass-ackwards.

Iowa report online poll Iowa residents only -- Ron Paul tied for 2d w/ likely caucus goers

2011-06-09T06:50:00.004-05:00

Via Liberty Forest:

I think this shows just how much the media affects how people perceive things. Ron Paul is statistically tied for 1st place in this poll, yet the people voting FOR him don't think he'll be elected. It is a classic example of how people can become convinced they hold a minority viewpoint, when, in fact, their opinion is the majority.

http://www.2012iowareport.com/

DONATED!

2011-06-05T13:33:00.000-05:00

Chinese boy sells kidney to buy an iPad 2

2011-06-02T11:25:00.002-05:00

Really? REALLY-REALLY?

VIA BGR:
"...child now says he regrets the decision."
REALLY???

[Via Business Insider]

Read

New species

2011-05-27T17:12:00.000-05:00

New species: "The 10 most striking new species discovered last year"

The only thing worse than Terrorists are Tyrants!

2011-05-27T05:28:00.001-05:00

VIA UNITED LIBERTY:Congress passes PATRIOT Act, continues to ignore the Bill of Rights

Well, the PATRIOT Act, a law with some serious constitutional concerns, has been renewed for four more years thanks to some bipartisan statism, as Corie Whalen put it, in the United States Congress.

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave in and allowed amendments to be brought to the floor - but not before essentially saying that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who single-handedly brought the Senate to standstill on the issue, was siding with terrorists, they were rejected. It also became clear that Senate Republicans were working to railroad Paul, with most of the caucus voting with Democrats to prevent the government from snooping on gun owners.

Ironically, six years ago, it was Reid fighting against renewal of the PATRIOT Act. In fact, they had actually taken credit for killing it (it would later pass). But Reid is now repeating the downright false claims he once rightly slammed Republicans for.

In the end, the PATRIOT Act was passed in the House (250 to 153, 31 Republicans voted against it) and the Senate (72 to 23). And it has already been signed into law via autopen (seriously?). But the debate over the civil liberties protected by the Fourth Amendment is alive and well and we have Sen. Rand Paul, who gave an empassioned speech on the need to restrain government yesterday, to thank for it.

They're banning septic tanks in Maryland!

2011-05-25T06:20:00.000-05:00

http://www.wbaltv.com/politics/26865358/detail.html

Now you can't even opt out of paying for sewage in MD. Coming soon to a state near you, no doubt.

Maryland government seeks to ban septic tanks: via Liberty Forest

Ron Paul was Always Against Ethanol Subsidies before it became politically advantageous

2011-05-25T05:51:00.001-05:00

“We are sure to see increased calls from political opportunists for eliminating ethanol subsidies, but Dr. Paul was against ethanol subsidies before it became politically advantageous,” said Gary Howard, a spokesman for Paul.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/25/wh...#ixzz1NMWR7rBq

via Liberty Forest: Texas Rep. Ron Paul has long been an opponent of ethanol subsidies.

Fed Posters from 1920's

2011-05-24T05:59:00.000-05:00

I had no idea that the Fed was so wonderful!: "

Keep in mind that this was BEFORE the Great Depression.
A lot of good that 'reservoir' did... There were no Great Depressions prior to Federal Reserve, yet the misconception still exists that they can somehow prevent another one!

Lots of great Fed propaganda posters here, from yesteryear
Join the discussion and post a comment
Related posts:
The Truth About the Depression of the 1870s
Laughing at the Regime
Woods Event at University of Wisconsin, Madison
"

Troopers May Blitz?

2011-05-23T17:55:00.005-05:00

Better not let your granny go down Alabama highways, she might get 'blitzed' by 'Troopers'. The Alabama Highway Patrol has posted huge orange signs, the kind that warn of road work, on the side of the highway near my house warning, "Troopers May Blitz". The last troopers I heard of blitzing were Nazi StormTroopers. What does that even mean? The alternate flashing sign reads, "Seatbelts Enforced", so the sign really reads, "Seatbelts Enforced, Troopers May Blitz."

Here's some pictures I just took, my apologies for the bad quality, but it was the only camera I had on me:

Are you a Nixon/LBJ Republican?

2011-05-23T05:53:00.001-05:00

If you are a Republican who is an advocate of anti-drug laws and are for the liberal interpretation of the welfare clause in the Constitution (like Chris Matthews of Fox News recently came out as being), you are a Nixon/LBJ Republican.

There, I said it.

FACT: There was no "drug war" before Nixon's tired, crooked, corrupt administration. It was a classic Wag-the-Dog scenario... he wanted attention drawn away from his dirty administration to the 'dirty hippies' who he claimed used drugs which, in spite of drugs being benign for almost 200 years, were somehow a new threat to America.

In spite of this misdirection, he was still forced to resign in shame when his criminal activities began to surface.

Continuing the costly and exhausting war on drugs is to perpetuate a diversion created by probably the worst president in my lifetime. Billions of dollars are poured into this bottomless pit of social engineering, while our own government has admitted to having the stuff brought into our country, or guarded it in foreign lands as it is grown. Meanwhile, 'illegal' drug use is increasing.

Utterly ridiculous.

As for the welfare clause, I was dumbfounded to hear a Fox News talking head defending the most liberal of all interpretations of the Constitution in an interview with Ron Paul. Funny how inconsistent Fox looks when a real conservative shows up.

It was Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democrat president, who gave us the most costly social welfare programs of all time. These entitlements are the bane of conservatism and libertarianism, because they not only rob Peter to pay Paul, but they also require virtual enslavement of those who accept benefits. No Republican should favor this. Yet clueless pundits, with an eye on polls instead of principles, are now lauding entitlements, while still wearing conservative republican banners.

Come on and admit it... Call yourself what you are: LBJ/Nixon Republicans. Just don't try to tell me you're a conservative.

Ron Paul IS the 2012 GOP Frontrunner

2011-05-23T04:44:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul IS the 2012 GOP Frontrunner: "Susan Westfall writes at LewRockwell.com: 'Whether the media establishments want to admit it or not, and believe me they don't, Ron Paul IS the 'front runner' for the republican primary. Despite voracious denials and vitriolic arguments from almost every quarter to the contrary, he is the only one with a chance of shutting out Obama for the presidency in 2012. He appeals to all sides of the aisle, and is attracting the much sought after independent swing vote almost as fast as he has the youth of the nation. The Internet is indisputably Ron Paul country as countless polls and google trends have repeatedly shown. The gradual change in political rhetoric flowing out of Washington, D.C. over the last 3 years reflects an explosion of interest in the freedom message he spreads so tirelessly. The continuous growth in popularity of talk and news shows focusing on freedom and the Constitution broadcasts loud and clear the rising prominence of issues he has brought to the debate. For anyone with any powers of discernment, it's a no-brainer.'

Read the rest at LewRockwell.com.

Hat tip: DailyPaul.

Wes Messamore,
Editor in Chief, THL
Articles | Author's Page

Decentralize Government

2011-05-20T17:16:00.000-05:00

Decentralize Government: "

By Matt Hawes

Senator Rand Paul joined Neil Cavuto on Thursday to discuss the the debt crisis, the Senate's reception to his proposals, and the CBO's support of a plan to tax gas mileage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmfV99hg8SI

Breaking rules makes you seem powerful

2011-05-20T17:13:00.000-05:00

Breaking rules makes you seem powerful: "When people have power, they act the part. Powerful people smile less, interrupt others and speak in a louder voice. When people do not respect the basic rules of social behavior, they lead others to believe that they have power, according to a new study."

That explains how most politicians get elected.

Adventures in Neocon Land

2011-05-20T14:27:00.001-05:00

Adventures in Neocon Land: "
Most people tend to gravitate toward liberty — they just have not heard it properly defined.

Turgot in ePub

2011-05-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

Turgot in ePub: "

Join the discussion and post a comment

No related posts.

bin Laden: From Dead and Nearly Forgotten to Freshly Martyred

2011-05-06T06:25:00.000-05:00

Since the Fox News article in December 2001 reporting the possibility that Osama bin Laden was already dead, the profile of the alleged mastermind of 9/11 has dropped dramatically. Reports were that he no longer commanded al Quaida, the group, formed from the remnants of the anti-soviet Mujahadeen in the 1980s, which was given popular blame for the terrorist attacks against the US in 2001. He was still an enemy to be located, though, if only for the closure his corpse would bring.

And, perhaps, simply finding his corpse would have been better for American foreign policy. The recent news coverage of a brutal, bloody raid shot bin Laden back to the front of the collective subconscious. If a rotting corpse from 2001 had been located, and positively DNA tested, it would have brought the same closure, only without igniting the kind of disdain the death of a martyr brings to his killer.

Killing him publicly, even without photos or video, has created a martyr from a nearly forgotten has-been. Withholding the evidence, now, makes no sense. At least the Americans who were terrorized by him would get to have closure, instead of giving all the motivation to our enemies.

Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich too Afraid to Debate

2011-05-05T16:46:00.001-05:00

After months of stumping and bringing their names back into the political discourse, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump et al, have opted out of competing in the first GOP debate tonight. The Obama administration has gained a tremendous boost from the alleged capture/assassination of Osama bin Laden, intimidating the candidates said to be his best opposition. The only top-tier candidate not afraid to still show up is Ron Paul.

The 'godfather' of the Tea Party movement, Paul will be the lightening rod of the debate. There will be a few others participating, mainly those counting on this debate to gain some name recognition, but the only one who comes into this with any political clout is Paul. None of the other candidates in the debate are currently in office, though there are two former governors and a former Senator.

On May 3, 2007, the so-called top tier Huckabee, Romney, McCain (and Ron Paul) were more than happy to face-off in an early debate. Why not this year? Why is Ron Paul the only one brave enough in 2011? The difference is that this year, they all face an incumbent who's popularity has very recently shot up. If the other top-tier candidates can't take the heat in an early debate, why should we expect them to be able to handle the office of President of the United States for 4 years?

RP 2012!!!

2011-05-05T08:47:00.000-05:00

Donated!

Images Trickling Out

2011-05-04T16:34:00.001-05:00

Several pictures have come out, now, that are of the scene where the alleged death of OBL took place. The above is from the Guardian.

This picture of a broken US military helicopter tail doesn't tell me anything except that an American chopper went down. It looks somewhat catastrophic, as well.

I'm beginning to get that 'helicopters crashing in the desert' feeling from the Jimmy Carter days.

They need to at least show us video from the raid... something that lets us know we're not just having our chains yanked to make us feel good. Pictures with the gory parts pixelated would be fine, if you can tell it's OBL.

Why won't they release something? Is it that there ISN'T anything, because it's all a lie?

Founders no Teetotalers

2011-05-04T05:13:00.004-05:00

Stumbled on an item today that's pretty interesting and probably disheartening for those who advocate prohibition. Seems the Founders had a proclivity for the sauce. A bill from September 15, 1787 shows a party for 'the entertainment of George Washington' and 54 guests on the 14th required 164 bottles of various types of alcohol. The list includes claret, porter, beer and madera. That's almost 3 bottles per person. There were also 7 bowls of punch, and a bunch more liquor for the musicians.

I already knew John Hancock was a smuggler of liquor, but these folks could apparently party pretty hard, too.

Our Ancestors Would Be Disappointed...

2011-05-04T04:47:00.000-05:00

Our Ancestors Would Be Disappoint…: "

Via Pundit Kitchen

Submitted by: Unknown

Bin Laden Dead... again?

2011-05-02T05:34:00.002-05:00

Bin Laden may be dead, but the pictures and information we've been given don't prove it.

This article and a host of others are now showing how the media really dropped the ball in their haste to get the story out on the alleged death of bin Laden.

There has been no credible evidence of his death coming forth. He was 'buried at sea'? Really? And no real photographic, video, audio or other evidence of the alleged raid? DNA could have been procured from his corpse. But why, if they found his corpse, wouldn't they just say that he had been found dead instead of lying about killing him?

It has been reported multiple times by reputible sources that bin Laden passed away years ago. Some reports claimed he died in Tora Bora back in 2001, but, more believably, it was reported that he had died of kidney failure several years ago. Either way, he would've been dead for years before he was 'killed' in Pakistan over the weekend.

If bin Laden was really killed Sunday, the government needs to do a much better job of proving it. Right now, it seems like a propaganda game they're playing, with no real substance.

UPDATE: I figured it out. He's been a ZOMBIE the whole time!

On a more serious note, I expect to see the plethora of videos, pictures and other evidence come out, soon, of the action that allegedly claimed bin Laden. There was first person POV video of the hospital raid that extracted the female soldier captured in the early days of the Iraq invasion. There were on-the-scene videos of the capture of Saddam Hussein and for the death of his sons.

At least there should be some video of him on the boat/ship before they placed him in the casket, or in the casket. I KNOW, if this really happened, that there is video/pictures of the place of his death with him still there.

If none of this comes out, I'm going to have to call BS. I'm already pretty close to calling it, now.

Not Biased

2011-04-11T05:30:00.004-05:00

The above image is the result of an online survey/test/demonstration I took. It's Harvard University's bias-detecting demonstrations, a part of their Implicit study. I don't know how old the site is, or how old the study is, but it seemed to confirm what I already know: I'm not racially-biased.

The quiz/survey takes images and places good or bad adjectives between them, forcing the test-taker to rapidly place the word or picture in a bad or good category.

I wonder how some alleged fighters for equality would fare on this thing.

Then, I took the gender test.

It was to see if I have a bias towards males in the workplace. I thought I'd probably show some bias towards females being more family oriented, due to the fact my mom was our primary caregiver, but it showed I really didn't have any bias about men or women in the workplace or home.

I only took those two tests. I'll probably take some other ones, just to see if I have any biases at all.

More Smears and Idiocy

2011-03-29T17:00:00.002-05:00

I just read the most idiotic blog on examiner.com. This guy apparently watches Huckabee and checks no sources at all. His name is Marc Schenker. What a dolt. I saw the interview Huckabee did with Ron Paul and Huckabee tried to imply that Paul said he wanted Obama impeached for invading Libya.

Only problem is, Ron Paul never said that. Huckabee gave no source for his accusation other than to say, basically, that he 'read it somewhere'.

What we have here is a bunch of neo-con idiots who are trying to make people confuse Dr. Paul with Dennis Kucinich, the Democrat. Kucinich believes in UFOs (much like Jimmy Carter) and has written up impeachment articles for the last few Presidents. He is NOT Ron Paul. Kucinich is a liberty-leaning liberal which is a far cry from a libertarian-leaning conservative like Ron Paul.

The goal here is obvious: discredit Ron Paul. That's been the obvious goal all along. He threatens the power structure. If you don't understand that, you need to read more, and look back at recent history.

Back in 2007, when Dr. Paul embarassed the weak GOP field by dismantling their neo-con rhetoric, the all-out attack began. 'Impartial' moderators began to berate Paul, no waiting for an answer, they giggled and gnashed their teeth at his honest, intellectual responses which blew apart the fallacies they'd been promoting. They hired PR hit men to attack him after the debates.

When the primaries began, voting irregularities in several states went, curiously, against Paul's favor. Poised to win the Nevada GOP nomination for President after Mitt Romney dropped out, the Nevada GOP shut down the state convention with thousands of Paul delegates anxiously waiting to cast their vote for him.

Even after it became clear that he had more support that the 'front runners' by coming in ahead of them, he was not invited to some of the most key debates.

Although garnering more than enough support to be allowed to speak at the GOP National Convention, Paul was snubbed. Ron Paul's delegates to the GOP convention were told that it was 'McCain Country' and all Paul signs, pins and banners were taken. Paul's supporters held a counter convention with thousands of attendees across town. Although it had C-Span coverage, none of the major networks covered the counter convention.

After railroading him out of the primaries and debates, and ultimately the GOP National Convention, the neo-cons breathed a sigh of relief. It was ok, now, to have him on their TV shows again. After all, he said exactly what they claimed to believe and raised record amounts of money from individual supporters. They really wanted to tap into that.

Now, the time is coming closer for the first debates. The elitists can't let him do what he did in 2007 or he could seriously undermine the neo-con agenda for good. Thus the attacks.

If I hadn't seen what they did to Ron Paul in 2007/08, I don't know that I would have supported him so vociferously.

Haters

2011-03-22T16:01:00.001-05:00

Since 2007, it has become more and more apparent to this blogger that there are some people who will never support Ron Paul. No matter what the facts are, no matter how much they agree with everything he says, and no matter how wrong they make themselves look for opposing him, they will stubbornly continue to argue against him. Even when their arguments are debunked outright, they'll start talking gibberish and never admit they are wrong. I've witnessed it!

Why do they continue to attack? Part of the reason is politics. He most likely didn't vote for some pork project or political issue which violated his principles and the principles even they claim to uphold. Now they're just getting some measure of political revenge. They'd rather cut their nose off to spite their face.

Some refuse to support him because they say he's 'unelectable'. I'm still trying to figure that out. I suspect it comes from those who believe perception is reality. If Fox, CNN and MSNBC portray him in a negative light, then there must be something negative about him.

If you're still watching and believing what you see on FOX or any of the other news/entertainment networks after 2007, I question your sanity.

Then there are the theocrats. These people attack because they support candidates who would violate their own freedom of religion just to push whatever moral code violation they deem illegal. They basically believe a version of sharia law should be imposed on America. Surprisingly, many of them are Christians.

The good thing about them is that when many of these theocrats really start to read and understand what rights are and what the purpose of government really is, they reject sharia-style laws. A lot don't, though, stubbornly continuing to believe that government is some sort of enforcer of personal religious beliefs instead of the protector of our rights.

The key to winning them is getting them to read things that don't implicitly support their already ingrained views. That's sometimes hard to do.

Worse than theocrats are the 'radicals'. These are people who read a lot of communist, socialist, big-government propaganda who seem to believe that some sort of utopia can come from dismantling our country. They will shout, scream, make weird noises or do whatever it takes to bring any intelligent conversation or debate to a grinding halt.

The only way to reach these people is when they finally realize that the fulfillment of their ideas would bring nothing except more pain and bloodshed. Most would NEVER admit that, and therefore are the hardest nuts.

There probably aren't many people who don't already understand that young people are the driving force behind what happens in the future. If young people acquiesce to the will of those who want to continue the erosion of our rights, our rights will be eroded. If they stand and fight, our rights will be protected, at least until the next generation decides whether or not to take up the cause. That's what the Ron Paul movement is about.

Dr. Paul is the ONLY politician doing anything about the erosion of our rights. All of the others pay lip service, but do the exact opposite of protecting our rights. Young people who want to protect their future understand this.

Paul is principled and stubbornly defends those principles. Instead of stubbornly defending special interests and big government, he defends the rights of the individual. That kind of behavior, although it doesn't gain him a lot of friends in politics, gains him a lot of support from those who want their rights stubbornly defended.

No one is saying Ron Paul is a perfect candidate; he's just the only one even remotely close to the ideals most Americans believe and hold dear. Rejecting him as a viable candidate because you're too hard-headed to admit you were wrong is just plain dumb.

ENGLAND WINS!

2011-03-17T12:45:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I should probably be ashamed of my Cricket habit, but the England v. West Indies match was a classic. It came down to the last 5 overs... if the Windies had hit another boundary or made it another over or two, I would have probably had a heart attack. It was that close. 18 runs.

I'm not an England fan. If anything, I pull for Ireland, but they are already out of the later rounds, although they beat England earlier in the tournament (their only win).

When the Windies lbw gave them their 7th wicket, I knew they were in trouble. England would really go on the attack, looking for those last 3 wickets. But still, all they needed at one point were 2 runs an over.

It's been a good World Cup, so far, though I wish Ireland had done better.

Praying for Japan

2011-03-17T06:18:00.002-05:00

About 10 years ago I had the pleasure of visiting Japan. The trip was only about 2 weeks, but I really liked it. The people were very gracious with a reserved, pleasant demeanor.

I even thought about staying to teach english. There was a guy from Canada there teaching. He tried to recruit me. Having just bought my house, I couldn't really consider it seriously.

The same nature I enjoyed on my trip to Japan is the unpredictable, brutal nature that laid waste to so much. It's so sad to see the destruction. All of those people taken so suddenly and brutally. 2 natural disasters and now the radiation threat.

My heart goes out to them.

Ron Paul Sign Stolen; Neilson Family!

2011-02-25T15:38:00.003-06:00

I had a Ron Paul yard sign stolen last weekend. Not the first time and probably won't be the last. I had even taped an 'If you steal this, and I find you, you won't have to worry about the police' warning on it. I guess criminals can't read.

Yesterday was the last day of my Neilson family stint. I didn't blog it while I was doing it, but today is the first day what I watch won't be counted in the ratings.

I watched a lot of Freedom Watch and Stossel. I didn't really want to give Fox the ratings after how they've treated conservatives, but I figured I'd make the sacrifice for freedom.

I got a creepy call earlier in the week from Neilson. They were telling me to send back the specific stuff I didn't use, without me ever telling them what stuff I didn't use. It creeped me out.

Ron Paul: CPI is Rigged

2011-02-11T05:04:00.000-06:00

Ferris Bueller's Day Off was June 5, 1985

2011-02-10T05:25:00.000-06:00

Ever wondered exactly what day Ferris Bueller took off? This article points out the exact date by using baseball records. The game used in the film was played from 1:25pm to about 4:34pm on June 5th, 1985, giving Bueller and his friends plenty of time to get to Wrigley Field after lunch to catch that foul ball.

I've read that the parade scene has been used to place his day off in the fall of the year, which would contradict an early June time. The parade, which was fairly nondescript, has been widely recognized as the Von Stuben Day parade, a parade held in September. The logical solution to this seemingly glaring lack of continuity is that the parade was an impromptu effort to promote the 'Save Ferris!' charity... and everybody, including the Von Stuben folks, pitched in. Obviously.

Also, if you were wondering, the Cubs lost to the Braves in 11 innings, 2-4.

Jim Rogers on the FED

2011-02-09T04:15:00.000-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtL4wkjvoQQ&t=3m0s

Saw this over at Liberty Forest.

'The Ron Paul Story'

2011-02-08T05:27:00.000-06:00

I think I've probably posted this before. I know I remember seeing it at least back in 2007.

Policing the World

2011-01-28T18:46:00.000-06:00

Reminiscing about the things that happened in my life, thanks to the anniversary of the Challenger disaster, I started wondering how many countries US troops have fought in since I've been alive.

In my lifetime (since 1974), US Troops have engaged in combat in the following countries:

Cambodia, Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Grenada, Honduras, Bolivia, Panama, Liberia, Kuwait, Somalia, Former Yugoslavian Republics, Congo, Albania, Afghanistan, Philippines, Columbia, Iraq, Georgia, and Syria.

That's over 22 nations. The only ones to which we were 'invited' were Kuwait and Georgia, although with Georgia, we were technically in South Ossetia, Russia, where we were definitely not invited.

We really have been the 'policemen of the world'. No wonder we're so deep in debt.

Space Shuttle Memories

2011-01-28T05:42:00.000-06:00

25 years ago, today, I sat in a classroom at Westside Junior High School, lights out, waiting for the coverage of the space shuttle Challenger to come back on after a commercial. A school teacher was being sent into space. It was considered an educational experience for us to watch the launch, so, lights dimmed, we sat watching TVs in our classrooms.

When the coverage returned, a frenetic tone could be detected in the announcers voices. I can't remember exactly what was said, but it was something to the effect of, "There has been an anomaly." Then, they started replaying the footage of the shuttle coming apart.

One of our teachers, I think it was Mrs. Stewart, began trying to reassure us, saying something about it being an event we'd always remember, but that we were more likely to be killed in a car accident than in a space shuttle accident. Having just seen the shuttle apparently blow up and kill all of the astronauts on board, that wasn't much of a reassurance, but it did help a little.

Over time, we stopped talking about it. Two years later, another shuttle launch took place, and, in short order, launches were back to their pre-Challenger rate.

Now, nearing the twilight of the shuttle program, and 7 years past a second shuttle disaster, we face uncertainty. What will take astronauts into space? There are ideas, but no specific solutions. Perhaps the private sector will supply the answers. There WILL be something, though. Man will always seek reach into the unknown and discover its mysteries.

COSMOS

2011-01-24T20:51:00.002-06:00

Carl Sagan and I spent the weekend together.

I was afraid I was coming down with the flu, so I took the whole weekend to rest and recover. I didn't want to get my girlfriend sick, so I didn't see her, either.

It was just me and Carl.

Cosmos was a show made in the early '80s by Carl Sagan. I have vague memories of it on TV, although I'm fairly sure our TV wouldn't pick up the channel it was on. I probably watched it at my grandmother's house.

A few years ago, the Science channel began re-running the show on Tuesday nights. That's really when it caught my attention, again. Problem was, it came on at 9 or 10PM. The music on the show is pastoral, anyway, so it almost puts you to sleep even when it's not late at night. Shortly after the opening credits, I was usually fast asleep.

When I got Netflix, it was one of the first things I looked for. I haven't really had the chance to watch it, yet. So, in need of rest, and something to keep me company, it seemed like a good time to bust out the COSMOS.

Carl didn't disappoint. I can't say that I always agree with his take on every subject, but it is entertaining. For a man who passed away well over a decade ago, he was a good companion for the weekend.

Lost Comments

2011-01-21T05:30:00.001-06:00

A while back, a particularly idiotic piece ran on HuffingtonPost.com that seemed to require a comment. To comment required joining the site. Thinking there would be a notification in my email if someone replied to my comment, the story was soon forgotten.

Since joining the site, they've been sending daily spam-type emails. Today, I clicked on one and went to the the site. Logging in, I found out that my comment had been attacked, and I never even knew about it!

The first instinct was to reply, but comments had been closed for the story. The replies were long, and were really the typical attempts to brand anyone who disagrees with groupthink as 'racists'. I feel sorry for them. They seem to almost demand tyranny.

Yes, being able to reply would have made me feel better, but I don't think it would have swayed their opinion. When people are told to believe that the world is either right or left, good or evil - us or them, they tend to take a side and never look back.

It's sad, really.

Bad First Week

2011-01-10T04:07:00.001-06:00

This isn't a good way to start a New Year... the violent murder of innocent people.

Both sides of the left-right argument are making valid points about the shooting in Arizona, but their points are pretty much moot. The guy wasn't right in the head, that's obvious enough, so I don't think motives or books he read mean anything.

I don't think this horrific incident makes any kind of political statement, other than the fact that the right to life of a bunch of people was tragically and terminally violated by a mentally disturbed man.

I guess if the shooter had been a police officer serving a no-knock warrant, and if none of the victims were politicians, the story probably wouldn't be as big. That might be the statement it makes, but I'm reaching a little.

It really sucks, though. Especially the little kid getting killed. Little kids are killed everyday, however, and that's what really sucks. Life is just totally senseless and terrible, sometimes.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T23:07:00.001-06:00

I hope everyone has had a Merry Christmas and will have a happy New Year!

A Call to Democrats: Reclaim Liberty!

2010-12-30T04:09:00.002-06:00

Liberty is a much-used, and oft-misunderstood word. You can look in the dictionary to find its definition. Some people read the definition and are surprised to find out how much freedom 'liberty' gives a person.

Democrats and Republicans stake a claim to the word. Libertarians incorporated it into the name of their party. Still, when someone talks about liberty, especially in today's political climate, they're thought to be 'right-wing'. For some reason, the false left v. right, single-dimensional political theory tries to place liberty solely on the right side of the scale, denying the term to the alleged 'left-wing', such as Democrats.

If you are a Democrat, how can you reclaim 'liberty'? What efforts can you put forth to move the public opinion of liberty from the right to the left? Is it possible? I think it is.

You can start by looking at your foreign policy. Continuing war in a country that has neither declared war against us nor asked for our assistance is not a good way to reclaim liberty. Certainly, the other brand of government started the wars, but your brand continues to support them. You must end the interventionist wars to reclaim liberty.

Holding people indefinitely is not a good way to reclaim liberty. Keeping people in prison who have not been accused of a crime goes against every principle of liberty. You must free them to reclaim liberty.

Torturing your fellow man goes against liberty. As a free, civilized nation the idea of torture is repugnant and ultimately makes us hypocrites. You must work to end torture to reclaim liberty.

Taking away a person's right to decide how to best take care of his or herself defies liberty. You must end the failed drug war. You must end the hidden inflation-tax. You must repeal laws denying the right of the people to food and health freedom. You must end seat-belt and other non-criminal, invasive laws to reclaim liberty for the Democrats.

Allowing the surveillance and invasion of the privacy of innocent people without a valid warrant is anathema to liberty. If the Democratic party has a hope of ever claiming liberty, this issue must be addressed. Democrats must end the virtual stalking of Americans in the false name of safety in order to reclaim liberty.

These are but a few of many issues regarding liberty. If you ever want to see the Democratic Party have a legitimate claim to the term liberty again, you will be forced to address these and many others. For this to occur, those with a true love of liberty will have to become more vocal in the party. You will have to develop a true love of liberty.

In doing so, you will see that both parties are essentially the same, with two factions called 'Republican' and 'Democrat' flailing around a few flagship issues to exaggerate their differences with neither truly embracing liberty, and both wanting to control your life. This will be your toughest realization.

You will have to take over the Democratic Party in the name of liberty. It will not be easy, but I believe you can do it.

Potential GOP Field for POTUS

2010-12-28T06:49:00.004-06:00

Here's a list of the names I've heard mentioned more than once, so far, in alphabetical order.

Scott Brown - Listed by some as a potential candidate for POTUS, Brown has neither experience nor an acceptable conservative track record. His main claim to fame is that he has taken the late Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate and replaced the (D) with an (R) after his name. He also voted FOR the national healthcare bill.

Lindsay Graham - Graham has been mentioned often as a potential candidate, though his abysmal conservative record, along with his outright condemnation of the reform movement in the GOP, makes him a longshot.

Mike Huckabee - 'Tax Hike' Mike, as he is known to fiscal conservatives, has a less-than-stellar fiscal record. He increased spending in Arkansas as Governor after the big-spending Clinton left office, which is, indeed, saying a lot. Huckabee capitalizes on a pastoral, soft-spoken persona, which belie his hawkish rhetoric.

Gary Johnson - As Governor of New Mexico, Johnson vetoed every tax increase bill, giving him the strongest fiscal record of any Governor in the GOP field. Johnson is also a minor hero of the reform movement in the Republican Party, calling for repeal of unconstitutional legislation and a return to the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

Sarah Palin - As Governor of Alaska, Palin maintained a somewhat limited government. Her campaign for Vice President in 2008 was not well-managed. She has limited experience and knowledge of economics and foreign policy, but has taken crash courses in both, to mixed reviews.

Ron Paul - Finishing only 3 points behind John McCain in the 2008 Iowa Caucus, Paul has a strong following, and proven ability to raise funds for his campaign. He has the strongest fiscal conservative record, and the strongest record regarding national defense. He is the champion and father of the reform movement in the Republican Party, known by some as the 'Tea party', begun on December 16th, 2007 to mark the anniversary of the Boston Tea party. In spite of this, he is not a media favorite, making him less recognizable.

Mitt Romney - Brought RomneyCare to Massachusetts as Governor. RomneyCare is basically the national healthcare system voted into law by Congress in 2010. Romney pushes a conservative image without a conservative track record. He hasn't proven his ability to create a following, other than through those identifying with his Mormon faith, but has a large amount of personal wealth to invest in his campaign.

Other mentions, by office/occupation, in reverse alphabetical order:

(name - highest elected office held or occupation)

John Thune - Senator from SD.

Rick Santorum - Senator from PA.

Marco Rubio - Senator from FL.

Jim Demint - Senator from SC.

Mike Pence - Representative from IN.

Newt Gingrich - Representative from GA.

Tim Pawlenty - Governor of MN.

Bob McDonnell - Governor of VA.

Bobby Jinal - Governor of LA.

Mitch Daniels - Governor of IN.

Charlie Crist - Governor of FL.

Chris Christie - Governor of NJ.

Jeb Bush - Governor of FL.

Haley Barbour - Governor of MS.

Fred Karger - Political Consultant.

David Petraeus - General in US Army.

John Bolton - US Ambassador to UN.

'Virtual Alabama': Anyone with .edu or .gov Email to have Spying Authority

2010-12-26T21:06:00.005-06:00

A new post on Selma Intelligencer by this author details a few of the problems with Alabama's Department of Homeland Security's 'Virtual Alabama' program.

Albama's Department of Homeland Security has an application that allows anyone with a .gov or .edu email address to use the privacy-invading tools the government has implemented to spy on anyone virtually anywhere in the State of Alabama. The 3 minute propaganda video on their website tries to explain how the live video feeds are used for 'keeping our community safer', yet details how the EPA is using Virtual Alabama 'extinsively' to watch what you're doing in your yard (2:40), and that it is used for economic development and other non-safety issues (2:05). This program is clearly being used to spy on the citizens of Alabama.

As troubling as it may be that any government employee with an .edu or .gov email can get the software, that's not the main issue. The ruggedness of the screening process for obtaining an account is unknown. The issue is the privacy of Alabama's citizens, which has been ignored. Even if the screening process to be granted an account is extremely stringent, the ability of users to use this data in a malicious way is far too great.

Political opponents can use this to gain a god-like advantage by tracking every move of their opponents and critics without having to leave a computer. The system has been implemented with cameras in both Selma City Schools (January 2010), and Dallas County Schools (June 2010). This creates a risk for children, as well.

Bottom line: The cameras shouldn't be there in the first place. The realtime surveillance of innocent citizens is the kind of thing you'd expect from a tyrant, not from a free State in the United States of America. This program, even according to it's own promotional video, does very little towards it's professed goal of 'keeping our community safer', and goes a very long way to destroying the very rights that make our State and Country great.

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Alabama's DHS logo looks like it could have been designed by WWII Germany. Using the Alabama Flag's St. Andrew's cross as the background of a sun circle cross with a DHS shield in the center looks more than a little Nazi-esque. The National Socialists would be MORE than proud to have gotten their hands on technology like this.

Are You a Terrorist?: Part 3

2010-12-22T07:50:00.007-06:00

Attorney General Eric Holder thinks you might be a terrorist. Yesterday he said, "The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens -- raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born."

Previously, Various Curiosities has blogged the Project Megiddo, and surely everyone remembers the MIAC report. Even Glen Beck, who all but called us terrorists for starting the tea party movement when he still worked for CNN, got a taste of his own medicine from MIAC.

Let's review what circulated, and is probably still circulating, among the country's many Information Analysis Centers as evidence of terrorist or anti-government militia activity:

- Owning gold bullion

- Displaying historical U.S. flags

- Opposing abortion

- Talking about the documentary Zeitgeist

- Being interested in animal rights

- Being a lone individual

- Making numerous references to the U.S. Constitution

- Defending the U.S. Constitution

- Claiming driving is a right, not a privilege

- Refusing to identify yourself to an authority figure

- Attempting to monitor the actions of police

- Being bald

- Being a nice guy

- Wearing Levi jeans

- Communicating predominantly by cell phone, email or text message

- Looking normal in appearance

- Renting a car

- Staying in a hotel or apartment

- Renting a storage facility

- Using cash to make large purchases

- Using pre-paid cellphones or hand-held radios

- Owning large amounts of medicines, alcohol, or baby formula

- Gaining support for a cause by holding meetings, public rallies, or demonstrations

- Gaining support for a cause by using websites, posters, leaflets, or underground press publications

- Possessing a photo-copy of your drivers license, passport, social security card or birth certificate

- Possessing or purchasing GPS technology

- Displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties

- Supporting Congressman Ron Paul

- Supporting former presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin

- Supporting former Congressman Bob Barr

- Opposing the implementation of a North American Union

- Walking, biking or driving near 'potential targets'

- Taking photographs of 'potential targets,' including bridges, power plants or government buildings

- Being a property-rights activist

- Trying to influence government or social policy

- Undermining confidence in the government

- Using a sketch pad, camera, map, binoculars or scuba equipment

(list via Liberty Forest)

Any of that sound familiar about you? If so, go ahead and turn yourself in to the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, right. Basically, all this does is make it so that anyone who poses any kind of threat to the illegal, unconstitutional, corrupt powers-that-be can be placed on a suspect list and, at best, discredited in the public eye, and, at worst, held at Guantanamo or some other torture-chamber-of-a-prison outside of the borders of our country.

"Get real," you say, "We live in a country where government changes hands without bloodshed." Really? Power in America never really changes hands, the public face only changes while the cronies stay. "People that attempt to deny us our rights get punished and no longer can be in any position of authority." We wish. Jay Nixon, the Governor who approved MIAC Report, is STILL Missouri's Governor, and has been appointed to Obama's Council of Governors.

"But at least we still have the Bill of Rights... Right?"

Ha. If anyone ever really threatens their power, that person's rights disappear, and, if enough of us threaten their power, we all might wind up in 'FEMA' camps.

In reality, a terrorist is someone who uses violence against civilians to make them live in fear of the terrorist. The arguments that someone who wants to be free and have rights is a terrorist is unconscionable. Far more arguments can be made that our own government uses terror tactics against it's own people.

No, if you meet any of the criteria in the list above, you are not a terrorist. you are quite normal. But you might want to start thinking about the motives of someone with the power to imprison you who makes such a list.

Why I No Longer Watch FOX News, Part 1: 2008 Elections & Ron Paul

2010-12-21T14:00:00.007-06:00

Once, before the days of BLOG, this blog author was a Fox Fanatic. Why? Because Fox News said what was pleasing to the ear. They paid lip service to everything that seemed to be good and right. Sometime around 2002, though, signs began to appear that made this blogger doubt the 'Fair and Balanced' motto.

The initial response to Fox News was positive. Finally, people who didn't believe in big government interfering in your life had a news source. But that wouldn't last for long, if it was ever true.

To begin, let's skip forward to the most heinous act, and probably the straw that broke the camel's back for most former Fox News viewers: forward 6 years, to an election cycle, one in which a new president would be named due to the incumbent having served the maximum of 2 terms. Surely Fox would be a champion against the intrusive big government statism that had permeated the congress, and even the Presidency, for a large part of the last 20 years.

It wasn't to be.

Instead, Fox News led a campaign against conservatism in the 2008 Presidential election. Big spenders, tax proponents, and those with NO understanding of National Security were all paraded around like chickens painted to look like peacocks. Fox gave any statists with large government aspirations a shot, practically coronating Mitt Romney, the author of Romneycare, in 2007.

One of the worst missteps Fox News took was marginalizing a man who was arguably the most qualified candidate, and unarguably the father of the modern tea party era. Of course, we're talking about Ron Paul. The way Fox News treated him was disrespectful to say the least, and despicable.

One Fox News moderator attacked, accusing Paul of wanting the country to take orders from al Quaida, a horrendously irresponsible error. Dr. Paul quipped back, "We should take our marching orders from the Constitution." Another one of their allegedly 'impartial' talking heads, instead of moderating the debate, also attacked Dr. Paul, asking him if he had any 'electability'.

How little class the grade school children at Fox have. The questions weren't even worded cohesively.

On the topic of electability, it should be said that Ron Paul had the most of all in the GOP field of 2008. Here are a few points the apparent dolts from Fox should have considered about Ron Paul:

* in the Iowa Caucuses, Ron Paul finished only 3 points behind McCain, the eventual nominee. Ronald Reagan, himself, finished 2 points behind G.H.W. Bush in the 1980 Iowa Caucuses and went on to win the nomination. No one said Reagan was 'unelectable' due to his performance in the Iowa Caucuses. Paul finished 6 POINTS AHEAD of Giuliani in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, yet the big-government Giuliani was still considered 'electable' by Fox News.

* Paul had a greater connection to historical conservatives and their positions than any other candidate in 2008, garnering the endorsement of Barry Goldwater, Jr., touting endorsements from the man most quoted at all the debates, Ronald Reagan, when Dr. Paul ran for Congress, among many other overwhelmingly conservative connections and endorsements.

* he has never voted to raise taxes, unlike 'tax hike Mike' Huckabee, the 'Mayor', McCain or their ilk.

* he did well or won the Fox News text polls, which, in spite of the talking heads discounting them AFTER the fact, were touted due to the inability to vote more than once.

* he had a greater understanding of economics than any of the candidates, and embarrassed them during the debates, making John McCain say he'd have to ask Jack Kemp to help him answer the question.

* he had a greater understanding of national security than any of the candidates, and embarrassed Giuliani by giving him a reading list to counter his ignorant call for Dr. Paul to 'say he didn't really mean that,' which is a statement I haven't heard from an adult since I was a child.

* he has become the hero of conservatives, many of whom held record-breaking tea party fundraisers back in 2007 for his candidacy, which launched a modern conservative revival.

Dr. Paul was not included in some Fox Debates due to 'polling numbers', although he had received more votes during the election season than some of the candidates included in the debates. While it is widely known that the debates are the first serious look a lot of people get at candidates, the polling numbers prior to the debate were used to determine who would attend.

Fox News also had a little group of people at each debate they implied were randomly selected to be a focus group. They gave them all little knobs, and asked their opinions after the debate. Frank Luntz, the statist pollster who has admitted he asks questions to get the answer he wants, not the truth, hand selected these groups. Turns out, one guy was 'randomly selected' to be in two different focus groups at two different debates! Another was a known statist activist. Good job of impartiality, Fox. I think that's what they call putting in a ringer, for future reference.

Fox, and other networks, slammed the proto-Tea Party movement for raising over $10 million dollars in 2 days on the anniversaries of the Boston Tea Party and Guy Fawkes attempt to blow up British Parliament. A Parliament which would, after taxing and oppressing us for another 150 years, declare war on us after we declared independence.

Now, Fox pretends to have been some sort of incubator for the whole Tea Party thing, which they've FOUGHT since it's inception.

These were the main events that ended your faithful blogger's viewership of Fox News. It hasn't been on in the house, since, although it's Business sister station has a couple of hours a week when a certain Judge is on.

Next, I'll cover the embarrassing moments following the D.C. sniper, and how disillusionment with Fox began.

Sorry, Folks

2010-12-08T22:58:00.002-06:00

I'd like to apologize for the quality of my posts, recently. They are poorly written and not very cohesive. I'm not a good writer, but I'm better than that.

And the reader deserves better. The time has simply not been there to proofread and edit, not that I'm very good at either, but it does make the writing more readable. I'm sorry if you have made an effort to read his thing, only to find the verbal vomit I've been posting.

There will be a conscious effort from this blogger to do better.

Again, sorry... and thanks for taking the time to visit.

My RP Signs are PRO RP, pro liberty, and Nothing else.

2010-11-30T01:20:00.000-06:00

I have several Ron Paul signs up in my yard. I have the distinct feeling that some in the Selma area think that's some sort of slight against Barack Obama. That couldn't be farther from the truth, though, as I had those signs before anyone knew who Obama was.

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The spike shows when we had the REAL Tea Party back in 2007. The only news about Obama was that he was one of a half-dozen to a dozen candidates competing for the Democratic Party nomination.

The media pretty much eliminated any mention of Dr. Paul back then, so for him to have so much more interest than Obama shows how strong the Paul vibe was back then, versus virtually NO buzz for Obama. I didn't even know who Obama was back then, so, honestly, how can it be a slam on him to have my Ron Paul sign up?

Go look at the Google Trends yourself if you don't believe me. I liked Ron Paul better than the others in 2007, and I like him better now. No contest... no TEA PARTY statement... just showing my support for the guy I wish was my president.

Some of the very people complaining about it being "mean spirit"ed, I suspect, are the very ones who said Hillary Clinton was the best candidate back in 2007. It's on record that our local 'leaders' supported Clinton over Obama in the primaries. I wonder why they aren't brave enough to show their true colors by having a Clinton sign in their yards?

David Nolan 1943-2010

2010-11-21T19:24:00.002-06:00

Libertarians and freedom lovers everywhere mourn the passing of the founder of the modern Libertarian Party, David Nolan. He lived his life fighting for liberty. May he rest in peace and have the freedom he wanted for us all.

OLD SCHOOL FILMS!

2010-11-19T05:24:00.003-06:00

http://www.avgeeks.com/our-films-online/
Ah, yes, the good old days of falling asleep in the dimly lit classroom to the whirring, chattering sound of a film projector.

Sometimes I purposely find these on Netflix or the free documentary sites just to help me take a nap on the couch.

Wins and Losses

2010-11-12T05:24:00.002-06:00

We won a big victory last week. Rand is in the Senate. Amash is in Congress.

I make no comment about Alabama's legislature becoming GOP powered. I don't know if that's a victory or not. I don't think many Alabama Republican candidates can tell the difference between liberty and tyranny.

My girlfriend and I put up Ron Paul signs in my yard, and we have a huge 'Got Liberty?' sign to put, yet. We'll do that tomorrow. Hopefully, there will be pics to put up. We took pictures with her camera, and should be able to get them up over at the SelmaLiberty.org site, soon.

There's an issue developing where we have to defend our right to defend our rights. Why is it that people can attack your rights, but when you attempt to defend them, you are attacked by others?

Example: When I make a comment against the redlight and surveillance cameras they are putting up in Selma on our local newpaper's website, the PUBLISHER of the paper HIMSELF ALWAYS sees fit to attack. He ignores the fact that these things DO NOT make the people safer, saying the safety of the people is more important than the rights of the individual. But even if they DID make us safer, it's not worth the sacrifice of our privacy! He acts like it's almost a CRIME to defend your rights by attacking a stupid government invasion of privacy.

It's not just the local rag, either. Anytime anyone tries to stand up for their rights, people try to shout them down. It's as if the shame and ignorance of losing their rights makes them think the person defending their rights is somehow attacking them personally. Why is taking a stand so unpopular? Why can't we do the very thing that makes this country great without being threatened or harangued by some statist that thinks any complaint is treason?

NEW TRIAL FOR WM3!!!

2010-11-03T05:56:00.001-05:00

A new trial has been ordered for the 3 boys (now men) convicted of murder of the Robin Hood Hills murders in West Memphis, Arkansas.

In 1993, a police detective with a grudge, a prosecutor with a desire to convict someone quickly, a judge with no respect for boys who seemed to sneer at authority, and a tainted jury pool led to the railroading of 3 innocent boys. Now, they may finally have their first chance at freedom after 18 years on death row.

When 3 young Boy Scouts were brutally murdered, the police detective, under the influence of what we now call 'satanic panic', looked no further than a local non-conformist boy with whom he had a few run-ins named Damien Echols. He claimed the boy, with friends, had committed a ritual killing of three younger boy scouts. No physical evidence tied any of the three accused to the scene; on the contrary, evidence was collected indicating someone ELSE was responsible. But why look at evidence when you have a popular boogey-man to take the fall?

Jessie Miskelley, a mentally retarded boy, was called in for questioning because he was alleged to be aquainted with Damien Echols. In spite of evidence that the boy had been at a wrestling event at the time of the murders, police questioned the minor without his parents' consent and without a lawyer present. The interrogation, which was taped, stopped and started. His 'confession' was allegedly the boy repeating what police told him into a tape recorder. Miskelley claims the police told him that if he repeated what they said, he could see his mother and get some food to eat. He immediately recanted after the questioning.

A third boy, Jason Baldwin, was implicated simply because he knew the two boys and listened to Metallica.

For years, the boys' appeals have come before the same judge that convicted them, David Burnett. He refused to recuse himself and ruled against their appeals, even with DNA evidence that didn't indicate any of the 3, but, instead, indicated that someone else committed the murders. Only now, with the judge winning a seat in the Arkansas Senate, a new judge was able to hear the evidence and has ordered an new trial.

I hope justice will prevail at last and the West Memphis 3 will finally be granted freedom. You can't do anything to make up for 18 years in prison for a crime someone didn't commit, but being granted a new trial is a start. A judge hasn't been selected yet for the hearing. Two of the judges who might be selected were prosecutors in the original trial, so justice might still be a way off.

RP Still Kicks Butt

2010-10-12T21:06:00.000-05:00

I just got through watching a replay of an interview on MSNBC with some guy, O'donnell I think is his name, that tried to make something of an attack on Dr. Paul. It reminded me of the Fox News interviews back in 07-8. Ron Paul held his own against some pretty weak bait-and-switch style questioning, the kind that appeals to the lowest common denominator, but has no real substance.

I was told to watch the interview, that the guy had 'gotten' Paul, but what I saw was nothing of the sort. Paul shined through the whole thing, and even exposed some more of the same kind of thing that always happens on Fox News, where they try to offput the interviewee, showing me that MSNBC and Fox are just two sides to the same coin. You know when Fox and MSNBC BOTH attack you, you're DOING SOMETHING RIGHT!

Look out 2012!!!

To Catch Up...

2010-09-20T19:50:00.003-05:00

I can't believe I didn't blog something for my 1 year anniversary at the new job! 14 months, now. Time really flies.

In more recent event, my girlfriend and I went to a Campaign for Liberty seminar, last weekend. It was very interesting. It was supposed to be Friday night - Sunday morning, but we only went for the Saturday session. It was all day.

We learned some tools and methods that I believe will be useful. I really wish we could have been there for the Sunday session. They pushed some of the stuff I wanted to learn on Saturday to Sunday, or at least that's the way I understood it.

In depressing news, Selma is getting cameras to go everywhere. We're gonna be a surveillance city. Very unhappy turn of events. Very anti-liberty. It's a willful attack on Selma's liberty in the name of safety. I call BS.

Ayway, the seminar had a great turnout. They had only planned for 50 people, but there were considerably more than that. We broke up into groups of about 7. Amy and I got into a group of 5 with some other people from around Central Alabama. All the groups were given the same scenario to handle. Kirk Shelley, the instructor, selected our group as the winner.

Operation New Dawn

2010-08-26T22:54:00.002-05:00

Iraq is over! Whoo hoo! Mission Accomplished!

We're out of Iraq... well, except for the 50,000+ armed U.S. military.

Now, instead of Iraqi Freedom, it's called New Dawn.

Very similar to the Afghanistan drawdown a while back, only Iraq gets a new name for it's occupation. Whoo hoo! New name!

pft. Nice try.

Ron Paul Predicts Recession of 1987 in 1983

2010-08-15T23:24:00.004-05:00

Ron Paul predicted the recession of 1987 several years before it happened, and blamed it on bad monetary policy. He was right.

More recently, and perhaps more memorably, he predicted the recession of 2007 (which is still going) and said it would be because of bad monetary policy. FOX news, as well as all the other corporate media, declared him crazy. He was right, the media was wrong, yet they'll never admit it... just like they didn't admit he was right back then. WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Old Video of Ron Paul Condemning FBI, Defending MLK

2010-08-15T22:24:00.004-05:00

Here's an OLD example of Ron Paul's opinion of government largesse. Those who now use his arguments against large and intrusive government to say the belief is somehow racist could stand to learn from history.

You Have to VOTE

2010-07-15T21:08:00.000-05:00

Some people are so confused. I've been reading some stuff written by 'libertarians' who claim the only way to obtain liberty is by refusing to vote. "Eventually," they say, "the corrupt government will fall apart," or some such nonsense. They fail to notice that NOBODY VOTES NOW, and the corrupt state isn't going anywhere.

The over-reaching power that exists in government is due in large part to the sloth and apathy of non-voters. Until the tyrannical legislation is repealed by people elected to do so, there will be those who vote to stay in power. They will resurrect the dead, absentee vote and intimidate their way into office. However, even with their vote tampering, they are vastly outnumbered by potential voters who JUST DON'T CARE, or are convinced that voting won't change anything.

It's true that voting in the primaries is sickening. Being told that you can only vote for the hammer or the sickle is bad enough, but having to decide which hammer or which sickle is more than a good person should have to bear. We still have to try to get rid of them, though, and voting is the only real way to do so.

You Should Have Campaigned for Ron Paul

2010-07-13T17:02:00.007-05:00

Ron Paul has really helped me open my eyes to true Liberty. His behavior in debates from 2007-2008 really won me over. I've listened to libertarians, voted for a couple in the past, but have never really been moved to action like I was for Paul. The campaign made me believe in Liberty, really BELIEVE. Not just say it like some sort of mantra with a forgotten meaning, but mean it and preach it.

Over the course of the campaign, it was amazing to see the number of people who's eyes were opened to liberty. It was like they were taking invisible blinders off. People would actually blink and look around like they could see for the first time in their lives. He really knocked the dust off of the concept and lit that torch in Lady Liberty's hand.

The career politico-types scurried away or flipped and flopped like cockroaches exposed, suddenly, to the daylight. Some of them, imitating injured creatures of the night, struck out against the light, attempting, in vain, to quench it. Thankfully, they failed, and, ironically, may have fanned the flames.

Like many inspired by 08, I've been nose-deep in books about liberty, and lately, in liberty history. Reading articles like those in the 1800's magazine, Liberty, is like seeing humanity desperately crawling further out from under the imposing rocks of tyranny. It's been very fulfilling to read the writings of 1800s abolitionists who were some of the liberty torch-bearers of their day. The turn of the century anarcho-feminists were some of the most inspiring and hard-core liberty writers.

I was somewhat discouraged to read an article or two, written by people who say they count those Victorian libertarians as heroes, which contain disparaging descriptions of Dr. Paul. These writers state that Paul didn't measure up to their ideals. They are free to have their opinions, no matter how misguided I believe those opinions to be, but, if they had participated, they would have had a great sense of fulfillment instead of the empty negativity.

He really did inspire me, and, no matter what happens, I will always be an advocate of liberty. No one is perfect. If tomorrow he came out against freedom, endorsing a national socialist, a communist or some neo-con (not too friggin' likely), I'd still be pro-liberty, and it would still be thanks, in part, to Ron Paul.