Realm Of Bluefire

Statism vs. Liberty

2012-01-28T15:31:00.002-05:00

Family, friends, readers, there is only one true decision to be made here - are you for Liberty or are you a Statist? A statist is a person that advocates Statism. Statism is defined as " concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry."

I support Ron Paul because he believes in each of us to freely make our own decisions. I do not see anywhere that Obama believes in us at all. He signs in bills that suppress our civil liberties and expand the growth of the police state. (NDAA, Obamacare, ACTA Treaty - without Senatorial approval, the outright takeover of General Motors, continuing bailouts of the Extremely Rich with our tax dollars.) President Obama permits the expansion of security at the elimination of liberty. The TSA is expanding its power to become the United States version of the KGB and only two men in government are fighting it - the Paul family.

If you want to perpetuate Governmental Anarchy, by all means continue to support Barack Obama and the status Quo.

John McCain - you are at top of my least admired list.

2011-12-01T22:38:00.005-05:00

I used to think that McCain was fun, cool, and I liked how he bantered with John Stewart. Then he ran for President and I quickly discovered how liberal and neo-con he was. He couldn't help it, the vile words against Liberty just streamed from his mouth. Then he and Obama became best buds and pushed the first $700 billion bailout bill through the Senate all smiles at helping their big banker buddies at the destruction of the middle class. I figured he was a puppet and a bit lost.

Now he has pushed through one of the most ridiculous and thoughtless bills of all time. From secrecy to law in a few weeks this man who claims to have fought for freedom just stripped our ability to be secure in the knowledge that our own military could not act on us. (Granted the Mexican and Canadian ones could thanks to treaties signed in secret nearly 10 years ago) You have decided "National Security" is more important than "Security from rampant government". Arizona, get that ass out of government NOW before he destroys any more of the American Dream of Freedom and Liberty for all. Oh, by the way - please strike that from the social-liberal Pledge of Stupidity many people recite trying to believe in something that is long dead. Justice? What Justice?

Hope the non-awake people are thrilled with their brain-dead government. Bye, bye Posse Comitatus. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war, clearly thinks it's alright that an American Citizen can be held indefinitely and without reason by the US military. Last I checked, to be a prisoner of war you are supposed to first join a faction that is at war with the army that captures you. Now, however anyone can be labeled a enemy combatant for any reason and they are put away.

Could someone name one reason why we would need such a law? What in the world is our government so afraid of? How is it they can pass laws that fly so obviously in the face of the bill of rights? Fifth amendment? Not needed when you are never given a chance to be called guilty and who needs due process?

Hell, even war criminals used to be charged and held after due process. But those rights should only be reserved for higher ups, Joe American doesn't need that - Corporal Buddy over there with no training in the law should be able to declare you an enemy combatant and be judge, jury, and executioner or just get his superiors to buy into holding you indefinitely cause you might be a terrorist.

Fourth amendment? Don't need proof, so they don't need to search anything - hearsay is good enough!

Don't believe me? Here it from McCain himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXbwmqq-6Y4

But, hey it's unimportant to give people the right to a trial if someone decides they might be an enemy.... and as long as you keep your nose clean, they'll never come for you or your family, right? After all we live in a Republic and the laws of a Republic are designed to protect the rights of the minority from the opinion of the majority!

The bottom line is WHY does the government NEED this power? Why is it they think they can give themselves a power that the Constitution clearly states they cannot enact?

Part of security is knowing you are secure from your government arbitrarily picking you as the current group to be labeled, and right now Americans who believe in the Constitution as the Supreme Law of the Land are not viewed favorably by the Government that rules in anarchy.

2011-08-01T17:02:00.002-04:00

Another short note from one of my Senators in FL.

August 1, 2011

Dear Marc,

I want you to know that just a bit ago I sent out a Tweet saying I’ll support the compromise plan to end the stalemate over the national debt.

It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s something I feel we need to have right now. It’s going to cut almost $3 trillion from the deficit.

The plan is similar to one I put forth last week, which included some of the concepts you all sent me.

I’m hopeful now that Congress will come together. Below is an informative chart from the Washington Post that pretty well sums up the compromise plan.

Again, thanks for your thoughts,

This is my response to him:

Permit the debt-ceiling to increase? The failed federal government is currently spending $4 billion a day more than it takes in. Raising the debt-ceiling and realizing $1 trillion in savings over 10 years does nothing to help the American people and our children.

Way to go on supporting a bill to pass the buck on to future generations.

What in the world are the enforcement mechanisms and what does it mean, "$1.2 Trillion in deficit reduction?". The annual deficit is at least $1.4 Trillion. Unless that is $1.2 Trillion realized annually it is not a solution.

Right now if the federal government reduced EVERY cost program by 50% we would still have a huge debt and could pay down the deficit at only 248 Billion a year. That would take 50+ years to pay off what we owe, now. Does Congress even realize that?

The federal government is spending like a drunken sailor and this "compromise" plan shows us that the sailors promise to pick up $10 and $20's when they see them laying around on the floor.

Compromise is viewed in many circles as a good thing. Everyone is a winner, and everyone is a loser. However, in this compromise we are all huge losers and no one wins (except the lenders). The dollar will continue to be devalued and the debt burden for my children will continue to grow.

You all have accomplished nothing. There isn't one hard cut in the bill. "Savings" defined as capped spending and agency budget cuts that are not defined or given a time frame (in the news article). If they were annual they would be completely "unrealistic" [not my opinion - but to sustain the current "services"], but sadly not enough to get the US Government spending within its income.

Also, I love your play on words. "It's going to cut almost $3 trillion from the deficit." What are you talking about? The deficit is only $1.4 trillion this year. Are you talking about a nice 10 year solution? "Hey folks, I know we'll be going into debt another $14 Trillion in the next decade, but I found a way to reduce that to just $11 Trillion?"

How stupid do you really think we are?

A no vote is the only reasonable vote on such a "do nothing" bill.

Apparently he didn't hear my thoughts at all. It's business as usual and continued destruction of the economy and our Country's future because our representatives can not sit down and make the real difficult decisions that need to be done. If they don't want to raise the legalized theft on people to pay for the programs, it is time to cut the programs.

The government is the problem

2011-07-27T23:10:00.007-04:00

A buddy of mine and I were talking today about the corrupt nature of our officials. In my opinion, most of them are votes for sale. That is the difference between someone with principles (lives up to their promises and their set of beliefs - regardless of how they are viewed - Like Ron Paul) and someone there to play on the team (compromise). Some of those sales involve monetary gain - direct or indirect, the others just blindly follow what they are told to do and sell out to promises of more political clout in the future (still monetary gain). Then those sellouts turn around and invoke legislation at the beck of their masters devaluing the dollar and in turn their piece of the pie that they sold themselves for dwindles. Who is the idiot now? The government might think the masses are stupid - but they are shooting at us through their own foot because of the ineptitude at believing they know more than than our founding fathers did. Their arrogance continues to be our undoing. In an attempt to play God and tip the scales to protect everyone from nearly all imaginable harm they have harmed everyone and in particular they have dashed the hopes of the middle class and the lowest of the low income. Artificial controls of force cannot overcome the natural order of the world, they can just create harm where none was intended and still not fix the problem.

One day people may finally wake up and realize we don't need an official state, but rather voluntarism. Tiny little areas of unofficial self-government. Micro-agreement nations. We need more and varied nations, not less nations under one oppressive empire, in order to thrive as a people. Only in Liberty do people grow wealthy, for only in freedom can people create wealth out of their own labor. This nation proved it in the 1700 and 1800's. The 1900's only coasted along on that prosperity and in the leaders arrogance and ignorance have we finally come to have squandered it away so far that America's government truly owns nothing but debt.

Just because a person is born, it does not subject them to another's rule of law. In a functional society only by choice and agreement (not force or coercion) can one decide what morality or law they will abide by. What they will give up to gain a specific service from a society. Natural law is supreme to regulatory law. Our great experiment in regulatory law has failed and the false "central" government is demonstrating that failure yet again. The masses have no idea what natural/common law are and they believe the government when it tells them they have admiralty law and jurisdiction over them. The lack of this understanding and the false belief in supreme authority of a lawless government is why we are in the mess we are in. People still cling to the false assumption that government is here to solve our problems. Force is not a solution - you cannot force jobs to be created or force people to be happy, yet millions of people believe the government (force) can do this. Why? Because they have been lied to for eons by people who want unearned reward and credit where no credit is due. We make fun of the absurdity in movies constantly ("Cloudy with Meatballs" as just one of thousands of examples) and yet in real life the media that makes those movies clings to using force and political figureheads to force their ideals and concepts on the unwilling and others go to their representatives and demand their fair share or wave a flag of security through power and have us go to war sacrificing thousands of lives. Why? Because today we know better than our stupid founding fathers who warned of exactly these outcomes. The Congress in 1913 knew more than the founders who warned of a central bank and instituted one. The later Congress' saw that the Federal Reserve was not living up to it's primary mandate to control inflation so they changed the mandate to minimizing inflation. Before the federal reserve the dollar was not on a continual decline - it cycled in value as Gold and Silver still due - but with the federal reserve the dollar continues to decline ad nauseum. This is but one program that has failed our country because a few men decided they knew better than the founders and that it was better to cover up a failure with pretty math and twisted words rather than to undo it. Under the Department of Education our nations science and math abilities have continued to go downhill, not uphill - yet the States and Local governments continue to allow their schools to be dictated to by a federal government that provides 6% of the budget for the school.

It is obvious our government serves one goal - one purpose. That goal is to convince us we need government and they do that by messing with natural law and making things that were already working as well as they can, broken (medical care, retirement, mortgages, elections, free speech zones, airport security, and on and on) then they blame everyone but themselves and create more programs that make it even worse and the cycle continues because we allow it to.

Did you know that at any given moment 90,000 federal government employees are traveling via airplane? (this was a statistic from 2001) That's gotta be cheap, yes? In 2009 the federal government directly employed 2,823,777 civilians! That doesn't include the contractors, or the military, folks!! That's one federal goverment employee for every 110 people in the country. Is there not a problem with this? Using the numbers from March of 2009 the average payroll is 64,192 per person. That means that each of the 110 citizens are paying $583 a year in taxes just to cover the salary of civilian government employees. Of course, not all 110 of those people are working or reporting their income, so the others pick up more of the share. Also, as a side note, I know that the military is being completely left out of this average salary.

It boggles the mind to imagine that the federal employees are really just a drop in the financial bucket, though.

What about the entire budget of the DOD & Homeland Security for 2011? 929 Billion Dollars. Oh, but doesn't include the interest on the debt we've incurred to cover these "recent" wars. The interest stands at a paltry $431.5 Billion dollars a YEAR. That's almost half of the entire defense budget! But, then debt is okay, right? Let's just keep raising the ceiling!

Currently we owe more money to foreign entities than we make in a year (GDP) - that doesn't mean more than we give in taxes, but rather more than we as a nation produce in a year that is then taxed.

Interesting applet to check out on the debt - this application shows other countries as well.

Some numbers show that the Interest payments on the debt for this year will be only $386 billion dollars. That's money going completely down the drain and doing nothing for us. Not that we need a Department of Education, but it is only $31 billion a year - to give you a contrast on "importance".

So, how did we get here? Oh, yeah, we gave an entity the right to use force to protect our Liberty and somehow that mutated into protecting us from nearly everything that could go wrong in our lives and now we are in a cycle that will take eons to get out of, even if we immediately cut all spending in half - including Social Security. If we did that today, it would lower the budget to 1.91 Trillion and give us 430 billion to put on the principle of the debt. However, since the interest on the debt cannot be halved another set of programs would have to lose funding to total an additional $193 billion in order to actually cut the expenses in half. That actually means that if we halved our total spending for the federal government, then over the next year we could actually only pay down the debt $237 billion.

So, if we cut all spending in half, then we could pay down the US debt at $237 billion a year! That means we could payoff the debt in just 59 years!

Not excited? Me neither. However, folks - this is how big a mess we are actually in. Even if we literally took every dollar our richest people in America have it would not make a tiny dent in the debt. Best case scenario it would lower it down to 12 Trillion dollars - it is believe that our richest only have around 1.3 Trillion combined, however. You see, you can't go based on what they hold in paper on the Stock market, because as soon as they started selling to give that to the government the stocks would fall and they would get much less for each share as it sold.

What else can we do? We can raise taxes. Do I believe that would help? No. I believe it would simply destroy more businesses and result in more layoffs and more unemployment.

How do we get out of this and never come back? We have to start paying off the debt and cut government spending immediately. Unfortunately this will result in layoffs and unemployment too. However, once we can get the burden of wreck-less government spending off our backs then we can begin to work on prosperity again and take the responsibility for ourselves and each other back on our personal shoulders where it belongs.

No, I am not proposing utopia, but then there is no such thing. Liberty is as close as we will get on Earth - and it will include suffering and winners and losers. However, the use of force to help each other is no help at all. As our democrat brothers in Congress have been pointing out recently - the poor are worse off than ever and that is following a War on Poverty by our US government that has only made the poverty level go up.

Government is not the solution - how many more examples do we really need to understand that?

Debt Ceiling has nothing to do with defaulting

2011-07-27T22:50:00.004-04:00

Spending beyond our income has EVERYTHING to do with defaulting!

I want to clarify for people what the debt ceiling is. It is the agreed upon maximum debt our government decided it would allow itself to go into. It is the same as a credit card limit. If you hit your limit, but you still need credit to make your day to day costs, you cannot simply vote yourself a new limit, can you? Surely no one is going to believe that increasing that limit will ensure they can continue to make the minimum payment and all their other bills forever? If your credit cards were all maxed and you needed credit to continue paying your bills, will increasing the amount you owe help you bring that under control? It may provide a temporary shelter but in the end you will owe more and your monthly payments will go up and you will have less money to meet your primary obligations.

But many bloggers and the President of the United States would have you believe that only by raising the debt ceiling (the credit limit of the US Government) can we avoid a default. Not only will this NOT avoid a default (it may delay it) but it will ensure that if we default later we will have many more angry debt collectors at our door.

There is only one way to reduce our debt and that is to cut unnecessary spending. Washington needs to start right with their own salaries and Congress needs to start by halving their salaries and eliminating their retirement program. They have failed our country and no longer deserve the lavish lifestyles they lead on our tax dollars. Most of them are very successful people and can easily afford to pay for expenses above and beyond what a typical private sector employee would be reimbursed for periods of travel. Alcohol with dinner? Pick that up with your own dime. $50-$500 dollar entree? You can pay for any amount over $20 yourself "honorable" person. Hell, they ought to be at home enjoying the same thing most of us are - $13 Lasagna, $8 tacos, or a $10 Pork Lion with trimmings for the whole family.

The President gets a $400,000 salary that is on top of a nearly 100% expense budget. He gets to bank all of that income to save for when he is out of office. A private sector employee earning $50,000 a year would be fortunate to save that up in a 401K in 52 years of employment and somehow this is justified as a payment for one year of services rendered? The office of the President is about service. Yes, he could probably make more in the private sector - it is supposed to be about public service, not about the ability to buy two or three houses a year. But wait, there is more! He's in on the same retirement that the Congress is and boy is it a good one! Not only that, but he gets a life long security detail. The latter I can understand to some degree. These things are not free, however and they are paid for by the taxpayer.

The only way to avoid default is to sit down and remove from the budget all the programs, foreign aid (in all forms - including military), until the government is spending less than it is earning - including the payments on the debt and it's interest. Right now that would require removing $4 billion dollars a day from the budget. Seriously? They can't find a way to quit spending $4 billion a day? Moreover how in the name of all that is holy are we spending even that much a day?! Then they need to sit down with the Constitution and remove all programs that are not directly provisioned for in the Powers Clause and phase them out.

They do have another choice - they could sell some assets. They do hold a ton of land (80% of Nevada for example), sadly most of that land is out in areas people could careless about right now, but there are several locations in premium metropolitan areas that would fetch top dollar. Think IRS and Federal buildings in downtown or mid-town areas. They could sell these and pay down the debt. We don't need the IRS in its current gigantic size - the fairtax could help ween us off of them and as the legislators worked to remove more programs. The government should never have ran many of the current programs that should have only been tried in the private sector. We could eventually eliminate the need for taxes whether they be income or consumption. The federal government was intended to run off import fees and tarrifs and that is where it needs to be returned to. Power of Law, not $$ should be what makes the States respect the powers they gave the Federal Government - but only those powers directly provisioned and nothing more.

Another major thing they could do is eliminate the Federal Reserve. Only with the Reserve out of the way will we have a chance to strengthen the dollar. The Reserve has done nothing but devalue the dollar since 1916 and it's owners have no reason to do anything other than keep the US in perpetual debt. We the slaves to the Federal Reserve, working and paying our debt as income and a myriad of other taxes forever. Is that what we want for our Children and our grand Children?

The next step would be for Congress to ask themselves, "Does this program need the power of force behind it to work?" That is all government is: force. George Washington knew this. Government has been licensed by the people to use force. It is an archaic and deadly institution. People should only use force to protect themselves, not to get their way. What program needs the power of force behind it?

The military? Yes.
NASA? No - privatize it.

(I love our space program, but why does it need to be government ran?) As 4,000+ people found out last week the government can't keep people employed once a program is defunded.

The Postal Service needs force? No!

Privatize it and wish it luck in the world of competition. It did back when the country was rugged. UPS has gone for bailouts a time or two, but Fedex has proven it can be done as long as people are willing to pay the price it costs to get it there.

Retirement funds need force? No!

We are all investing in a lie and we know it. The Congress takes the money and spends it, then they have to borrow to get money to the people who are supposed to be collecting from money that was invested for them. It wasn't, it's gone and it is only costing our children and their children and their children to fund us now.

Medical Insurance needs force? Really? No!

Medi-care/cade are failing seniors and poor people constantly. Doctor's can't afford to provide care to people on the program unless they are willing to gouge other patients or work as if they are in a non-profit. Health Insurance should not be used for 80% of care, because by using it people don't care that an office visit can cost $200 as they only pay $15-$20. By hiding the "true" expense away people are numb to the actual charge and it doesn't irritate them enough to realize that government mandates and regulations are why medical care is so expensive. Those who don't have insurance understand that the teams of administrators, lawyers, and insurance that doctors have to carry is why healthcare is so expensive - not because doctors are greedy. By adding the veil of "insurance" it removed the consumer choice in spending from the equation and made healthcare have no reason to be competitive, but instead maximum price fixed regardless of the efficient processes of the hospital or doctor's office you are visiting. Insurance has ensured price-fixing rather than negate it.

Of course, we can't just flip a switch and turn these programs off - many would need to be spun off into the private sector where they may flourish or die and be bought up by other companies and improved or eventually dismissed as a failed idea. Others, like Social Security would need to be phased out in the long term and replaced with a different idea completely from the private sector and mildly regulated by the States. Sure, we love the idea of a Federal guarantee, but the reality is that it is the taxpayer that guarantee's it. We are guaranteeing our own possible loss, by law. So, just like what happened in the bailouts we point a gun at ourselves and make ourselves bail out the big business that "failed" at our own expense. Some guarantee....

Here is what I wrote my Senator - Senator Bill Nelson.

Senator Nelson,

I am all for any legislation to prevent default, unless it includes raising the debt ceiling. We cannot borrow our way out of debt and raising the ceiling only increases the debt.

Americans who have not been fooled into believing that the only way not to default is to increase the credit limit would likely agree that the only proper method is to immediately terminate spending that creates more debt. Focus on basic needs and paying off the debt. That means we need to cut more than 4 billion dollars of every day's expenditures. That comes out to 1.5 Trillion a YEAR. Don't settle for any cool looking plans that save a couple trillion over 10 years or 20 years. That won't solve anything.

The government is spending like a drunken sailor and it doesn't just do it occasionally, it does it every second of every day. Time for the government to realize it depends on the working American and right now working America can no longer afford drunken government.

If Congress would like to fix its image the first thing it needs to do is include pay cuts to all Congress and immediate termination of their retirement program. There is absolutely no reason to be paying millionaires and successful business people a retirement check for serving as little as one term in Congress. Yes, it's not a huge drop in the bucket, but it is a drop and the little drops add up. But that drop would send a message to the American citizen that Congress is finally waking up and cutting where it "hurts them" first. Remember "public servant" is the key. Sure Congress deserves just compensation for travel and expenses, but no more than the average employee would get for travel and expenses. Most employers would scoff at an employee trying to expense wine and beer with dinner or dinners costing over $25 a plate. Time for Congress members to pay out of pocket if they think they deserve better. Most of them can certainly afford it without the taxpayer's help.

Clean that up as a part of the bill and who knows - Congress might actually click up in ratings.

A letter to Senator Bill Nelson of Florida

2011-07-04T15:35:00.001-04:00

Thanks for your fourth of July message.

Please note, as a veteran, I take issue at anyone calling this nation a democracy. I didn't serve so a few people in Washington could vote out our rights and I am tired of the progressive erosion of our freedoms done in the name of "democracy".

Please take some time to research what the founding fathers thought of democracy. In a nutshell democracy is anarchy of the majority. A republic - what this nation is supposed to be - is protection of the minority and majority through rule of law.

Put aside the nonsense of the special interests and help to issue in a return to limited federal government that follows the law of the land. The federal government is not the central government of America - it is a body created to perform a very few limited functions assigned it by the States and the People who hold the true sovereignty and power in this land.

Right now our federal government operates in anarchy and until it removes all functions that are outside it's Constitutional authority it will remain a lawless entity that serves only itself no matter how much propaganda it issues forth to convince people it is for the greater good.

Internet Explorer 9 - another business tax

2011-04-20T16:40:00.004-04:00

Microsoft has a new browser, but it is not for anyone running Windows XP64 or below! That's right, Microsoft has taken a stance that they would rather lose IE market share than support their own Operating Systems. Granted XP is 10 years old and about to be phased out of support, but XP64 is only 7 years old and has been overlooked by Microsoft since Vista 64 was released. I am so glad I spent $300 for a copy of it to be constantly left out of the 64 bit loop simply because I was an early supporter!

I just read an interesting article where Mr. Methvin of InformationWeek describes older versions of IE as the hidden tax of web development. I don't disagree with his position as it is true that older versions of IE do add to development costs and time, thanks to their lack of standards compliance.

I added that there is another very real tax that Microsoft places on the serious web community each time it releases a new browser. It's true you don't normally hear about it from the marketing engines or the mainstream press in regards to the costs it places on the companies, but behind the scenes the IT departments buckle down for another very expensive episode of preventing the "critical update" and determining whether or not to re-write a major portion of their internal sites to work with the latest IE. This it the other tax that Microsoft places on all companies each time it releases a new browser - the cost of redesigning parts of their sites to keep it functional in the new IE.

Yet again, the list of sites that have issues with a new version of IE is growing and the IE9 users are running to the forums of these companies and demanding that the companies "fix" their sites to work with IE9.

Let's not forget the MS has yet again set their browser "upgrade" as a critical update thus forcing IT staffs world-wide to spend cycles ensuring their Vista and Windows 7 boxes will not be upgraded until they have tested all internal and business dependent external sites will work with IE9. The testing is not free, it's a very exhaustive and expensive process and even when the IT department is confident that the latest version of IE9 can be safely released to a sub-population of the company's staff they often times find themselves up all night trying to fix an issue that a few employees discover breaks their ability to do their jobs or that a VP discovers breaks a special system they had not shared with the department. I speak from experience and although I love that Microsoft is why I had income I don't enjoy being forced to stay up all night to ensure my company can do their jobs.

My advice to all those companies is to let IE die and begin using real browsers that design themselves to work with the standards and include features to ensure sites that already exist are displayed and function correctly. Not all of those browsers will be able to perform the functions that IE6 or Netscape did or in-house development, but they may be able to take over for some areas and free your IT department from the chore that is IE "upgrade" testing.

It is time for the bully on the block to learn that every time they build another car the countries of the world should not have to redesign their roads.

I find that every time I author a site I have to design for real browsers, then drop in hacks for IE. IE is the hidden cost, not just IE6 or 7, but IE period. IE9 may be the best yet at standards compliance, yet there are discussions about CSS issues that didn't exit in IE8 and even companies like Facebook have users complaining about basic functions being broken for them in IE9.

Microsoft can know that I, for one, will not develop for IE9. If my site looks okay on IE9, then great, but as an end-user that doesn't have one of their "new" Operating systems I have no way to test for it, and I could careless to develop for something that I cannot get easy access to.

The only new cool feature I see in IE9 is the 3D graphic rendering engine. Call me a pessimist but I see the so-called "integration with Windows 7" as just a great thing to be exploited via another set of lovely security loop-holes. Honestly, the age of playing games in the browser is just around the corner and I can assure you Microsoft will not be the only contender with full 3D rendering.

Before I go, I will share what I like about IE9. I like that they finally woke-up and presented a GUI that is about surfing the web and not about toolbars. It is almost where IE6 was but with tabs, in that you can move everything to one bar at the top, sadly, though they aren't quite as good at providing room as the Chrome browser, but they are very close (as a matter of fact at quick glance it looks almost identical). I'll never forget the bullet point of IE7 that it provided more real-estate for viewing the web, but literally had three locked rows, all rows that could be moved into one row on IE6. Yeah, that's progress "Microsoft style!"

Virtual Property Discussion

2011-02-20T20:35:00.004-05:00

-=-=-=-This is a clip of an entry I wrote in regards to a "debate" about who has rights to what in a game. Several compelling legal arguments were brought to the table stating that the gamers have a right to their virtual items that they purchased in a game. As compelling as the arguments were, they were legally based on a flawed idea.-=-=-=-=-

I argue that if the players ever win such suits and laws are made placing the game owners into perpetual virtual access providers regardless of sustainability (financial and technical) then we will witness a marked decrease in the availability and variety of virtual entertainment. The concept of collecting in a game will evaporate and many items will either encounter a fixed decay rate or come with a note stating they are only guaranteed to be provided for x number of days. I'd prefer it stay the way it is with me knowing it will probably stay there until the server is shutdown.

The concept of feeling ownership in a game, for the player, is inevitable, but not realistic. By that I mean that we truly feel we have invested the time or the money for the item that we previously agreed will always be the property of the game's owner, but we feel that we own it. The reality is we don't own it anymore than we do our own house and plot of land that it is on. There is a larger power that owns the land and if you don't pay that power they will take your land. That isn't how it was supposed to be in the land of the free - we were supposed to have full property rights when we bought our land, but only a very few people do. If you don't believe me, simply don't pay your property taxes.

I understand the unfair business practices argument, but it's only unfair if they promised us in their contract that they'd never change anything once released. They didn't. As a matter of fact this is from the Terms of Service under the "Content Rights" paragraph:

Quote:
You acknowledge and agree that all Content, including, without limitation, all accounts, characters created, and virtual items or in-game currency acquired and developed as a result of game play, are the sole and exclusive property of Playdom and may be used by Playdom (and/or its affiliates, publishing partners, distributors, licensors and licensees) for any purpose, including for commercial or promotional use. You agree that you may only upload or otherwise transmit on or through the Services Content that does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party, and you represent and warrant that any Content you do transmit will not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party.

As it is their property, they may do with it as they wish, including delete it.

I have 7 years of ownership in Star Wars Galaxies, yet I can't access one item that I have earned over those 7 years unless I renew my account by resubscribing. During those 7 years SOE not only modified properties of items I owned, they even rendered several items completely useless. I had spent over 200 million credits, which took me hundreds of real life hours to earn to buy anti-decay kits to keep my clothes from decaying off my Jedi. With one game update they removed decay from the game and rendered the most expensive items I had ever bought to a useless display item and they reinvented the game from a turn-based MMORPG to a first person click shooter MMORPG. The outcry from the players was tremendous and their forums rocked with the upset players comments. The end result was that SWG lost hundreds of thousands of players and it has been downsizing to fewer servers ever since.

To actually claim legal ownership rights to the virtual items would mean one of two things - either we would have to being paying for our share of the database for as long as we wanted it to run - with that price going up as the player ownership base went down, or we'd have to buy the complete rights to the designs or a permanent license to use the designs from the company at a cost of thousands of dollars per item. Then, and only then could we claim we have the right to their property.

Regardless of the "logic" behind the arguments raised in the articles you shared, ____, they are completely lacking in common sense. One of the biggest failures for America, and many countries around the world, has been a mass movement away from common or natural law and an adoption of admiralty and color of law. Our involvement does not garner us ownership in the game any more than our being a member of the crowd at a ballgame assures that our team will win or that we can take the seat home with us at the end of the game. To gain entry into the stadium again, we must pay again, even if the building was built completely with our tax dollars. Just because we feel we should have entitlement it doesn't mean we do. We are not the ones who risked anything to provide the game.

But there are those who will pursue the legal recourse, sapping billions of dollars from the gaming industry over the years. Billions of dollars that we, the end-user, provide and that could have been used to research and develop better and more entertaining games but instead will be used to line lawyers and government officials pockets so they can debate the moral and ethical dilemmas of ownership of virtual property that was designed and provided by one set of people for the entertainment of another set of people.

Again, I don't agree with their decision or how it was handled, but I will uphold their right to do so.

My first sticky!

2011-02-17T15:35:00.007-05:00

Okay, for those not in the know a sticky is a thread that gets positioned to the top of a section in a forum as it is a helpful thread that the community moderators believe should be kept visible for future readers.

I submitted this post to the City of Wonder forums today and it got stickied. It feels like being published for the second time. (Many thanks to my friend Craig for getting me published the first time.)

I found myself helping people and having to explain over and over again how to kill flashplayer to help them overcome memory leaks when playing flash games, so I took a moment and wrote up a post explaining the steps.

Here is that post for anyone who needs help getting rid of flashplayer memory leaks.

How to Force Exit Flash Player without Restarting your PC

Having Facebook post issues from a game? Can't send gifts, request help with building marvels, or travel to allies, opponents, or between your capital and colony?

Is your game slowing down and shortly after reloading the issues are back?

Sometimes it is simply time to reboot your computer. Let's face it no operating system is perfect and eventually memory leaks and fragmentation will require a restart of the user environment (logoff, log back on) or a complete shutdown to poweroff state, count to 10, then turn it back on. It just depends on what service or program is being affected.

Most of the time, however it's just Flash player that needs to be restarted. One would think that closing their browser window that has the flash game in it would close flash. Unfortunately, most browsers use one flash instance for all their tabs including Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. Why it is done this way is beyond me and I wish they'd start providing each tab their own separate instance of flash. The other problem is that even if you completely close every last tab of your browser sometimes the flash plug-in remains loaded and when you restart your browser you are right back to using the "broken" instance of flash that was giving you problems to being with.

Thus, you have two options left at this point. You can either force flash to completely exit or you can restart your computer. Force exit is much faster than rebooting, so here are the steps to save you time. There are different steps for each browser.

Chrome

Method A
1. Click in the address box.
2. Press SHIFT+ESC
3. A "Task Manager - Google Chrome" window will open.
4. Scroll down and find "Plug-in Shockwave Flash" or similar and click to select it.
5. Click "End Process"
6. You will notice that all tabs using flash will report that flash has crashed. Now reload the page you need and flash will start up again.
Method B
1. Click on the wrench icon in the upper right corner of your browser.
2. Select Tools -> Task Manager
3. A "Task Manager - Google Chrome" window will open.
4. Scroll down and find "Plug-in Shockwave Flash" or similar and click to select it.
5. Click "End Process"
6. You will notice that all tabs using flash will report that flash has crashed. Now reload the page you need and flash will start up again.

Internet Explorer [all versions]
Unfortunately there is no browser tool built-in to even the latest IE (IE8) to show processes, so we have to go out to the good old windows task manager to start killing processes.

1. Close all Internet Explorer windows.
2. Launch Windows Task Manager using one of the following.
a. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC
b. Right-click on your Start bar (next to the Start button is a good spot) and select "Task Manager from the list.
c. Press Windows Key+R or Click Start->Run.
i. Type "taskmgr" in the run "Open" box and click "OK".
3. Click the Processes tab and select and "End Process" on any iexplore.exe processes you see running.
4. Relaunch IE.

FireFox

Method A
1. Click Tools -> Add Ons.
2. Select the Plugins icon.
3. Scroll down to Shockwave Flash.
4. Click "Disable".
5. Count to 10.
6. Click Enable.
7. Reload your page.
Method B
1. Install Process Explorer from Microsoft.
a. This is a task manager that shows much more information and detail about the processes running on your computer, including what directory a process is located, who it's parent process is, and MUCH more. I am never without it.
2. Launch Process Explorer, look for firefox.exe.
3. Click the + symbol in front of firefox, if it is not expanded and right-click "plugin-container.exe" and select "kill process".
4. Reload your web page.
Method C
1. Launch Windows Task Manager using one of the following.
a. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC
b. Right-click on your Start bar (next to the Start button is a good spot) and select "Task Manager from the list.
c. Press Windows Key+R or Click Start->Run.
i. Type "taskmgr" in the run "Open" box and click "OK".
3. Click the Processes tab then select and "End Process" on plugin-container.exe.

Opera

Method A
I am not 100% positive this method will restart the flash plug-in's environment, so I would appreciate feedback on your experience using this method.
1. Click Menu -> Page -> Developer Tools -> Plug-ins.
2. Find Shockwave Flash and Disable any and all version you find in the list.
3. Reload the game tab and note that it says to install flash.
4. Enable Shockwave Flash from the Plug-ins tab.
5. Reload the game tab again.
Method B
1. Exit Opera
2. Launch Windows Task Manager using one of the following.
a. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC
b. Right-click on your Start bar (next to the Start button is a good spot) and select "Task Manager from the list.
c. Press Windows Key+R or Click Start->Run.
i. Type "taskmgr" in the run "Open" box and click "OK".
3. Click the Processes tab and select and "End Process" on any "Opera.exe" processes you see running.
4. Relaunch Opera and reload the game.

Safari on the Mac
For Mac users using Safari, use the following link to help you simply restart Flash.
http://hints.macworld.com/article.ph...00920113426884
Gotta love Linux! My native environment. :0)

Tyranny in the classroom

2011-01-28T19:00:00.003-05:00

This was written by me as a comment on a blog from the Sun-Sentinel in regards to a bill that has been penned for teachers in Florida to grade parents. See the blog entry for more information by clicking here.

-=-=-=-=-

This would be absolutely awesome in a socialist dictatorship, however it has no place in a proverbial free country.

Quit empowering the fictional "state" over the very real people. Quit making moral laws that have great intentions but then only end up destroying the very thing they were made to protect along with the lives of millions.

QUIT PLAYING GOD and let the people decide what is best for themselves and their children.

In case you all have not noticed there has been one constant increase during the decline of our country. The increase has been in the power, taxes, and debt taken by our government at all levels. Reduce government back to its actual place - mediator of disputes - and this country might be able to recover economically, spiritually, and physically. Continue on the terrible purpose of the last 150 years and this country will fall to the bottom of the international community.

My America is being destroyed by all the do-gooders who think they can come up with just one more law to fix everything. Give it up, there is no magic pill or law to fix things. Life isn't perfect and no matter how many laws you pass and no matter how many fines you collect it won't change one thing for the better, it simply adds one more penalty and one more state authorized tyrannical act to something that will happen any way.

Oh, that's right, wave the banner of "for the children" - a favorite of the right-wing. It isn't about the child if you need a law - it's about proving that government is necessary and that society can't function without dependence on rich people telling us which way to look.

My 5 children all get access to the same resources, yet they all perform differently in their education. Three are A- to B+, one is sitting at a C- for the year, and the other is too young for formalized education. Take a wild guess what each teacher would likely grade me as....it would depend on the student, wouldn't it?

Understand that I could _careless_ what a teacher rated me at. They have no business grading anything other than a child's paper.

How much big brother do you people really want? Did you enjoy worrying about your permanent record so much as a child that you just can't stand the idea of being a sovereign adult who should not bequeath their every last decision to a few elected representatives?

It is obvious to me that most people do not understand what Liberty means. Perhaps you should look it up sometime and see what the soldiers of the American Revolution, Texas Revolution, and the so-called US Civil War were really fighting for - the freedom to decide for themselves. The freedom to be the masters of their own destiny. "Remember the Alamo" was a cry for freedom from tyranny - from other people deciding for you.

With that in mind, some parents simply do not place as much importance on education as others do. At least, that is, not in the sense of formalized education that our country's elite has decided is best for our children. Does that mean they are being bad parents? Perhaps to one person it does - but does their opinion really matter more than another persons opinion? Is their child being given access to education? If the answer is yes, then the law is being met. This nonsense of grade averages determining success for our schools is cheating our children of the true purpose of education - to learn and to be given a chance to excel in what interests them, not in all things. Our nation continues to push for testing as the key to success while we continue to fall behind other countries in motivating people to become doctors, scientists, and industry leaders.

Just perhaps we need to remove the government from our classrooms and let the teachers teach. Remove the high-paid administrators who bring no true benefit to the educational system and get the school budgets to operate on less than what it costs to go to a decent private school per year. Give the teachers raises and cut out the nonsense that has school budgets running over $14,000 per year per student. Remove tenure so that teachers who have lost the desire to teach can be removed without pay.

Until then I will continue to home-school and let my child's grades be their grade. You all can participate in the socialist nonsense with the parent being held responsible for their child's performance.....just like your parent wasn't when you (the current parent) went to school. Finally the child can point to the government and prove that the parent's nurturing (or lack there of) was precisely what made them the person they are today. All hail Dr. Spock!

Florida Ballot Amendments Section

2010-10-23T13:33:00.003-04:00

No time like the present to talk about the amendments from a libertarian point of view. Keep in mind that one cannot get what one wants by denying it to everyone else.

Ballot Initiative 1. Yes. There should be no such thing as public funding for campaigns, so Yes would appear to make the most sense here.

Ballot Initiative 2. No, this only helps a very few select people and the savings is a joke that will likely cost the counties more than it saves a few tax payers. This is obviously a pie-in-the-sky worthless amendment that appears to be taking care of our boys in arms, but in reality does nothing. A whole extra additional homestead exemption subject to a percentage based on the number of days the person was deployed. That very deployment can actually remove the base homestead exemption if our military person was to rent out their residence while gone. What? How many hard pressed soldiers do you know of that own houses (real property)? At best the military person would be able to qualify for an additional $25,000 exemption but would likely be looking at less. This would result in at most $600 of savings for the county with the worst mill rate. Sounds pretty decent, but shouldn't it be the entire property tax for the year? Of note, however, the person that could really use the $600 is either living in base housing or on ship. This is tax reform? No, it is not. Florida needs to look at removing property tax completely off the table and move to reduced spending and reliance only on sales tax and other optional fees (licensing). Taxing someone simply for owning property goes against the basic right to own property and is not a reasonable means to support government activities.

Ballot Initiative 4. No, no, and more no! People still believe the lie that property value is solely linked to control of what the neighbor does with his property. In a nutshell, it is already bad enough that the local governments think their zoning is the end-all, be-all, final word on what a person may do with property they own. Now we want to amend the Florida constitution to let the neighbors vote on every rezoning event thus giving the property owner 1 say in thousands of what they would like to do with their property. Proponents of this horribly worded amendment don't seem to realize that they won't be voting on what goes in their city, just when local government decides to change the land use plan (rezone). Property ownership aside, this would make rezoning prohibitively expensive thus causing stagnation for many areas as the person or people who want the change would have to find funds to bring land use changes to a vote or just wait until the next larger scale election to consider it. Granted, legally the government would have to fund it, but we all know that means either the taxpayer funds it or another method is found to accomplish it. New business is very unlikely to want to spend money on the possibility of getting a land use changed.... The last thing we need is less freedom for property owners to decide what to do with their property. We need to work on repealing laws that prohibit people from free use of their property, not slap on more restrictions and legal costs to change. The Texas Revolution was fought over less than the kinds of restrictions we live under today. Stand up for your right to do with your property as you wish and stop worrying about what your neighbor wants to do with theirs.

Ballot Initiative 5 & 6. No. These amendments makes no sense. I understand the spirit of them, yet what they would require of us to make it work is nothing less than an invasion of privacy. I am tired of being labeled a race other than American. I was born an American and I am still an American. Anyone who has immigrated to here is an American. Draw the districts as circles and squares, keeping them contiguous and get rid of the long little tails that wrap up, through, and around other districts, yes. Worry about race, culture, political party, religion, sexual affiliation[okay, I added that one, but I honestly see it coming] (etc) no! This is getting ridiculous. If the congressional and legislative districts were meant to be nations, then we'd have the people in the districts determine what the districts boundaries are like the states originally did. The nations are supposed to be the States, not the districts or the counties. This amendment does exactly one thing - opens up a huge hole for legal battles making a bunch of lawyers very rich and accomplishing nothing else.

Ballot Initiative 8. Yes, only because it is less restrictive than the original amendment. Here we see the result of the failing of democracy. Just a few years ago we voted overwhelmingly to put the schools under a strain that we didn't want to actually pay for. This amendment barely relaxes the original one and is just as ridiculous. This is a criteria that should be set by each district and not by a State constitution. The people of the districts should be permitted the flexibility to handle education the way they can afford without having to face legal battles over democratically created laws that look great on paper, but fail miserably in reality.

Nonbinding statewide advisory referendum. Why have an opinion poll on a ballot? Take the place of power that Florida truly has and bindingly tell the federal government to start following the US Constitution as well as immediately suspending all federal deficit spending. If the federal government actually obeyed the Constitution they would have a surplus of funds just from legal taxation (without the income tax).

Special Referendum for Orange County School District. No, no, and hell no. The school district currently throws away between $12,000 and $15,000 per actual full time student. They do not need nor deserve ONE penny more in revenue. They need to restructure and reduce salaries of all their administrators, including eliminating unnecessary levels of management. Get rid of the waste and get the money to the teachers and the classroom. Get rid of the overhead and figure out how to get education down to private school levels of $3,000-6,000 a student. Refuse federal dollars and start educating instead of indoctrinating. Teach theories as theories and don't favor one culture over another.

Why I won't be voting for Marco Rubio

2010-10-05T04:21:00.004-04:00

I took a look at Marco Rubio's ideas on how to "take back America"

There are a few very good ideas. Some include automatic sunsetting of government programs, requiring a 2/3 vote of house and senate to approve new taxes, a balanced budget amendment (I could take or leave this as the feds don't follow the rest of the Constitution anyway).

Click the title link to see the lists for yourself.

Every one of his lists includes at least one idea that grants MORE power to the federal government, not less.

List 1: Grow the Economy:

"IDEA #8: Repeal and replace ObamaCare. We must repeal ObamaCare and replace it with common-sense reforms that will actually lower health care costs for American families and businesses." Get rid of one bad federal law and replace it with more bad federal laws to add to the federal laws that created the healthcare problem in the country that had the best healthcare in the world until the federal government started getting involved....

List 2: cut spending (I like many of the ideas he presents here, yet.....)

"IDEA #12: Reform Entitlement Programs. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are going broke and will bankrupt our country. Benefits for those currently receiving them or those approaching retirement should not and will not change. But the truth is that for those who are younger, the programs will need to change or they will no longer exist when they themselves approach retirement age. Unlike his opponents, Marco has been willing to confront this reality, to talk about it with voters, and to come up with common-sense solutions that will safeguard our future." The ponzi scheme is failing! /sigh. Keeping this program alive as a federal program just continues to perpetuate the first major scam on the American public since the creation of the federal reserve itself.

List 3 Health Care: Riddled throughout is the demand to move state regulation of insurance to the federal level.Some believe it would open the market to more insurance policies from other states, thus giving MORE options, MORE choice, and lower prices. The reality, as has been proven time and again, is that it would destroy smaller companies, thus reducing choice, reducing options, and increasing prices as fewer business remain to compete. For an existing business to enter a different State's market they just have to comply with the State's regulations - that hardly prevents an insurer from entering a State's market. Each State must have a free market - we should not be considering a federal market, ever!

List 4 Gulf Coast Economy: Several of these ideas have me confused as they aren't federal level ideas (especially the sales tax and property tax relief) However, this one struck me as completely odd,,,,IDEA #10: Relax onerous fishing bag limits and seasons. When it is safe to do so for the next two years, we need to focus on opening our waters with relaxed quotas for all fishing so grounded fisherman can get back to work.

(When/if this oil spill is halted it's hardly the time to look at relaxing fishing limts as these fish populations will be struggling to recover...)

Again, most of these ideas are/should be state level policies and I don't see how they have anything to do with the federal government.

List 5: Education. This list is out of control with massive increase in federal power.

"Idea#6 - protect teachers by insulating them from frivolous lawsuits. " First, our justice system couldn't tell if a lawsuit was frivolous if it was biting their rear-end. Second, we don't need even more people moving to a legally protected status. We need to remove EVERYONE from legal protection - especially our government leaders!

"Idea #3: Make Block Grants Conditional On Performance And Accountability Measures." Oh, yeah, give the federal government even more power over that tiny amount of funding they currently provide our indoctrination centers.

"Idea #12: Promote A National Virtual Learning Platform." Sweet! Let's create the baby that will become our National School indoctrination program that all students will be required to watch from home and is funded by the taxpayer or could be funded by the taxpayer and some businesses! Uhm, no!

I could touch on nearly all the ideas here as they all have a flaw or two that is major.

List 6: Agriculture

"• IDEA #1: Stand Up To The EPA On Numeric Nutrients." This idea makes no sense. Paraphrased: 'We are facing federal imposition of economically damaging numeric nutrient standards, so congress should step-in and ensure that Florida leads the effort to implement numeric nutrients.' Huh? We should lead the way on using them to ensure we don't get economically damaged by having to use them?

"IDEA#2: Promote Economic Growth And Job Creation Through Trade." More NAFTA - after all it REALLY helped us get where we are right now! We traded our jobs and our products right out of the US! Let's do the same with oranges!

"IDEA #5: Reform America’s Foreign Pest And Disease Interdiction Process." Federal efficiency by increasing sharing of information between three agencies that should not be sharing information and at least one of these agencies shouldn't even exist.

"• IDEA #6: Matching Grants For Agriculture Research." Take our tax money and force us to pay for research that is already being paid for by us when we buy the products.

List 7: Commitment to Veterans.

"IDEA #1: Keep The Department Of Veterans Affairs (VA) As A Cabinet Level Department." Instead of dismantling this BS concept, we should continue to tout that the Cabinet is the most powerful table in America and keep American's paying for yet another seat at this table that shouldn't exist.

"IDEA #3: Overcome The Benefits Claim Backlog" How else can this be done without growing the government branch that services these requests?

"IDEA #4: Seamless Transition Back Home." How else can this be read other than to create jobs to tell us veterans what all we are eligible to receive when we leave military service? I thought I got that talk during my last week of service.

"IDEA #8: Demand Accountability At Arlington National Cemetery. We must monitor the Department of the Army’s attempts to straighten out this fiasco and ensure this level of mismanagement is never reached again." We must pay more people to watch the people that we were already paying to check into this fiasco that happened while under the watch of people we were paying to ensure something like this never happened.

"IDEA #9: Increase Veterans Mobile Healthcare Clinics. In 2008, the VA announced four mobile health clinics to bring care to veterans in predominately rural counties. We need to consider adding to the fleet and continue to provide support to those veterans far away from a medical center." More money spent to build facilities that will be in areas where they will barely be used?

"IDEA #2: Protect Defense And Veterans Spending. We must get our country’s budget, deficit and debt under control. However, we cannot do it at the expense of our veteran services, national defense and safety." Neocon much? We can drastically reduce our defense budget by bringing our troops home. But if we did that we wouldn't need agreements with Canada and Mexico to bring their troops to quell civil disturbances on US soil.

Want to help veterans in one fell swoop? Make any person that has served our country federal tax exempt. Not State, just federal.

List 8: Seniors

"IDEA #1: Increase Prosecutions On Those Who Prey On Seniors Through Fraud And Financial Crimes." Forget due process and all that, let's just increase prosecution! This doesn't make any sense. We need to ensure that people who prey on seniors are tried and if found guilty - convicted. Yet if there isn't a case we can't just prosecute them. The federal government doesn't have any say in prosecution of these kinds of crimes, States do.

"IDEA #2: Protect Seniors From Identity Theft." Another BS idea that gives no solution. We need to ensure everyone is protected from identity theft, yet it is not a realistic goal. Yes, we must share ways to help prevent identity theft, but we can't stop it once and for all - the thieves get better at it.

"IDEA #3: Protect Current Benefits For Seniors." Keep SS and Medicare as is for the generation that we cannot afford to provide these benefits for. Whereas I agree with the sentiment, there just isn't the prosperity required to support the baby boomers in and entering retirement. The ponzi scheme is failing - our funds were spent on other things and they don't exist.

"IDEA #5: Crack Down On Unapproved Prescription Drugs." Uhm, no the FDA needs to be constrained as an advisory panel for people to consider before using a drug. The federal government has no authority to remove any drug from the market - the responsibility lies with the consumer to decide what they will use and due process should be brought against any product manufacturer that has placed false claims on their product or endangered people unnecessarily. The FDA is why we pay 20,000-40,000% more than the cost of drugs. I do not need my hand held when it is time to get something that will make it easier for me to endure pain I am in, or to try something new that could save my life, but die while waiting for the FDA to "approve" it.

2010-09-10T04:59:00.003-04:00

A pastor wants to do what with what?! Who cares! Seriously? This was the news of the night. It's what I saw on CNN every time I looked up this evening.

I just read Ron Paul's release regarding this nonsense. I was looking for a voice of reason in the storm, but honestly I was a bit taken back by the fact that Dr. Paul sided against the pastor... or at least that is how it looks on the surface. The truth may be in what he didn't say.

Regardless, here are my thoughts and contemplations on what should have been a non-story. In a time when Tea Party and Liberty candidates cannot get decent exposure by the media, they seriously believe that our time should be wasted on a nut exercising his rights to make a fool out of himself?

-=-=-=

The only part I don't get is people giving two bits of a care about what some pastor wants to do with a few copies of the Quran that he bought.

To prove my point, I wouldn't be the least bit offended that someone burned 1,000 copies of the Bible. Want to burn it? Go ahead. It's your own stupidity. I'll still have my copy and millions more will continue to exist.

The only time when book burning is bad is when it is done by the government to prevent the spread of opinions and theories that go against their agenda. Book burning en mass to remove thoughts from the world, including virtual book burning otherwise known as banning. That's the problem to care about.

Where is anyone standing up for this guy's right to express himself as he sees fit? I still, foolishly, I know.... want to believe that in the united States of America we have first amendment rights. If we want to speak out against a war while on tour in France or burn some books or flags to make a political statement, that is our right. Those around us have their right to state their opinion regarding the matter.

However, to blame the future deaths of our troops on a person for upsetting a few people who can't see the true irrelevance of the act is ridiculous. The outrageous comments of our "leaders" in response to something that should not have gotten so much as a head shake truly demonstrates how backwards our society has become.

As a US Navy sailor, I repeatedly stated my resolve that I was in the military to defend Liberty. The phrase, "I may not like what you have to say but I will fight to the death to ensure you have the right to say it" must have been washed out in the last 15 years.

I also find it completely hysterical that our media gives one iota of a damn about moral righteousness. They who are repeatedly guilty of airing prime time shows that belittle religious views of millions of Americans. You can't have it both ways. You cannot be the champions of moral propriety and the entertainers who spend millions producing movies that would last 20 minutes with the curse words removed.

No one has the right, least of all our opinionated, pompous, arrogant media charlatans to decide another man's morals and dictate what he does on his property with his property so long as it does not infringe on the rights of another. Last I checked, burning a few copies of a book you don't agree with doesn't fit into that criteria.

-=-=-=

One parting thought for our feeding frenzy "friends" in the media, "You cannot enjoy freedoms you want denied to everyone else." Chew on that one for a while.

Dear Senator

2010-09-08T15:29:00.003-04:00

Thanks to the NRDC's misleading ad on facebook, I ended up on their site where they were asking me to take action and write to my senator to condemn their inaction on "comprehensive climate and energy legislation."

So, since they pulled me in under false pretenses, I cleared out their text demanding creation of 2 million clean energy jobs and etc and replaced it with this:

Whereas we need clean energy and the ability to get away from Oil dependence, I do not agree with the Federal Government taking it upon themselves to decide anything in this area as they do not have the Constitutional authority to do so. However, they should make a case to the States to take under consideration what should be done to reduce pollution.

Of course, the repeal of laws making it nigh impossible to create a dam, build a nuclear power plant, or otherwise invest in alternatives to oil would be a step in the right direction.

Increasing taxes on current forms of energy is not an option. In a time when people can barely find enough money to keep their basic needs satisfied where Electric and Gas Energy for the home looks like another rent or mortgage payment, a tax would mean that many low income folks would simply have to do without. Could you imagine living without electricity or the ability to drive? No throwing more taxes on that basic building block of our economic infrastructure would only serve to cripple our country.

Please investigate ways to make it easier for people to bring us electric generation that does not depend on coal or oil and empower the people to develop a car that runs off hydrogen, electricity, and natural gas to help reduce carbon emissions without taxing the entire country into poverty.

Thanks!

Marc

Schools believe they have power over parents - sadly so do parents

2010-09-01T15:05:00.003-04:00

I have no problem accessing my child's classroom at any moment.....but then I homeschool.

The public schools are the worst plague this country has, spreading lies about our country's system of government and teaching theories that require as much faith as any religion does as fact.

"Trespassing on public property..." when are these idiots going to understand how ridiculous they sound? Sure, we don't want people aimlessly wandering around on a school yard, especially with the worry of possible predators, kidnappers, etc. At the same time, however, how can one trespass on their own property? I you are the parent of a child, you have a right to be there and all you should have to do is check-in and get a visitor badge at most. When school is out it is community property and the community will use it. Vandals, if caught, should be prosecuted. However you can't throw down the gauntlet and shut the school grounds off to access because someone might do something. The school grounds best protection are parents and their kids using the play areas and tracks during off hours as a family.

A school board doesn't have the power to authorize a principal to detain a visitor as they don't have the power to detain a visitor. However, in this new era of Government OVER the people that has been being preached as gospel since the 1950's most people would just laugh if you told them that government cannot create powers out of thin air.

The authoritarian state is growing out of control and as long as they keep the majority believing that they need Democrats or Republicans to "fix it" we will continue to go down the path of servitude to our benevolent government while worshiping at the alter of humanism.

We don't need government at all. Government knows this and fights to hold power and "prove" our need for it with lies, problem creation, and by playing on our social nature to claim its power. It is an abomination of natural order when people claim power over other people and the end result is always the same, killing the people the body in power is charged with protecting.

We need voluntarism where people knowingly give up a bit of their sovereignty to gain benefits. No one should be born into a system where they have no choice to take on the benefits before they know what they are going to give up to get them. One example of that is a toll-road. Sure it isn't perfect, but you only pay the toll if you want to drive on the road. The bottom line is things that people won't willingly volunteer for will die out. Ninety-nine percent of todays government programs would be gone if people were permitted to volunteer for it as most people cannot see the benefit of them. The programs that did survive would be efficient because people would not stay with a program where they were getting less from it than what they were putting into it. But then, that is the argument for why businesses work only in a free market. People vote with their dollars and when a company messes up it fails and gets bought up in pieces by other companies. Government and social markets can keep a failing company or program alive as long as they can steal enough money from the citizens to keep it afloat. BAILOUTS mean anything to you? People voted with their dollars to let GM go out of business, GM wasted tons of money trying to correct that image and when it was still failing government bought it out. We bought a failing car company? Why? Do not get me wrong, I love my Dodge Durango, but I don't see why people believe any company is too big to fail.

Keeping dead companies afloat may keep some jobs for a while, but it doesn't help us address the larger problem as quickly as we could by just returning to a free market . We didn't even actually bail them out. We took a loan, printing more dollars, to give them money to stay in operation. More money in circulation makes it worth less. We all took a pay cut to keep these companies running. We will see that pay cut in the near future as prices rise due to too much currency in circulation. No matter how you dress a problem up it really comes down to the same question, in business. "Team, we are not making enough money to keep operating as we have been. We either have to lay some people off or ask you all to take a percentage pay cut." Either some of us or all of us get affected, no matter how you look at it. However, solving it by throwing money at it and keeping a company that failed running does more damage in the long run. It undermines our confidence in ourselves, it rewards reckless behavior, and it punishes companies that did what they needed to do to stay competitive. In the end that affects everyone - from the competition to the customer. We are all being punished for the misdeeds of a few big companies and banks. That, frankly, makes no sense to me.

When a free market reacts to a depression, like the one we are currently in, it kills what caused the issue, in this case several big businesses would have failed or they would have sold off assets to cover losses. If this happens on a grand scale then we enter a depression. The most significant thing about a depression is that the you lose a lot of jobs. As people lose their jobs other companies begin to feel the loss of customers so they do what they must to survive by lowering prices, finding ways to be more efficient, they might layoff employees or go under as well. Prices do not rise or stay firm during a free market depression. They follow the buyers. In the false markets of today and since FDR prices stay flat or even rise during a recession or depression. This is just one of the reasons why we continue to become worse off as time goes on. The government is not permitting a true market correction. They print more money, create nonsense jobs and make us all suffer far longer than would happen if they got out of the business of regulating market fluctuations. The great depression of the 20's was an almost immediate result of government regulation on the free market. Most people haven't even heard of the great depression of the 1880's because it was permitted to go through correction and society pulled through it, just like all the previous recessions and depressions that had occurred for the centuries prior. Only in the last century have we seen depressions that can affect the economy for decades and that is 100% due to our falsely tampering with the mechanism that only works when we take government out of the equation. The founding fathers knew it, why do we continue to believe that we know better than them? Because our schools have been teaching us we do for the past 60+ years, that is why.

Freedom only works when we teach people what it truly is. Freedom, Liberty, is NOT freedom from desire or need, it is freedom from tyranny. Freedom to make a choice, not freedom to enforce a choice. People cite how cruel the world is and argue that we can't live in freedom because of the dangers to us. We must give up Liberties to be safe. That is complete nonsense. History documents with black and white clarity that giving up Liberty is exactly how you lose safety. When you give the State the power to make you safe, they will keep you safe by killing you, your neighbors, and anyone else they think might be a threat to anyone for any reason. Lynch mobs are exactly what an authoritarian state is. In a free society with an educated population people demand evidence and reason before action.

People complain that government isn't efficient and that things are not progressing in DC. These days things progress too much and pass to fast right through the three bodies of government that were designed to do exactly one thing - fight each other to ensure they did very little to nothing. The federal government was never intended to be our solution factory. It was designed to be a guardian of our Liberty. Some people think adding amendments to the constitution will somehow help. I can think of several amendments that we need. The problem is that the government does not abide by the document now, so why would it start suddenly just because a few amendments got added to it? What is the one thing that our government can't seem to do, but is supposed to do? It is supposed to use our military to defend us. The only way it is go to war is by a vote in the house to make a declaration of war. When was the last time our Congress did that? We have been at war since the end of World War II, without so much as a tiny teeny declaration. Why? Is it really that impossible to get a majority vote to go to war for cause? We can pass unconstitutional laws all day long through the Congress, stripping our basic rights and telling us we owe each other things that no man can claim as a right, yet we can not declare war? Our government is pitiful.

We are living in a democratic anarchy that is cloaked as a democratic republic, but it is supposed to be a republic. The difference between democracy and a republic is that a democracy is about popular vote making law while a republic is about rule by law with a process to amend existing laws by due process. A law cannot be voted out in a Republic. A Republican form of government protects the rights of the minority from the majority. In a democracy the majority can simply vote out the rights of the minority.

I dare you to argue to me that we do not live in anarchy. Prove it. The media uses the battle cry of "That would be anarchy!" to people who speak values of Liberty. They must not know what anarchy means. I will help them. Anarchy: "A state of lawlessness". When the government does not obey the law it was created under then you are in anarchy. This country had law and order long before the Constitution was written. The several states had bodies of government that ensured due process for their citizens. Yet, they were much more free than they are now. Freedom does not equal lawlessness. Do not let the uneducated, indoctrinated minds of our media tell you otherwise. Lawlessness is democracy. Democracy is arbitrary use of money and power without checks and balances. We are in anarchy right now friends and the powers that be will continue to depend on you doubting your rights and believing that they are in charge to push their agenda forward.

When the day comes that a true American Patriot stands up and puts them self in the way of that agenda you will see the true nature of government as they pull out their force and use it. They can't afford for you to see it too overtly, they don't want you to. They hide behind color-of-law and pretend to do things legally.

We cannot win another war for freedom. Our founding father's failed when they chose that path. Freedom can only win by opening people's minds through discussion and debate. The last war for Liberty was lost by the people who did not start the war and who were fighting for freedom as defense. Yes, they lived in a a pitiful state of duplicity - craving freedom while denying it to their brothers. I will not defend that. However, anyone who still believes that the civil war was a civil war or that it was about freeing the slaves obviously hasn't read more than the school book version of history. True history, even that edited by the North, shows what the war was about and accounts the misdeeds of both sides and the way they failed their citizenry while a war between two nations took place. It was a failed revolution, not a civil war.

Just because a founding father said the tree of Liberty must be fed by blood doesn't mean he meant through war. It must be fed by blood, sweat, and tears of those laboring to help others understand how imperfect liberty is and how it is exactly the system the our imperfect human selves need. Communism and Socialism are great theories and beautiful principles based on sharing equally. They are also a complete impossibility as you cannot find a benevolent enough person to run government that only takes exactly their share and ensures everyone else gets the same. Only God can be benevolent and ensure we all get a fair share. All others will pad their share and deduct just a little from the whole. True capitalism permits the end user the power to destroy a corrupt organization. A socialist controlled market allows the government to force people to participate thus ensuring the corrupt organization survives as long as they want to.

Only the people can hold the government accountable. Only we can get them back on the Constitution. I believe that the only way this is ever going to get corrected is for us to work at the local level to take back local governments, then to take back our State governments. Then our State governments will have the power they need to cut off the anarchist federal government and force it to get back to constitutional restrictions. The reconstruction amendment framers knew this and that is why they removed the State power to appoint Senators. This amendment along with the popular vote amendment for the President of the US made this country a democracy. The President of the United States was never intended to be the Leader of the Free World, nor the leader of our country. He is not a King and was never supposed to be. He was put in place to stop the Congress from pushing through unconstitutional laws and to ensure the Supreme Court kept competent judges on it that would keep our Constitutional Republic exactly that.

Instead, we have anarchy. Brought to you by the bi-partisan movement of compromise. Compromise, as most married couples will share, is where you both lose a little in order to both win a little. Whereas in a household the compromise may simply be the husband wanting pizza and the wife gets to pick the toppings, in government that means that Group A wants to pass a bill about opening government documents for review every 10 years, but group B won't vote for it unless they put a Search and Seizure rider on the bill granting the federal government the power to seize an entire crop of corn if a marijuana plant was found growing with it. Group A knows they need at least half of the people from Group B to pass the bill so they say, "Sure." The bill passes and next year the open document law is removed by another bill passing however the search and seizure law remains on the books. Yes, it is only regulatory law, but most courts are convinced that regulatory law is just as powerful as the Constitution so many farmers lose their crops because a punk kid planted a couple marijuana plants on their fields, but no one can prove the kid did it. That is where we are today. Compromise - multiple laws on a bill that have nothing to do with the bill. That is why you had people voting for the Health Care bill - a couple more bucks for a project in their state. Compromise is the tool that was discovered to ram any piece of crap through our federal government. Now we need our States to wakeup and realize they have the right to say, "No!". You may be prompted to say, "We need an ammendment stating 'One bill, one law'!" The problem is the government doesn't obey the law right now, so why would they obey one more silly ammendment?

(republished to fix my spelling error in the title. I r a public education victim!) ;0)

Strip Search for Ibuprofen found reasonable by US Supreme Court

2010-06-10T18:38:00.003-04:00

Amendment 4, Constitution of the United States of America
Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What part of this doesn't apply when a child is in school? According to the US Supreme Court which derives it's power from the same Constitution it ignores, its okay to search a child. According to the Justices of our Supreme Law of the Land:

"...there was no clearly established law finding unconstitutional the strip searching of students under materially similar circumstances from the Supreme Court..."

Really? What is the 4th amendment? A cute paragraph on a rotting piece of paper?

Wrong, supreme court, wrong!

The school does not have the power to search. It only has the power to send a child away from the school. The biggest thing that should have happened was the parents should have been called and Redding should have been sent home for the day.

For the love of all that is holy, we don't permit our schools to spank, why in the world would we grant them the power to individually search? Yes, I know - many schools have metal detectors and some even have bag searches. Ideologically I have issue with that as it does not prevent someone from getting a gun or a knife in the school. It might prevent someone from bringing one just to show their friends how cool they are, but someone with a purpose is not going to be deterred by all the coolest detectors, bells, and/or whistles in the world.

The Supreme Court has also asked the United States Court of Appeals to reconsider other cases similar to this and consider granting "qualified immunity" to the searches in other such cases. "Hey, guys - now that we think strip searches are okay because we do not care about the Constitution anymore, neither should you." If you read the link where I pulled the quote from you'll see that the sixth circuit court cited some case law and squarely told the Supreme Court that they stood by their decision against the people who strip searched a group of 20 students.

What Americans do not realize is that noone has the right to search you without probable cause. A person says they saw you waving a gun around - the police have the right to ask you if you were indeed waving a gun around. At this point they do not have probable cause to search you. If you are acting hostile and confrontational they will probably arrest you and at that point conduct a pat-down search, not because you were accused of having a weapon, but because you gave them probable cause to suspect you may be dangerous. If a police officer sees you waving the gun around he will definitely subdue and search you. Once you get to the jail you will be changing garments and your effects will be cataloged. If you remained level headed during the questioning the police officer would have to get a court order to search you.

Okay, the police officer, as a government representative must follow the Constitution, but does a school official fall under that? No. They are not government officials and the only right they have is to deny access to the school until things can be investigated. Their duty is to protect the other students, and in order to do that they should send a suspected student home - not order up a search.

Of course, that would lead to another news story about a student being sent home for having a subscription drug on them. Still ridiculous in my opinion. Schools are not law enforcement officials and they need to get the idea that they are out of their heads.

Note to Alan Grayson

2009-09-23T13:39:00.003-04:00

Re: Share Your Health Care Story With Me Inbox (email dated 9/22/2009)

What kind of survey just asks one loaded question? The survey your team setup at http://alangrayson.house.gov/Forms/Form/?ID=473, asks exactly one question. How is that going to garner useful information for you on the issue of health care. I would select "major changes", but that in no way would be the same major changes you may hear from other people.

To me the major change is getting the federal government out of healthcare completely. Remove it's failed ideas of stealing from one class of people to give insurance to another class of people. Give the industry freedom to do what it must so it can have a chance at providing the best service for the best cost to the most customers without constraints. Constraints that force us to use insurance and other "solutions" that actually make healthcare more expensive and less obtainable.

I know when I was a child my Mom spent $20 to take my sister and I into see the doc. That wasn't copay, that was paid in full for services rendered. Now I pay over $100 a visit, just for one child, and that's just if it was just a talk with the doctor. Did the dollar decline 160% since 1980? No. Then why does it cost ten times as much for a typical healthy checkup now? Don't try to make me believe it's because of greedy doctors and unfair insurance. It's because of government involvement and government failing in its role to protect doctors from fraudulent malpractice suits.

Today's doctors have to pander to insurance companies, record keeping that gives the government easier access to patient records than the patient them self, and malpractice insurance that gobbles up a huge chunk of their income. Want to fix healthcare? Get the government out of it!

Restore the Constitution and chain down the government. Consider your oath, good sir - it is to the constitution of this Republic and not to the public opinion surveys.

Ron Paul and End The Fed

2009-07-09T14:12:00.001-04:00

A well written letter by Ron Paul that was also posted by Glenn Beck. Read it for a clearer understanding of how the Federal Reserve is destroying the dollar. As if knowing that it takes $22 to buy what a person could get with $1 in 1913 isn't enough to realize how ridiculous this is... For those who don't know history, the value of currency has never eroded over time consistently and reliably. That did not happen to the US until the Federal Reserve [the central bank] was created. Ever wondered why they don't have those "this is how much milk was in ____" cards going back beyond 1913? It's because milk would go up one year, down for a few, then up a bit, and back down, and if you looked it it over 50 years the price of milk stayed roughly the same. Now, with the federal reserve you can be assured that your savings will be rendered useless over time, and "rich" families of today will have poor descendants in the future. A million dollars was worth 22 times in 1913 what it is worth today. Even a millionaire family of 1913 isn't set today. Just think about that 401k (if you have one) and what it will be worth as the dollar continues to decline at an even faster rate than it has since 1913? How can I be sure of this? It's a certainty because the Federal Reserve has doubled the supply of currency in the last year. That means the dollar will likely be worth 50% of what it was as soon as all that currency makes it out into the normal money supply, thus house prices will seem to rebound as the dollar is further destroyed. Who would say that an annual 22% inflation rate is a good thing? On average that is what the federal reserve has given us. $22 dollars today buys what $1 bought in 1913. That's a loss of 2,100% in less than 100 years. 2008-1913 = 95yrs. 2100%/95yrs = 22.105% per year. Still fooled by the governments reports of 1%, 5%, and 11% (as a high end) inflation for a year? That is a number easily manipulated. In many cases it means as a rate higher than the year before, so 2% could mean it rose 2% more than the previous year, not an actual dollar loss of 2%, but rather 2% worse than the previous year. The government is great at putting spin on things to make them sound better. Why do you think they refer to it as inflation instead of deflation? In reality it is the deflation of the dollar. What is it the inflation of? Inflation just sounds good - like filling a balloon. Kids know what inflating a balloon is - it just sounds like fun! But inflation of the market, thus deflating the value of the dollar is not a good thing. The only thing government is good at is putting lipstick on a pig and convincing us all we need the pig in our living rooms. They are *very* good at it. They have nearly 50% of the nation convinced they can tax the rich and support the poor. It's not possible, nor plausible, but then cartoonists and government are very good at getting people to accept the plausible impossible, just ask Disney, Carl Marx, Adolph Hitler, and Joseph Stalin to name a few. At least Disney was only selling some entertainment - I mean, really, an elephant fly? But then a few too many people have taken his "Dream a dream and follow your heart" concept a bit too far.

Let's see how simply I can put this....

2009-05-14T14:38:00.002-04:00

I do not care what a person thinks or believes, as long as they do not force me to give up my freedoms.

Global Warming....

2009-04-26T19:25:00.002-04:00

The democrats invite opposition to speak with Al Gore in Congress, but then after he gets here they tell him to go away....lovely! Read this link to see more of what sparked my entry.

Science is the new religion of our nation, I challenge anyone to state otherwise. We are now to accept Darwinism on faith. That theory offers nothing but a short glimmer of living, with no purpose, no reason, and nothing to strive for. No thanks! I'll stick to faith in God and our Lord Jesus who give us Liberty, Salvation, reason and purpose to our lives, especially our after life. Does that mean that Darwin was an idiot with no idea of what he was speaking of? No! I believe he was correct that we evolve and adapt to our environment, but species jumping? Show me the proof!

Now, with this news, I can rest easily with the reassurance that Al Gore is a fraud.

Science is meant to be only a study of what we can measure - it is a tool thats only purpose is the help us understand our environment. It, by definition, requires no leap of faith - only proof.

Carl Sagan was one of the first big celebrity scientists that shunned actual science and instead sold faith in science. Without conducting one experiment he concluded that a nuclear war would lead to nuclear winter. There was no way to experiment with that theory, yet he sold it to nations as fact. Global warming is another theory unsubstantiated by fact. In reality it exists in opposition to the fact that the world temperatures on average are indeed *not* rising. (unless of course you lie and use September's temperatures for October.)

Global warming is nothing more than an excuse for wealth redistribution which steals from *all* to give to the government. If the ideas of this administration become law, the poorest of our nation will quickly become poorer as they pay the carbon taxes.

Al Gore should be allowed to speak, but he should be considered without credit or merit until he and his ilk can produce one shred of evidence that can be reproduced in a lab. Should we try to find ways to reduce pollution? Hell, yes! Should we do it by forcing people into poverty? No!

Marc

Letter to my Rep...

2009-04-26T18:40:00.003-04:00

I sent this to my house representative today...

Rep Grayson, I am glad to see you have decided to co-sponsor HR1207. Auditing the Federal Reserve is truly an important first step in proving that they should not exist at all. Of course, it will be nigh-impossible to find any information that they will be willing to turn over to the House. It is indeed time to fire them and time for this government to wake up and follow the Constitution. If only you had not sold us all out when you sponsored HR 1664. Do you not realize that you laid the foundation for the brother of minimum wage, better to be known as the maximum wage? You should be ashamed for your naive acts against Liberty and Freedom when you sponsored such a terrible bill. I implore you as someone who voted for you, and as an American Patriot, please wake up and take your oath to the Constitution as seriously as I do the one I took. Whenever you introduce or vote for legislation that does not stick within the confines of the Supreme Law of the Land, you are acting as an anarchist. I demand that you honor your oath, and no matter what your party tells you that you do what is truly just for this nation and the workers....limit the Federal government to the powers it was given and get our State and all states back where they belong - in control of their destiny. Moving the tax burden to the rich is not the answer! Placing the tax burden to an all time low is what will work. We need to get the Federal Government back to working on the budget that excise and tariffs can support. Join The People and forever end the insane income tax. I request, demand, and hope that you will go back to the real Democrat Party platform of personal freedom and also find out that only a free market can work, not a socialized one. Doctor visits used to be inexpensive when I was a child, now they are ridiculous thanks to government and private insurances and frivolous malpractice suits. Help us with real change by fighting against the problems and not using the big-government created problems to create more big government. Let me leave you with one last thought: "The government is not here to ensure our financial welfare by borrowing against our future. No one can borrow their way out of debt. Doing nothing is exactly what our Constitution required this anarchist government to do. They think they know better than the founding fathers. The truth is they are the reason we are in this mess and they are just making it worse. Wake up! Government is never the solution it is the disease! It is fire, not warmth. It consumes, it does not create." -Marc Bessent Thank you for your time. I'd appreciate a response and a bit of personal insight in regards to what it is like for you as a Rep. in Washington. Together we can restore America to truly be the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, but not if we are willing to throw away what got us here in trade for a horrible agenda that Bush put into play and Obama is surfing on. The Constitution is not a joke, good sir, and I advise you to do your duty. By The Way, I voted for you to fire the republican that voted for the bailout. Your vote for HR.1 has me ready to vote for anyone that runs against you when your seat comes up. Continue voting for bigger government, more oversight, and less freedom and you will absolutely insure that. Quit spending *MY* money and start reducing the size of government. Thank you, Marc Bessent American Veteran, Patriot, and lover of Liberty

A fun pass time on YouTube - Secession is a Right?

2009-04-24T21:31:00.006-04:00

I'm not 100% sure how we got into a big discussion, but I am enjoying it so far. It's amazing how people want to tell you something is impossible, when indeed, nothing is impossible.

Here is the conversation thus far:

ZexMerquise (1 week ago)

Reply | Spam

Texas is not a state. It's its own country.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
Don't mess with Texas.
They answer to the Republic, Liberty, Justice, and the right to bare arms.
REAL Americans live there. People who send their kids to fight for the freedom of this country.
If any other country took over this country, Texas would be the United State of America.

wittumy (3 days ago)

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zex....Texas is a state not its own country as you say. Glenn Beck, Rick Perry, Ted Nugent don't speak for Texans and I find it offensive none of them said a damn word until now and try to get us to believe they are not "party" biased. Mr Beck you backed and still back torture and illegal wire taps because you're scared.....seeing you stand in front of the Alamo which represents brave determination makes me ill.

Then I posted in the next min-conversation where someone called secession "treason".

USConsitution Art 3, Sec 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

If you just leave and start your own government how is that treason? You aren't declaring war, or giving their enemy aid or comfort. Perhaps that's it, then....people think when you leave a union you automatically become it's enemy? That's not the case. I know plenty of failed marriages where the couples are still amicable with each other and work together.

Keep in mind I am not saying I am for secession, but I can understand a State deciding it has had enough with the federal government and doing the only thing it can...threatening to leave. The federal government is nothing without the states the give it life.

olivemike81 (3 days ago)

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In another segment at the Alamo Beck was practically casting a vote for Texas to succeed. If Texas does suceed, I doubt it will, and we have Civil War 2 I'll be the first one to sign up for the military and crush those traitors. Just like we did the first time.

TotalDeadEnd (3 days ago)

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It's not that they'll rise up to try to overthrow us. They just want to run things their way without having the government interfere. Kind of like the states that Native American Indians want.

And the word is secede, by the way.

olivemike81 (3 days ago)

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There are ways to go about this without threatening treason.

mcbluefire (1 day ago)

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Secession is not treason. It is a State's last line of defense against a federal government that no longer honors its side of the contract - you know that annoying Constitution thing. The government are the traitors for ignoring the law of the land they swore to uphold.

olivemike81 (1 day ago)

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We're talking about money here. We're not talking about the federal government stealing state land or something. Obama's plan for the economy may fail but maybe you should see if it fails first before you talk about seceding from America.

mcbluefire (1 day ago)

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Right....because money is not property and putting a debt against me, my children, and everyone in this country isn't theft? Listen to yourself. Money is what we use to buy property - it is how we are compensated for a labor - our property. The federal government has a rule book to follow - The Constitution. They are not following it and thus are governing in anarchy. Obama's plan isn't knew it is the same failed technique that prolonged the great depression.

olivemike81 (1 day ago)

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Well actually the truth is when FDR cut back on spending the job loss rate increased. And when FDR took office in 1933 unemployment was at 25%. Just before World War II it was less than 10%.
And it's not like Obama is planning to keep all the money he spent in his plan. The idea is to stimulate the economy and eventually pay off the money spent. Not exactly stealing.

mcbluefire (1 day ago)

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Government temporary jobs are not a solution to unemployment. If it is such a great bill, why was Congress not given a reasonable amount of time to read a 700+ page bill? It was never read in session. HR1 was about paying off campaign contributers, not helping the economy. Look at the language - most of the money doesn't even have to be (or cannot be) used until 2003 before he starts campaigning again. Look: 200 million for homeless, but 2.8 billion for broadband - that's priorities!

wittumy (1 day ago)

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mcblue....succession is not a possibility...you're believing idiots like Perry. I bet you also liked Bush didn't you?

mcbluefire (1 day ago)

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Aye, as a liberty loving Constitutionalist , I just adored all the work that Bush did in dismantling it. Anything is possible, and The People reserve the right to throw off government that no longer works for them and setup a new government that will defend their rights and their way of life. Read the Declaration of Independence sometime and then convince me that the people who fought a war for that right gave it up when they joined the Union voluntarily. Bush was one more bad president.

wittumy (1 day ago)

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mcblue....let's save time....what in the constitution says they can. I, even with Bush's faults do not have a loss of faith in my government.

mcbluefire (1 day ago)

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The Constitution limited the federal government, removed a bit of power from he States, not the People. Therefore, since it is not listed as a right removed from the States, it is a right retained by the States. I do not have faith in any -body- that lies repeatedly. Our government is too big to be blindly trusted, period. I don't want secession, I want the government to follow the Supreme Law of the Land.

wittumy (1 day ago)

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mcblue...you're still not there. Where does it say you can seceed if you don't like what the government is doing.

mcbluefire (1 day ago)

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Ah, I see... let's play that game. Show me where it says a State cannot, then. No amendment was made following the civil war that specifically removes the right of secession, so I guess that question still isn't settled. I'll stick to the federalist papers view of the Constitution and the 10th amendment which leaves all rights to the States and The People which aren't specifically granted to the feds...thus guaranteeing the right of leaving the union just as they joined it - voluntarily.

wittumy (10 hours ago)

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mcblue.....you were the one who said they could seceed not I. I've asked for proof and you wish to push the burden of your comment to me.....what "game" am I playing?

mcbluefire (4 hours ago)

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Wow. I've given you all the proof necessary. Anything not prohibited by the Constitution remains a right. The fact that you can't understand that is amazing to me. Any State can seceed and has the right to do so. This isn't a union any more binding than a marriage. Anything that can be created can be ended. If it helps you sleep better at night you keep believing the socialist pledge of "indivisible", I'll stick with Freedom. Good luck to you.

wittumy (1 hour ago)

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mcblue....I'm not a socialist anymore than you're a damn fascist so cut the elementary school bullshit. Of course "anything that is created can be ended"....but there is usually a reason/cause. What in the constitution says any little bit of disent can be grounds for a state to seceed...as you suggest? Who decides whether the government is lying...Glen freaking Beck? Give me something in the constitution that identifies states' right to seceed and what is necessary to prove the right to do so.

mcbluefire (20 minutes ago)

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You get upset too quickly. I didn't call you a socialist, I called the Pledge socialist. Glen Beck is of no significance to me, other than an American who knows something is very wrong as well. When does a State have the right to secede? Why can't you read my posts and see your answer? When The Federal Government No Longer Operates Within The Bounds Of The Constitution. That is when. More to the point whenever the people of that State no longer find it in their best interest to remain.

mcbluefire (17 minutes ago)

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Forgive me for using elementary school bs, but you are begging me for the obvious answer that is already there and acting like it isn't. We The People run this country and our States, not Us The Government. This country has a government, not the other way around. Realize that secession is a last resort of a State when it has no other choice and quit wasting time trying to prove people don't have that choice. We hope it doesn't come to that - but it is an option.

I am now waiting for his likely reply. It is very confusing to me that we are having a long drawn out argument over something that is up to the states to decide. I sense that we are probably on the same page for most things when it comes to Liberty, except that Wittumy doesn't think we are past the point of no return thus far. I believe it could still be solved on paper, but a miracle would have to occur to get the our federal government back in line with the Constitution and suddenly voting away all the powers they've grabbed. I want that miracle, and I'm praying for it!

Fed up, yet?

2009-04-22T21:17:00.002-04:00

I am so tired of people saying that the government had to do something to fix the financial mess. Prove it! Where in the Constitution does the federal government derive it's power to act in a financial crisis?

"The government is not here to ensure our financial welfare by borrowing against our future. No one can borrow their way out of debt. Doing nothing is exactly what our Constitution required this anarchist government to do. They think they know better than the founding fathers. The truth is they are the reason we are in this mess and they are just making it worse. Wake up! Government is never the solution it is the disease! It is fire, not warmth. It consumes, it does not create." -Marc Bessent

My thoughts on the Church transforming the world

2009-04-19T03:05:00.003-04:00

This was in response to a letter that Reverend Carl posted to a forum I am in. He has been feeling moved by the spirit and realizes that his church isn't alive in the spirit, but rather is dead in the world. Much of what he wrote I agreed with, but when it came to the Church needing to transform the world, I felt moved to fill in the details a bit. Basically the body of Christ is here to bring people to Him so that they may know Him and choose to live a Godly life - we cannot do it by force, nor should we for it is in disobedience to God when we do.

Here is my response:

A powerful message, Reverend Carl!

I feel compelled to respond, not only to commend you for voicing what you know to be true and what you have felt but because I feel that the Holy Spirit is moving me to remind us that we must not let the church be modified by the world nor is the church to modify the world, but rather one person at a time by bringing them to know the Lord. I picked up on the portion where you state that the Church is to transform the world. As long as that is done through the church and even local policy, it may succeed, but when it rises to national and empire levels as law it fails.

We are to reach out to as many people as we can and attempt to bring them to the Lord through Jesus. We can, however, only plant the seed. It is not our time to shape the world. When we try, we fail miserably and very quickly our moral laws that we get placed into the world work to defeat us or destroy the lives of those we had hoped to protect. Examples of such laws of morality that have been put into place and are failing their intended purpose include the drug laws, the attempt to make abortion illegal, attempts to regulate sexuality between two consenting adults... to name a few.

I am concerned that a worst case scenario of abortion is that one day not only will it be 100% legal but it will also be a tool of "the state" to be ordered on people as officials see fit. I am sure the fight against this sin has gone on long before recorded history. Well intended people of our states achieved some success making the practice illegal at local and state levels. Yet, when those people pressed to have it made illegal at the federal level not only did they lose, their efforts were reversed and we eventually lost the right for states to make it illegal. Now we have legislation in process that will make it illegal for medical providers to refuse to provide abortion. This is the natural result of trying to press Christian ideals on a broken world.

As horrible as abortion is, it is a sin. The Lord sees no degree of sin. All sin is equal in His eyes. There is no question that our Lord has beaten evil and will always triumph! Evil cannot defeat his design and in adversity the Lord shows himself. With the truth that all those who are not of age to decide to accept Him, He brings them to him. Thus, there are over 50 million "American" souls who went straight to the Lord in Heaven. Does that not fly directly in the face of evil? It is a major silver lining on such a terrible cloud.

I believe that we should fight evil, but not through the force of law over those who have not chosen to accept the true path to God. We must fight evil through example and by sharing the natural law that surrounds most sins. Naturally a drug user will become addicted, endure bodily harm, and reduce their healthy lifespan. Naturally a woman who submits to abortion will feel some remorse and wonder if there could have been a better way, or even physically suffer during and after the procedure.

We need sinners in the pews, so that the message of Christ may eventually reach their hearts and then they will repent and come to know the glory of their future in Him. There is a difference between members of the body of Christ, and souls that need to hear the message so that one day they may be saved. You can, however get many of the sinners who have no desire to ever change to willingly leave your church by preaching the true Gospel of the Lord and changing the direction of the Church from one of comfort to one of principle. As an example, Chuck Baldwin sure upset many members of his church when decided to run for President on the Constitution Party ticket, and after viewing many of his sermons I can see how bringing the truth of the word of God to bear on our present day can make people decide to find a calmer church that ignores adversity and thrives on comfort and fellowship or just focuses on one or two sins, making everyone else in the Church feel like they are fine and dandy.

God gave us free will so that we may each turn to Him or commit ourselves to Hell as we chose. It is error for any man to step in and tell a person that he must conform to the will of God. Judgement has not come to America, perhaps it is true that we have lost some of the favor of our Lord... The Lord permits adversity and trials so that we may turn toward Him to seek His Love and Strength. Think about it from a different perspective: When we live comfortably in luxury are we in God's favor or are we letting ourselves be pacified into thinking we do not need Him? I tend to believe the later, for Heaven will not come to us until after we die knowing that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins. Not the sins of the past, but for all the sins for all time that this "world" is permitted to exist.

As long as we work with each other and help our brothers and sisters by ensuring we keep true history preserved, keep our focus on the Saviour, and live as close as we can to the example of our Lord we will reach others and they will know what it is to be a Christian.

Homosexuality will lead to Secession?

2009-04-16T16:41:00.003-04:00

{This is in response to an article that you can reach by clicking the title of this entry)

Here are the four bullet points that I am addressing:

--A Christian photographer was forced by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney's costs after she refused to photograph a gay couple's commitment ceremony.
--A psychologist in Georgia was fired after she declined for religious reasons to counsel a lesbian about her relationship.
--Christian fertility doctors in California who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient were barred by the state Supreme Court from invoking their religious beliefs in refusing treatment.
--A Christian student group was not recognized at a University of California law school because it denies membership to anyone practicing sex outside of traditional marriage.

Nay, I argue instead it is the misuse of government by all sides of the political poles that do that.

The problem here, is that these people aren't being allowed to choose who their clients will be, with exception to the last bullet. No one has the right to force anyone to do something they do not want to do, unless that person has been proven guilty in a court of law. That is a basic premise of the once great Republic of the United States.

The first three issues are ridiculous, travesties of justice, and "hate crimes" (a completely brain-dead liberal concept - but applicable here) committed by the courts that let these frivolous lawsuits come to the light of day.

The fourth bullet, however is just one organization not allowing itself to be pressured into doing something it doesn't want to do. The irony is, however, that under the UCMJ (uniformed code of military justice) sex outside of marriage is still punishable yet, in the private sector that isn't the case. Do I agree with the school for ignoring that organization, no. But, it is their right.

Now, we just need to fix the reverse application. This country has swayed so far to "political correctness" that it makes immorality acceptance more important than acknowledging morality.

Truly, though, this reverse discrimination is a result of the Right Wing Christian movement that insisted on moral laws at the national level, thus alienating every non-believer and creating a new movement of anti-Christian people, even within their own ranks. We have seen a decrease in the percentage of people that believe in God as a result of people incorrectly applying their beliefs against the design of our Lord. Many in the conservative movement used their power, convinced Americans that we live in a democracy, not a Republic, and grew this government to a position of utmost power over the states, while making deals with their opponents to get unconstitutional laws passed together.

I have always tried to stay true to my faith in Christ, but I have found myself disgusted by those that forget that God gave man free will. Man must come to God by choice, and no one reserves the right to force him to accept His law when it comes to victimless affronts.

Don't make the mistake of putting words into my mouth and stating that I am for anarchy. God told us that government is to punish wickedness. That works when we punish people who have committed a crime against another. Especially a violent crime. Anything that violates a God given right. Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, right to Worship, speak our minds, protect ourselves and our towns, right to contract, the right to own property, and on and on.

With that in mind, should we punish someone for being gay? I argue, no. They still have the right to contract and if they want to make their own church and claim marriage - let them. God won't honor their marriage. They are committing the sin of fornication - a sin. No worse and no better than any other sin. A person who gives their body a harmful substance, are they infringing on someone's rights? Their own, perhaps - but that is their choice and their sin. Can we help them by education, yes! Can we reach out to them with the Word of God and try to help them overcome their depression and addiction? Yes, our Lord is that strong!

But, when someone commits an act that interferes with the right or freedom of another then our government, originally the counsel of our neighbors, was and is obligated to get involved. That is the design of a government in a free nation. To protect and uphold the rights of its citizens. Not to pass laws that deny those basic rights and call it security.

Currently our government, at all levels, is in the act of treason against its citizens, from punishing those who choose not to serve a client for whatever reason, those who use tools such as property taxes to prevent true ownership or income taxes to fuel their insane desire to rule us with our own earning, to those who make moral laws suppressing the rights of those who are not interfering with others, and to those who make laws against business in the name of the employed while effectively preventing start-ups from occurring.

Yes, we should be educating against sins and more importantly evangelizing what Christ did for our fellow fallen brothers and sisters, but we cannot legislate heaven on earth. Heaven on earth is also the goal of our socialist "friends". It can never be achieved until Jesus comes back and takes His throne. Let us focus on education and loving our neighbor without condition, as He taught us until then.

Freedom cannot exist if we do not ensure it is for everyone. When a moral majority attempts to force an immoral minority to accept their laws they succeed only in pushing that minority further from the Grace of God. Only once they have been given the spark and a chance to know His love can they begin to voluntarily build within themselves a moral code. Yes, some of them want to do it and keep their sin. That, my friends, in the end is their fallacy, not ours.

We must fight tyranny in all forms and restore the rights of all people. God will separate the chaff from the wheat, not us.

Quick reply in regards to bills in the House to regulate Gardening

2009-04-16T15:47:00.001-04:00

We are not sheep - that's what frightens them so!

At the same time, we also do not have any private land in this nation. Most of us are pacified (via color of law) into believing we do. But, even if you own your land free and clear of debt you don't own it. Don't believe me? Don't pay your property taxes and see how long you keep your land. We the people rent nearly all land anywhere in the United States. All levels of government have decided that we do not have the right to privately owned property. So, with that in mind, why would we think we can grow what we want on it?

This is exactly why We The People must shackle the government back into the confines of the Constitution and at the same time renegotiate with our State and Local governments for what we want them to do and how they will be permitted to tax. There must never be any form of direct taxation again!

Signs That You Live Under Tyranny

2009-03-30T12:40:00.003-04:00

This is a decent article, written by Jon Roland, that gives some indications of signs to look for to indicate you live under tyranny.

I have a simple sign:

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Of course, I merely paraphrased that from Jefferson.

Jon's 4th sign is easily put into American specific terms by knowing that our government has ignored the Constitution by implementing laws that directly conflict with it, "The Patriot Act" and all the Stimulus/Bailout bills being such material. Jon's number 10 is brought to light since none of these "laws" have been challenged by the Judicial branch.

Unfortunately some of these signs are nearly unprovable - unless the opposition to Tyranny prevails and can reveal the injustices afterwards. During Hitler's rule over Germany it was only conspiracy theorists who believed that people where being killed by the millions - and until the Allies arrived and saw first hand what was going on it was unproven. Just because something can't be proven, doesn't mean it isn't real. When a question isn't answered that doesn't prove that what it indicates is true, but ignoring the question and defaming the questioners sure makes it worth considering. I regard the government like an entity. In the United States of America, it is a corporate institution, thanks to Lincoln. That entity lies to us consistently, and like anyone who lies to you, even a few times, you find that you can no longer believe them on anything.

The shroud of national security needs to be repealed and pulled back permanently - the only thing that can keep our nation secure is for everyone to know everything that is written about past events, hiding no one. There is no reason for a plan of action, information gleaned under the guise of public realm, or lists of suspected people to remain under secrecy for more than a few months. Military technology details kept under secrecy for years? Sure! As long as we don't decide to share that information with other countries. The people of this country are what make it powerful and great, not the government or the government employees. [okay, off my soapbox, now!]

16 Signs That You Live Under Tyranny

by Jon Roland

Tyranny is an important phenomenon that operates by principles by which it can be recognized in its early emerging stages, and, if the people are vigilant, prepared, and committed to liberty, countered before it becomes entrenched. The methods used to overthrow a constitutional order and establish a tyranny are well-known. However, despite this awareness, it is surprising how those who have no intention of perpetrating a tyranny can slip into these methods and bring about a tyranny despite their best intentions. Tyranny does not have to be deliberate. Tyrants can fool themselves as thoroughly as they fool everyone else. Here are the top 16 signs that you are living in a tyranny or heading that way.

1 Signs 1 - 5

1. Control of public information and opinion: It begins with withholding information, and leads to putting out false or misleading information. A government can develop ministries of propaganda under many guises. They typically call it "public information" or "marketing."

2. Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers: It doesn't matter which of the two major party candidates are elected if no real reformer can get nominated, and when news services start knowing the outcomes of elections before it is possible for them to know, then the votes are not being honestly counted.

3. Undue official influence on trials and juries: Non-random selection of jury panels, exclusion of those opposed to the law, exclusion of the jury from hearing argument on the law, exclusion of private prosecutors from access to the grand jury, and prevention of parties and their counsels from making effective arguments or challenging the government.

4. Usurpation of undelegated powers: This is usually done with popular support for solving some problem, or to redistribute wealth to the advantage of the supporters of the dominant faction, but it soon leads to the deprivation of rights of minorities and individuals.

5. Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force: The first signs are efforts to register or restrict the possession and use of firearms, initially under the guise of "protecting" the public, which, when it actually results in increased crime, provides a basis for further disarmament efforts affecting more people and more weapons.

Just paying the bill:¦

2 Signs 6 - 10

6. Militarization of law enforcement: Declaring a "war on crime" that becomes a war on civil liberties. Preparation of military forces for internal policing duties.

7. Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform: Internal spying and surveillance is the beginning. A sign is false prosecutions of their leaders.

8. Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers: When people who try to uncover high level wrongdoing are threatened, that is a sign the system is not only riddled with corruption, but that the corruption has passed the threshold into active tyranny.

9. Use of the law for competition suppression: It begins with the dominant faction winning support by paying off their supporters and suppressing their supporters' competitors, but leads to public officials themselves engaging in illegal activities and using the law to suppress independent competitors. A good example of this is narcotics trafficking.

10. Subversion of internal checks and balances: This involves the appointment to key positions of persons who can be controlled by their sponsors, and who are then induced to do illegal things. The worst way in which this occurs is in the appointment of judges that will go along with unconstitutional acts by the other branches.

3 Signs 11 - 16

11. Creation of a class of officials who are above the law: This is indicated by dismissal of charges for wrongdoing against persons who are "following orders."

12. Increasing dependency of the people on government: The classic approach to domination of the people is to first take everything they have away from them, then make them compliant with the demands of the rulers to get anything back again.

13. Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them: When the people avoid doing things like voting and serving in militias and juries, tyranny is not far behind.

14. Use of staged events to produce popular support: Acts of terrorism, blamed on political opponents, followed immediately with well-prepared proposals for increased powers and budgets for suppressive agencies. Sometimes called a Reichstag plot.

15. Conversion of rights into privileges: Requiring licenses and permits for doing things that the government does not have the delegated power to restrict, except by due process in which the burden of proof is on the petitioner.

16. Political correctness: Many if not most people are susceptible to being recruited to engage in repressive actions against disfavored views or behaviors, and led to pave the way for the dominance of tyrannical government.

Unconstitutional therefore illegal.

2009-03-29T12:13:00.005-04:00

The Patriot act is unconstitutional - it nullifies the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th amendments. It also completely removes the judicial branch from involvement in a condemned citizens plight. A government that does not follow the law it was created under is a government of anarchy. Without rule of law we have nothing. Who is to obey the rules/laws when the group that makes them obeys nothing? The Patriot Act and *all* unconstitutional laws must be repealed! Defend the Supreme Law of the Land or live in a land of the whim that is law.

Safety is found in Liberty, not slavery. Everyone must wake up and take on the responsibility of their lives and the safety of the others around them or it will never work. A strong government "protecting" its citizens can never work as well as all citizens protecting each other. Criminals love a government that has disarmed the people of the country, because it makes it much easier for them to pull off crimes and get away unscathed. Just look at recent history in England. They have disarmed the citizenry and violent crime is up 40%.

Liberty will not return while we fight the details

2009-02-12T16:39:00.005-05:00

I sent in a small note to the AFA today. I receive their action alerts and newsletter. They appear to be an organization that could help us restore Liberty, but my focus is on Liberty for all and doesn't embrace some of their views. We can not have freedom and ensure that everyone in the country obeys the laws of God. But, that's an entire other article that I will attempt to address one day.

This is a copy of the following message you sent to AFA Activism via faq

re: A call to action from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and U.S. Senator Jim DeMint to stop ACLU supported bill
I appreciate the message of this action alert. It is not correct for the federal government to try to determine what public buildings are used for religious functions or to curb spending on those structures via this wasteful bill. What is missing entirely in the Action Alert is that it is not within the federal government's Constitutional powers to be spending our money for a stimulus at all.

U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8 defines what the US government has the power to do. Regulating commerce does not include stealing from our children and grandchildren to prolong a devastating depression. It only means they can pass laws regarding commerce that crosses sovereign boundaries of the states and foreign nations.

Spending my money to further socialist, anti-Liberty, pro-authoritarian agendas is appalling to me.

It is time we stopped arguing the insignificant details of illegal legislation and started returning this country to where it should be: a beacon of Liberty to the world. We can only do that by educating the truth about our nation's origins and dispelling the myth's and lies that are being taught in today's schools.

Sincerely,

Marc

You can see their original article by clicking the subject line for the letter I sent them.

The Dairy, er I mean Calcium food group

2009-01-15T16:41:00.002-05:00

I had an interesting chat with my pediatrician yesterday. I asked her why it was that people need milk when they are newborn, but that milk contains lactose which is actually very tough for us to digest. She said that when we are babies we have a natural abundance of the enzyme needed to digest lactose and that we get even more of the enzyme while we nurse. Naturally all people eventually go lactose intolerant after being weened they stop producing the enzyme to digest lactose. However, since we Americans include milk and dairy products in our diets many people continue to make the enzyme their entire lives. In China, however they don't include dairy in their diets and over 90% of the adult population is lactose intolerant.

I asked what would be better in calcium than cheese (as that is the highest dairy form of calcium per oz). She said that most beans are high in calcium as well as green leafy plants. But, that honestly the best way to get Calcium is Calcium Carbonate (Tums is better than milk?).

I asked her why the food group "Dairy" isn't called "Calcium"? She said that honestly it was because it's about making it simple and that basically the things that have calcium in it, other than milk, aren't at McDonald's.

Sad, isn't it? The Dairy association has people fooled into believing they need Dairy when in all actuality they need Calcium. Milk by the glass is a horrible way to get calcium - cheese is over 6x higher in calcium, whereas Tums is even better for you.

1 fl oz of milk has about 39.5mg of calcium (1 glass has 315mg). 1oz of swiss and Gruyere cheeses have 281.7mg of calcium. 1oz of Brick, CHeddar, Colby, Edam, and Gouda have 201mg; Mozzarella is lower with 153mg, Forget about Cottage and cream cheese as they are even lower than a fl oz of milk at 31.3mg. Info pulled from here: http://www.manbir-online.com/htm2/osteo.4.htm Yes, it's true that comparing oz to fl-oz is not precise, but honestly I'd eat an oz of cheese faster than I'd drink a fl-oz of milk. But, then comparing a glass of milk to 1.5 thinly cut square pieces of cheese doesn't make any sense at all.)

Tums extra strength 750 - 2 tablets = 600mg of calcium. That is 60% of USRDA.

Wow, so we should get 1000mg of calcium a day? With milk that's 4 - 8oz glasses of milk, or three 0.7oz pieces of cheese - or 4 tums tablets.

Now, let's look at costs... A gallon of milk is basically $3.70 even though the fuel prices that "caused" it to climb have gone down to what it was when milk was $2.78/gal. (March 2004) - based on my bls.gov search. A gallon of milk is 128 fl oz which is 5 full calcium servings. Not too shabby at 74 cents per 1000mg of calcium.

Cheese (Swiss at wally world) is $2.49 for 8oz (about 12 slices) 3 2/3 oz is needed (according to the packet for 100% calcium). We'll go with the other website which says basically 3.54oz would be necessary for 1000mg. So, this bag of cheese gives 2.25 full calcium servings. Pretty poor at 90 cents per 1000mg of calcium.

Tums is $5.49 for 96 tablets (24 full calcium servings). The winner at 23 cents per 1000mg of calcium. Last container I bought was 140 tablets, was the smoothies extra strength which costs more than regular Tums, but still comes out to less than 23 cents per 4 tablets.

Not only that, but according to my doc the calcium in Tums is the easiest one to get in your system, so you get more of the calcium into your system and pass less through your digestive track than you do with dairy or other calcium sources.

Ron Paul on Homeschooling

2008-10-19T09:49:00.001-04:00

Ron Paul - one of the peeps in DC that is awake.

A quick look at Neo-Conservatives

2008-10-13T02:26:00.002-04:00

Here are a few videos that quickly and simply explain the difference between a Neo-Conservative (Republican) and a Conservative (Libertarian and Constitutionalist).

Enjoy!

Decisions decisions...

2008-10-11T02:15:00.004-04:00

I have to say it has not been easy deciding who to vote for this election. I have been on the fence about Bob Barr as I am a registered Libertarian, and I find his knowledge on Liberty to be strong and his talk easy to listen to, but he still ends up grating someone or something before the end of his talks. Barrb may be a good nickname for him. Alright, though, seriously - he didn't pull it off properly when he had the chance to unite with Ron Paul and help the message of Liberty grow to new heights.

I've also known about Chuck Baldwin and read the Constitution Party platform. I haven't had an opportunity to really hear the man speak until tonight, though. Simply put, he is a powerful speaker. Much more powerful than John McCain. He promise to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and that my friends is my biggest requirement to anyone I want to see in office. Someone that will actually do it after put into office.

Don't get me wrong, I like and respect Senator McCain, however I could never vote for someone that disregards their oath of office whenever politics makes it convenient or "necessary".

Obama's message is a one of, er hope? What? How is creating several hundred more government funded programs that we cannot afford a message of hope? Can anyone prove to me that he isn't just blustering out campaign promises while trying to ensure that the democratic head of the liberal party is in the white house? Certainly he's a good speaker. Granted he sounds like he believes in himself. But, he doesn't sound to me like he believes in anyone other than himself.

Chuck Baldwin Speech at JBS 50th Anniversary

Friday, 03 October 2008 17:06

The page I found this on, at jbs.org also had a good speech from Ron Paul. Check the link for more.

NRA votes for an evil

2008-10-11T01:17:00.004-04:00

Even though the NRA gave a perfect score to Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, they recently decided to just do what they always do in every presidential election - back the Republican. No matter how liberal or how bad a record that candidate has with gun control.

I sent them my .06 cents (that's 2 cents in 2008 versus 1913 dollars = $.0006)

Where is the back-bone of the NRA? I cannot believe this organization has backed John McCain. With Chuck Baldwin and the Libertarian Party to opt for, this organization has let down gun owners and patriots across our land.

I doubt I will ever become a dues paying member of the NRA, now. I'll keep hoping that this association wakes up next election cycle, but for now it appears to want to stay in business as usual.

Marc

Vote against the two party system if you want change!

2008-10-07T04:30:00.003-04:00

I wrote this in response to a political string myself and some friends and family are on:Exactly! ...Good sir! I am glad to see you are angry! I have been angry about the color of law that has ruled this nation since I discovered it layer by disgusting layer starting back while I served in the US Navy and really unraveling in 1996/7 when I read the book, "How to cook a Vulture" by Lynn Meredith. She wasn't the first to point out what a sham our Income Tax is or how government programs with great intentions actually hurt more people than they help. Government programs have a double edged sword as nothing good can come of using guns to enforce compassion, socialism, capitalism, or morality. As soon as something is given to the government it is the rule of force to ensure it happens. Many of us think governments role is to help us all by stepping in to help, but when a new law strips anyone of any right infringing freedom or creates a victim-less crime to ensure someone else gets something they aren't rightfully entitled to, it is a travesty.

It could be theft from the mass to ensure someone gets medical insurance. It looks good on paper! We can all afford to chip in a little bit of our income to ensure the poor can get medical insurance! Seriously, it's a noble idea and on the surface, good to do. So we created medicare. Then doctors who accepted medicare had extra paperwork added to them and new regulations they had to abide by so they had to hire more staff, which means they had to raise their rates - except for the medicare covered people as the government regulated how much the doc could get for a medicare patient. Medical care started to go up instead of down with each new regulation added by the government. Eventually it became no longer a luxury to own medical insurance, but a necessity. Then doctors had to get bigger staffs to keep up with all the insurance claims they had. Then record keeping became regulated and the doctors found they either needed more staff or they had to outsource their record keeping which added even more $$ to their operational costs.

That doesn't cover every issue created by the government entering into the medical regulation and insurance business, but it is a very high level view that any doctor will readily tell you is true. I've had this conversation with several of them - those of you that know me know how many doctors I've met over the past several years.

Don't even get me started on the property tax theft to fund "education"! In Leesburg county, VA in 2006 they spent $18,000 per student for "education"! Where does all that money go? The parents get the supplies and clothe the child. The teachers are lucky to take home $40K pretend that benefits double the salary to $80K and 4.5 students have just paid for the teacher - what does the money for the other 16+ students go to?! A private school runs between $3,000 and $6,000 a student and somehow they *make a profit* while the public school receiving $18k a student needs subsidizing?! Florida isn't much better. Brevard county spends $13K per student. Isn't that lovely? Oooops, I got started. Dernit!

The reality is, each time we start a good program it gets used in ways that it was never intended to be used and it is the force of law. Law = gun. Don't believe me? Ask restaurant owners in CA that refused to stop using trans fats in their deserts. CA legislators had passed a law prohibiting the use of trans fats, which to many people make foods taste better. The restaurants that refused to stop using them where fined. The restaurants that didn't pay their fines and/or continued to serve foods with trans fats had a visit from the police who then arrested the owner or manager and shut the restaurants down. If they resisted what did the police do? You got it, they pulled their guns. Think laws are nice little things to remind us not to do or ensure we do something and that if we disregard it we'll go home with a little wrist-slap?

Whereas states reserve the right to make silly laws like CA did on the trans fats, the federal government is bound by the Constitution Article 1, Section 8 limiting what it is allowed to make laws about. The tenth amendment, which has yet to be repealed, specifically says that all other powers not explicitly granted to the federal government remain in the hands of the people and the states, respectively. Of course, the only thing that can hold the government to those bounds are the people. The only peaceful tool we have is to ensure we vote in people that aren't going to wipe their butt with their oath the next day after they take office. What is the oath of the President of the United States?

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The Senate and the Congress take this oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Members of the military both enlisted and office also say the above bold portion in their oath. The only difference for them, truly is that they must first obey the orders of their superior officers and the President.

Now, if those people running our government had been doing what they swore to do, how did we get all these agencies, programs, and institutions that only the States had the power to create within their own jurisdictions?

Think Obama is going to let the Constitution get in the way of creating all the social programs he has on his list ? Or that he's really only going to stick it to our richest people in the US to pay the bill? Keep in mind that the richest people have little problem moving to another country if he really can convince the house to implement his several hundred new programs.

Believe that McCain will let the Constitution get in the way of maintaining an undeclared war in Iraq, voting away even more of our rights than happened under the Bush administration with nice packages like the patriot act (which he voted for), the bailout (which he voted for), or the previous bailout package that the houses voted on (which most all of us do not know about) back in July 24, 2008 granting the treasury to extend Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac an nearly unlimited lifeline with no conditions. HR 3221 It also created a new housing oversight agency - the Federal Housing Finance Agency. It was made into law by the President on July 30th. It even gave the Secretary of the Treasury temporary authority to purchase obligations. Neato! Of course, McCain didn't vote as he was out campaigning.

The only person that stood up as a candidate in the republican party this year and said that he believed in the Constitution was Ron Paul. Who was invited to the Republican convention? Joe Lieberman one of the most left leaning democrats in history. There is no longer a difference between the two parties. It used to be that the one difference left was that the republicans grew government slower than democrats, but during the time that the republicans held the houses, and the presidency the single largest growth of government *ever* occurred. They used 9/11 as the excuse and they grew government 40%.

The only way to send a message to Washington this year is to first, really discover what your political beliefs are - temporarily suspend what you think they have to be based on the party you used to belong to and think of it as "what restrictions I want on *myself* and my neighbors" - take the world's smallest political quiz.

Next research some of the third party platforms and see which one most closely fits you. Really read their platforms and investigate why they believe in it. You may find what seems completely bazaar at first glance to make complete sense when you think about it from a different direction for a bit.

Now for the most important step. Overcoming the nonsense about how the democrat or the republican is a bigger evil than the other and how you must vote for one of them to ensure your vote isn't wasted and the big bad evil one doesn't get in. The only wasted vote is a vote that is made in contrast to your principles. Simply put, if you vote for the lesser of two evils you are actually telling the lesser evil that you support his ideals and he smiles and is grateful to you and does exactly what you have told him you will permit.

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. " -- John Quincy Adams

The wasted vote concept is a product of the two party system fear-fully clinging to their strangle hold on the government.

Oh, yeah, and lastly - vote! Not voting doesn't send a message to anyone. Apathy is exactly what the two party system depends on. Sure they make a big pandering play to the "please register" nonsense during the campaign, but they really only want to register someone that will vote for their party.

The only way to begin change this election is to get the third parties to obtain a combined vote of over 15%, thus rattling the big two with fear of the people. First we have to get these third-parties to actually have ballot access every year without spending millions to get signatures to obtain the access. Signatures are not free - most people who do signature collections charge $2 a signature. In a state where 140,000 signatures are needed for ballot access....that's $280,000 just for the signatures, then there are legal fees to defend the signatures, file the signatures, and most third parties end up in court hoping to over-turn an election supervisor decision that uses an un-dotted i or non-crossed t argument to keep the candidate off the ballot. Meanwhile, in Texas, the republican and democrat parties got access on the ballot even though they didn't have their candidates or running-mates selected 70 days prior to the election which is a Texas state law. Nope - the parties are *above* the law.

For more of my ramblings about the recent economic nonsense scare (there is a problem with the economy, but it's not what wall street and the politicians have talked about so far) you are welcome to read my blog and comment away.

I hope to hear from more of you on this string.

Marc

Bailout goes through. America: the land of the afraid!

2008-10-04T01:29:00.007-04:00

Thank you! It is greatly appreciated that you voted no on the Bailout legislation once again. I am deeply troubled by the unwise course of action our federal government has taken as I believe this is just the tip of the bailout iceberg and that it will do nothing other than delay and increase the damage of the upcoming economic panic/ price correction. Please do everything in your power to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Thank you again for keeping in mind that taxpayer money is not trash for Congress to throw around as it pleases.

Respectfully,

Marc

(Sent to Senator Bill Nelson and Rep. Ric Keller. Kudos to them!)

Unfortunately I also had to send this one to Senator Mel Martinez:

It is greatly unappreciated that you voted yes on the Bailout legislation. I am deeply troubled by the unwise course of action our federal government has taken as I believe this is just the tip of the bailout iceberg and that it will do nothing other than delay and increase the damage of the upcoming economic panic/ price correction. I'd like you to reflect on your oath and from today onward do everything in your power to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. It's unclear to me that you don't view the taxpayer money as simply trash for Congress to throw around as it pleases.

It is unfortunate that you apparently fell prey to the fear mongering that surrounds this situation. Only one thing is certain when the government gets involved: the outcome will be worse than where we are at now. Since you chose to back this major theft of American freedom, I hope you are heavily involved in the task force to figure out the root cause of this mess and that you look deeply into the Federal Reserve, consider the incentives that the government gave to these banks to take on the highly risky debts and why it is now our place to pay back foreign banks for their own poor decisions.

This bill's foundation is based on not one data point, but rather it was based on the Treasury making up a very large number with not one fact to back up any of their fear-laden claims.

Only one last parting thought for you, sir. How could you give a bill your vote when it grants $192 million in tax savings to help with rum manufacturing in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands? Who can't make money selling alcohol? If the islands need the money then get rid of the excise tax and let them tax the exports themselves.

Respectfully,

Marc

A letter sent to the two senators of my state by a close friend

2008-10-03T04:23:00.003-04:00

I found his writing to be superb. He really got to the point!

I urge you to vote NO to any bill that bails out Wall St's irresponsible economics with Federal taxpayer's money. It is time that our politicians listen to the people of this nation and find a better means to resolving this problem. Our nation's great Constitution does not grant the right to congress to interfere with private irresponsibility via taxpayers dollars. Follow what your Oath of Office requires you to do; stand by our Constitution and defend it at all costs. Show the world that our form of government is indeed the best in the world, one that can stand the test of time and difficulty.

We are now faced with a decision; we can elect to continue to prop up a failed Federal Reserve system, or choose to change it. A bail out is a simple band-aid, a blank check. It will drastically work to devalue the US dollar and it will set the stage for other industries to expect federal bailouts. It is time to make a stand; stand up and tell Wall St. that enough is enough. The people rule this government, not the corrupt lobbyist, corporations and politicians. Return our monetary system to the people. --TJLaw

A note to my congressman

2008-10-03T04:20:00.007-04:00

I sent this just a few minutes ago to my congressman:

First I'd like to thank you for voting against the first draft of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. I hope you have not decided to join in with the pork process and that you will vote against this legislation as it comes back to you for another vote, now with a bill approaching $1 trillion for the taxpayers.

It is time we lived in a free world that requires us to be responsible. Voting this act in will promote more irresponsibility and devalue our dollar doing more damage than sitting back and watching the economy endure a price correction.

I think Thomas Jefferson had a simple answer to this issue: "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

Please take into consideration his wisdom and my words as you make your decision. Do not buy into the fear-mongering that wall street, the senate, and the white house have been selling.

Respectfully, Marc

830 Billion and growing!

2008-10-03T02:50:00.002-04:00

Where is the DOJ?

Bailout

YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS ONE

Now for the best speech I heard during the debates from Senator Coburn

Oklahoma is indeed okay! Too bad he decided he had to vote for the bill. "We don't know better, it's obvious! ...their only one place to come to hold accountability and it's in this body!"

I've read and thought in the back of my head that eventually the government would find a way to give full ownership of the land in the United States to the banks in Britain or a World Government. I figured they'd pull it off using taxes.. IRS back-owed taxes. Or perhaps through property taxes which keeps all but allodial title holders from ever truly doing more than renting their property from the state. There is always the slow but steady method of seizures - oh and of course the less obvious but just as useful death taxes.

But, now that the federal government is trying to authorize over 700 billion to cover "bad debt" it seems that they may very well use our own "tax dollars" (better read as increased debt) to buy the mortgages of millions of Americans and as the owners default the property will become the federal reserve's. Quick math (if we pretend the average home debt is 300k, which I would be willing to believe is a high estimate) shows that the federal government is giving the federal reserve enough money to buy up 2,333,333 and a third houses. Of course, no government program *ever* sticks to the estimated amount and I agree with Bob Barr that this will easily surpass a trillion dollars.

The bill itself has already surpassed 830 billion. 700 billion for the "rescue" and 130 billion for the pork the idiots, oh excuse me...that's Honorable idiots added to the bill so they could feel better about voting for it. Can't wait to see how much the Congress can run up that cost before they pass the bill on Friday or Monday.

Here is a sickening fact. Where did the white house get the $700 billion figure? Out of nothing. There is not one data point suggesting how much or how little money is needed. Not one data point. "It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number." - Forbes.com

WMD, anyone?

The bailouts are far from over - as a matter of fact, we just got into the tunnel. We have been bailing out industries for years. Transportation is a favorite of the House. There is also the auto industry that keeps asking for help. Guess what industry is *included* in the rescue bill: manufacturers of wooden arrows! My personal least favorite: $192 million for the rum producers of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands!!! Are you kidding me? Yep - the economy won't make it without subsidizing the most lucrative substance on earth - alcohol!

Certainly there will be plenty more industries getting in line for bailouts on the taxpayer's dime. The auto-industry is in line again and I can guarantee you that the States themselves will get in line demanding aid for their shrinking budgets.

Welcome to the United States of America, Land of the Afraid.

The only way to fix this is to let the economy do what it needs to do. Then prices will fall and houses, food, and gasoline will become more affordable. It won't be an easy time, as no depression ever is, but to extend our credit even further which directly decreases the value of the dollar is definitely not the answer. This bailout will cushion to blow to the rich, but will do nothing to help the poor. Prices will stay high and you can bet your bottom dollar our government will do everything it can to keep prices on necessities high and all the while say it is the economy that is keeping the poor from the items they need and that only more government programs can help. More government programs = more spending = lower dollar value.

To those who say voting for a third party/independent is a wasted vote

2008-09-21T12:49:00.008-04:00

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. " -- John Quincy Adams

But, then, what did the founding fathers of this country know? They were too busy establishing a free country. reading, and putting their beliefs and fortunes to use. What are our current leaders doing? Think about that one for a while.

I'll vote my heart and rest easy knowing I voted for what I know is right for our country.

In this election it is too important not to vote for OBama the socialist whose only answer for every concern is more government programs with no idea how he is going to get the funding to pay for it all or McCain who is the most left leaning republican presidential candidate in history who has no concern for a republican government. Obama or McSame. Feel free to think that there is a difference, but mark my words when I say there is nearly none. They will both get this country to the same destination, just one slower than the other.

If everyone in this country voted what they truly believed then we wouldn't have a two party system, there wouldn't be the phrase; "lesser of two evils;" and we wouldn't have apathy during elections.

Of course, of more relevance, if the federal government was bound by the chains of the Constitution the election of President would be pretty unimportant anyway... The election of Governor and Mayor would be what you cared about.

Marc

Rising Gas, Falling Dollar, or Big Government FAILURE?

2008-09-21T05:50:00.009-04:00

This is a write-up I shared with some friends recently. I figured I'd share some more of my political observations on my blog. Cheers!

The rising price of gas has not been caused by demand for fuels - it has happened because of the decline of the dollar. The dollar is declining because the Federal Reserve keeps the interest rate low and prints more money. More money in circulation = less value for the money. The Federal reserve is a private organization that is owned by banks all over the world. Our money isn't backed by gold or silver as is required by the Constitution.   Ever since the Federal Reserve took over control of our dollar it's buying power has steadily declined, inflation has been positive all but two years since 1948. http://www.miseryindex.us/irbyyear.asp)   Before it was created Inflation was cyclical and it went up and down sometimes as much as 17%, but it corrected as the supply of gold was stablized. It is why you don't see those cute "how much things used to cost" items in stores going back before the creation of the Federal reserve, because you could reach back another hundred years and find a time when a loaf of bread cost the same as it did in the early 1900's. You can't today because the price of bread has steadily risen since then. If you look at the price of fuel versus the value of gold you'll see that fuel cost hasn't risen, the value of the dollar has dropped. Only Ron Paul addressed inflation as a platform issue.

Both Libertarians and Constitutionalists want to get rid of the Income Tax, and return our Federal government to using only excise and luxury taxes to run the military. If we just worried about that portion of the government we could do it with the current excise and luxury taxes. When you think about it the Income Tax pays only for all the unconstitutional aspects of our government....but what did those founding father types know?

Following my little rough outline of the true reason for "rising" gas prices as of late, I found this interesting chart which puts positive inflation into perspective so that it is easier to see what you could buy for $1 in 1913 has cost since. Notice how at no time the Federal Reserve has been able to make our paper dollar worth more than it's beginning value. In other words, the Federal Reserve has *never* created enough negative inflation to do what it was supposed to do...ensure stable prices and prevent banking panics.

chart is from - http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001519.html

Year Amount it took to
equal $1 in 1913
1913 $1.00
1920 2.02
1925 1.77
1930 1.69
1935 1.38
1940 1.41
1945 $1.82
1950 2.43
1955 2.71
1960 2.99
1965 3.18
1970 3.92
1975 $5.43
1980 8.32
1985 10.87
1990 13.20
1995 15.39
2000 17.39
2001 $17.89
2002 18.17
2003 18.59
2004 19.08
2005 19.73
2006 20.18
2007 20.94
2008 21.57
Not what I'd call a "success". The dollar in 2008 is worth 4.6 cents in 1913. Pitiful. But, then honestly taking what belongs with the people under a free market and giving it to be controlled by the richest banks in the world was probably a bad idea...
The one topic I didn't touch in the earlier chat was the fact that our failing dollar will be used to convince the United States of America to combine our economies with Canada and Mexico for stability and security. It is only a small part of the plan for the New World Order where eventually our Federal Government won't be the problem, but rather the World Government will be.
One of the biggest pieces of legislation to pass during Bush's presidency was HR 418, the REAL ID Act. This piece of legislation that several states including Deleware and Alaska have passed legislation to declare it illegal in their states, would create a national ID database for Americans that would be shared with Mexico and Canada. Mexico and Canada could also put their citizens into the database - thus creating the first step to having a North American Country. But that wasn't the worst thing about this legislation, which passed both the house (HR 418)  and the Senate (HR 1268 - HR 418 was attached as a rider).
Here is a simple synopsis of it from civilrights.org:
Touted by its sponsors as an anti-terrorism measure, the "REAL ID Act": (1) institutes broad new federal requirements for drivers' licenses, including a requirement that motor vehicle agencies investigate and verify each piece of ID that an applicant shows as proof of identity; (2) for noncitizens, requires drivers' licenses to expire on the same date as an applicant's visa; (3) authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive "all laws" that might impede the construction of roads and barriers at U.S. borders; and (4) introduces new rules of evidence in asylum cases that will make it more difficult to prove legitimate claims. It also changes the process for appealing some deportation orders in federal court.
The drivers' license provisions are extremely burdensome and expensive, for citizens and noncitizens alike, and will do little to reduce the threat of terrorism. Rather than preventing terrorists from boarding planes as they did on September 11, the requirements will increase discrimination and will simply lead to more unlicensed drivers on the roads. The waiver of "all laws" is an extremely disturbing and unprecedented assault on our most basic constitutional principles. Under it, the Secretary can ignore not only environmental protections, as previous law allowed in limited circumstances, but also any civil rights laws, immigration laws, labor laws or even criminal laws that he unilaterally believes pose a burden. The asylum provisions will prevent many legitimate refugees from obtaining safe haven in the United States, while doing little to prevent terrorism, as terrorists are already barred from asylum or any other immigration benefit.
In one piece of cruddy legislation the house and senate trampled on the Constitution, including the following Ammendments 4, 5, 6, 10, and 11. McCain voted for it. The bill that it was attached to in the Senate included $1.845 billion in foreign aid. Believe McCain when he says he doesn't support legislation that squanders our money or that is filled with pork? Wish I could believe him. Here is the quick synopsis of that bill.
Bill's need to be fxed such that they are one law, one issue. That bill is just another example of completely unrelated topics going through as one law. It's ridiculous.  Only the Constitution Party has this as a part of it's party platform.
Here is McCain's full voting record.
Since 2000, I have not and will no longer vote for the lesser of two evils. I had an open mind this year and listened to McCain, hoping he would listen to Ron Paul and possibly start a new era for the Republicans. However, as time goes on it is obvious he won't and isn't much different than Obama.
My candidates may not win, but I will sleep better knowing I didn't vote for either of the two that will only continue to take our beloved country on the path to ruin. One is a bit slower than the other....but the result is the same.

Here is a quick debunk of the wasted vote theory:
The Wasted Vote.
I believe in what the Party stands for but you're never going to win so isn't voting for you a wasted vote?
When you vote, you're not voting for who you think is GOING to win, you vote for who best represents your beliefs. A wasted vote is voting for someone who says one thing and does another. If you want a smaller government and lower taxes, you certainly won't get either by voting Democrat or Republican.

Secondly, ballot access requirements are designed to keep third parties out of politics. Voting can help third parties' ballot access in future elections. In any given race, if Libertarians get a minimum of 5% of the vote, we are allowed ballot access for the next election. Otherwise, without ensured ballot access, Libertarians are subject to strict ballot access requirements that suck up our time, money, and energies.

Lastly, the swing vote forces the dominant parties to listen to, and conform to, our beliefs. It's a way of voicing your opinion that you're entirely fed up with both Democrats and Republicans.
It goes the same for voting any of the third parties, Constitution, Libertarian, Green, etc... vote your heart and for principles! Also, if neither can secure a 5-15% vote they will have to spend millions to get on the ballots again next election cycle. It's more important to ensure a party you believe in can get access to the ballot than to prevent yet another inept maroon from the Republican or Democratic party to get into office for another 4 years.    Don't forget that many of Hilary's staunch supporters have decided they will vote for McCain because, even though they are democrats, they don't want to see Obama in office at all. That is part of why McCain has seen increases in the polls lately. The real powers in Washington will continue to keep things as they have been going for the last 150 years (downhill) regardless of whether Obama or McCain become president and they will only begin to worry if they see that American's vote freedom and limited government over the status quo.

Year	Amount it took to equal $1 in 1913
1913	$1.00
1920	2.02
1925	1.77
1930	1.69
1935	1.38
1940	1.41
1945	$1.82
1950	2.43
1955	2.71
1960	2.99
1965	3.18
1970	3.92
1975	$5.43
1980	8.32
1985	10.87
1990	13.20
1995	15.39
2000	17.39
2001	$17.89
2002	18.17
2003	18.59
2004	19.08
2005	19.73
2006	20.18
2007	20.94
2008	21.57

Republican Jokes aren't Republican anymore

2008-09-21T05:37:00.004-04:00

A loved family member of mine sent me this joke recently: (in defense this person is not a republicat, either!)

Why My Liberal Friends Don't Like Me I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl the other day. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied, 'I want to be President!' Both of her parents are liberal Democrats and were standing there. So then I asked her, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?' She replied, 'I'd give houses to all the homeless people.' 'Wow - what a worthy goal.' I told her, 'You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where this homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house.' Since she is only 6, she thought that over for a few seconds. While her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, 'Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?' And I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.' Her folks still aren't talking to me.

Then I replied with the following:

Aye, reminds me of another one of those. There was a rich republican whose daughter had been going to a prominent university for the last four years. The father and daughter normally couldn't talk politics as the daughter had bought into the liberal propaganda her professors and teachers had sold her over the years. One evening the daughter was over for a visit and the Dad asked her how things were going at school. She said she was doing great, and was running with a 4.0 gpa. All the nights of studying were really paying off. Her Dad asked her about her best friend that was also attending the university. She told her Dad that it wasn't going very well for her. Her friend had been out partying and visiting with friends, goof-ing off and would only cram last moment for her finals. Her friend had a 2.0 GPA, but it was her own fault. The Dad suggested to his daughter that she go to the dean and work out a deal to give her friend a point off her own GPA, then they'd both have a 3.0 GPA to help her friend out. His daughter responded haughtily that it was a terrible idea. She had earned her grade and it would be wrong to give her friend something that she had sacrificed to obtain out of goodwill. Her father smiled and nodded at her as he said, "Welcome to the Republican Party." The only problem with either of these two jokes is that The Republican Party is just as happy to take our money at gunpoint and spend it via the federal budget as the Democratic Party is. There was a time when the Republican Party may have stood for letting people keep what they worked for, but that time isn't now. Today's Republican Party is centrist, it is no longer conservative. To go conservative you have to opt for either the Constitution or Libertarian Party. Those two parties are the only ones that will return this country's federal government back to it's Constitutional limits and return the money it is stealing from us for all the un-Constitutional, illegal, socialist and special-interest projects it has seen fit to create since Thomas Jefferson left office. The punch line should read - "Welcome to the Constitution/Libertarian Parties."

....and I'm not kidding... there are no Constitutional Conservatives left in the Republican party, except for the registered voters. :(

Bah! FInancial Bail-outs? What did the founding fathers know?

2008-09-21T05:10:00.010-04:00

Bailouts? Why? There is no reason to bailout the entities that supported ripping off people by selling them loans they couldn't afford just a few years after they took them on.

The republic of the United States of America is in desperation and it needs to be returned to the Constitution. The regulatory laws have taken the worlds greatest nation and brought it to its knees in nearly a century.

But....then, what did the founding fathers know? They couldn't possibly fathom the issues of our current world, could they?

Let's see what some of them had to say!

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802) -

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

--Thomas Jefferson

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

--THOMAS JEFFERSON, Notes on Virginia

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

--Thomas Jefferson

"How soon we forget history... Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. "

-- George Washington

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

--George Washington

"It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world. "

--George Washington

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it. "

--George Washington

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

--Benjamin Franklin

But, then what did they know? Our Republic which is currently in a period of experimental regulatory law with the Federal government as supreme ruler of the sovereign states is doing just fine and very few of the bits of wisdom from those idiots that wanted to be free are followed anymore!

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 has brought us nothing but reduced inflation and a dollar that can buy more than ever before, right? Oh...wait....no! Today's dollar can barely buy 4 cents of what the 1913 dollar could buy! Inflation, before that unconstitutional and foreign controlled entity existed was cyclical, meaning that some years inflation was positive and some years it was negative, but the dollar didn't decline exponentially every year as yet an additional positive percent of decline was applied.

Granted the poor little banks that let down their investors by abusing people with loans they couldn't afford didn't get their just because of the Federal Reserve...they acted as willing accomplices taunting the poorer American with the chance to own a dream house for a fraction of the *monthly* cost of a true fixed rate mortgage. In turn home sellers could afford to get more money for the houses they sold and prices for homes began to sky rocket. If you listen to the real estate brokers they would tell you it was just an appropriate appreciation for housing as they slyly raised their cut of the take upwards of 8% plus some completely unnecessary fees. Local and State governments got excited about their property taxes and suddenly saw unprecedented income for themselves which they instantly found ways to spend and borrow against! What a dream! All this heavenly fortune backed by a completely worthless note called the dollar! Awesome! How could anyone see that their would be an issue?

I, myself, fell victim to this ridiculous debt economy and pulled the plug on home-ownership in VA realizing a $90K loss in one year. (2006-2007) I even got to see our benevolent government helping me out on my 2007 taxes.... yes sir! You have to claim a gain on a house you sell, but no you may not claim a loss on that same house! Strange how it is a capital gain, but cannot be claimed as a capital loss.

Now, here we watch the Federal Reserve bailout corporations that have hugely deep pockets and tell us we'd fail as a nation if we didn't! Your government is here for you! To hell with you people who've lost all you put into your housing for the last 10-30 years, we need to help the billionaires!

Those mega corporations deserve to eat the risks they so eagerly took on. We are doing two things as a country by offering these bailouts which will easily go beyond a couple trillion dollars. 1) Rewarding shady practices which were intentionally designed to play on the desires of the people to copy our government and buy more than they can afford. 2) Devaluing the dollar even further.

Look out Amero, here we come! With the US Dollar poised on emanate failure now is the best time ever for Canada, US, and Mexico to finally enter the dream of one world government by combining our economies. We'll be convinced by our leaders that it is our only hope to give up on the worthless dollar and pickup a new un-backed and just as worthless currency that spans three nations. Are we really going to be that stupid? Can't we see that our Constitution had us use Gold and Silver for a reason? That only Congress itself was allowed to specify the value of the dollar?

Naw! Forget the Constitution, it's too lame to apply to today's world, right? I took an oath years ago to the contrary, so did John McCain, so did Barack Obama and so did every other member of Houses, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. Who among them can stand up and say they defend the Constitution of the United States? Who among them can say they will protect her from enemies both foreign and domestic? Not McCain nor Obama! They have voted in legislation that is directly unconstitutional. They think we live in a democracy and our media reinforces that opinion. I know I served a Republic. A republic uses the rule of law to protect the Liberty of All while a democracy protects no one as rights become priveledges and can be voted away.

It's disturbing to see that the President of the United States and the Houses believe another stimulus shot in the economy complete with more bailouts for all will help us. Didn't they notice that the last "stimulus" had the exact opposite effect? We are headed for a major depression and putting it off by printing money we don't have or borrowing money that isn't added to the debt will only delay that depression and make it much harder to recover from? The most unfortunate reality is that without the over-regulation that our government has placed on this country the depression would be much less painful or even been avoided.

According to the White House our Federal Government will take in approximately $2.5 trillion dollars in income and spend $2.9 trillion in 2008. Meanwhile they are authorizing an $11 trillion deficit. That gives the Federal Government a beautiful Debt to Income ratio of 2,500 billion / 527 billion (interest only based on new 11 trillion amount) = 21%. Sadly, though if you look closely you'll notice that our income equals our out-go with the interest just being rolled into debt. What's truly laughable is that our country's leaders are banking that in the coming years they'll make more income and eventually be able to overcome the deficit spending. I say it's laughable because as the economy falters they cannot realistically believe that next year they'll have bigger revenues than last year. By then, of course, we'll either have a democrat who will raise the burden of taxes on everyone to once again "balance" the budget or we'll go with more deficit spending on the ridiculous notion the economy will regain an upward climb and begin to cover the outlandish spending.

Wouldn't it make more sense for the federal government to prioritize and begin cutting huge but unnecessary programs from the budget? Oh, I dunno...how about all the unconstitutional ones? Then perhaps we could get the government back to doing what the states gave it the power to do, see the Constitution of the United States, Sections 8 and 9.... Oh, dear! Apparently in section 9 it specifically says that no money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. How did Fannie Mae and all the others from late last week and early this week get bailed out? I don't recall the Congress voting on it.

I refuse to ever again vote the lesser of two evils. I will only vote for candidates that support the Constitution and hold Liberty and smaller government as core principles. The only two parties I know of that support those ideals currently are the Libertarian and Constitution Parties. Don't waste your breathe trying to convince me that I need to vote the lesser of two evils as"this is an important election" or "the situation could never be more dire! We need you this year!" You aren't wrong, you just don't realize that voting for either of the two major parties is a vote for the current situation we are in and will result in no changes, no increases in Liberty, no reduction in government spending, no return to a Republic, and no hope for our future. This is an important election, it is the election where a third party will finally make permanent ballot access by obtaining 15% of the vote. The republicans had their chance to make smaller government and instead they created the single largest growth of government in US history. The democrats had the power to implement change in the last four years and all they did was pass a censor. Neither party can function in a way that will help our beloved country out of the mess it is currently in. Let's get the better third parties out of the ditches of having to buy ballot access every year and get them on the playing field where they belong so they can help undo what our lost brothers in the Demorepublicats have done and this country can once again rise to the prosperity it has enjoyed while being a beacon of Liberty to the world through friendship to all other countries of Liberty and alliances with none.

Join me in not voting for Obama or McSame! -- vote for someone else on your ballot that may share your views and send a real message to the inside of the beltway.

/salute

Marc

Hang on while I get the mice working in the server!

2006-07-13T14:16:00.001-04:00

Isn't it amazing that in this day and age of "Web 2.0" there are still companies out there that work on their own little time line that is convenient for them?

First, I'll give a rough definition of "Web 2.0". It is providing users with a product that they can incorporate into something of their own. Myspace.com, Utube.com, Google Maps, AIM Pages and the like are the babies of this concept. With an API provided by Google you can take a Google map put it into your own site and put all kinds of information in it. Chicagocrime.org is one example. The bottom line is providing a solution that people can use and reshare in an immediate way. Almost back to one of the original hopes people had for the Internet - to be closer to other people through sharing.

Now on to the reason for this entry, an example of a company that doesn't "get it" when it comes to providing a good customer experience on the Internet. I don't mean to single them out as if this was the worst thing imaginable, because believe me it is not. It just happens to be the latest encounter I've had with a company that makes you wonder why they cannot see the bigger picture. Hey, at least they *are* online! I recently booked a room with Marriott in New York. During that process I neglected to uncheck one of the e-mail subscription offerings. Kudos to their marketing team! As always you guys and gals do your best to ensure that by default people get hassled with offers as a reward for doing business with your company! Upon discovering this mistake (after receiving three ads from them in a week) I clicked the unsubscribe link and unchecked the offering and pressed submit. Low and behold, their marketing team also worked out a deal with their web, database, and technology teams to ensure it takes 10 days to remove a person from their list. Needless to say I have received several more e-mails since "canceling".

Today I took the liberty of utilizing Marriott's feedback and here is what I sent them. I hope they enjoy it!

It would be appreciated if improvements could be made to your e-mail distribution list database such that it does not take 10 days to process a transaction that takes most companies .03 seconds to complete on their address database.
It is my perception that it is an irresponsible management decision or an improperly fueled marketing drive that permitted the current environment for Marriott's on-line presence to take days instead of minutes to notate a person's lack of desire to continue receiving such advertisements. Marriott's oversight requires me to deny electronic correspondence from the marriott.delivery.net domain. When this policy has changed to align Marriott's online presence with acceptable practices in this "instant age", I will applaud your efforts.
To the person who reads this correspondence from me, I appreciate your diligence in relaying this perception to management through whatever channels they may or may not provide you, hope that this message found you well, and wish you an outstanding day. At the very least I hope you have a chuckle and something to share with a colleauge during a break.
Best wishes, Marc

Note my final paragraph to them. Remember folks, that the person receiving your complaint or compliment is not the multi-millionaire that runs the company and insists on the ridiculous policies. Nay, instead, they are just a person who is just as perplexed about the concept of "corporate logic" as the rest of us and they deserve to be treated nicely. Also, keep in mind that 99% of the time that consultant you interact with is just doing exactly what they have been told to do by their manager. They may interpret what they were told a bit differently than the next consultant, but chances are they are doing just that...what they were asked to do. Yelling at them or wishing they would be fired is not going to solve the bigger issue you have with that company.

Not that I can think of an instance in recent memory involving a big company over a typical member trying to cancel their subscription or anything like that. Yeah, right! Yes, the consultant stretched their duty a bit there, but they used tools and techniques given to them by the company they worked for. If you were told to keep half the people calling you to cancel or lose your job what would you do? Of course, in the usual scape goat flare that entities exercise when caught with their hand in the cookie jar they fired the little guy. Wonder what if anything happened to the manager that was truly responsible for that consultants actions. What about the manager over that manager or the call center's general manager. Likely nothing. They have a job to do, a goal to keep, and lot's more people to train to replace all the people burned out from the job.

If you ever do get the CEO of that company you are angry with on the line give them a piece of your mind! Chances are you'll be talking to a dial-tone in a matter of seconds. The top brass of a company isn't concerned with individual customer experience, they have to hit the sweet spot for the majority and keep them engaged with the products they produce to keep the bottom line healthy. Of course, when they fail to do so they'll just jump ship with their golden parachute and contemplate where they will share their "wisdom" next.

Ah, well enough on corporate dissapointment today.

Marc

A fun Day!

2006-01-23T00:12:00.002-05:00

Today was a very fun day. I took the kiddos to Maryland's Sugarloaf mountain.

On the way there we had to cross the Potomac without a bridge. It was our first time to take our car on a ferry. We crossed from Virginia to Maryland at White's Ferry Crossing. Perrissa was very excited. She chattered and talked about everything the ferry was doing as it went across (we had just missed it) and came back to pick us up. Pearce was quiet but smiling and absorbing every detail. I had the kids unbuckle their seatbelts so that wouldn't be necessary in case there was any need to get out of the car.

We then went on up to Sugarloaf mountain. Pearce was certain we had passed under Thomas' the Train's bridge. We had gone under a C&O railroad bridge. C&O was the first railroad of any length ever built in the US, or so we found out. Sugarloaf mountain was a very interesting site. It isn't anything to compare to the Sandia Mountains of Albuquerque, but it did provide for some nice views and good hiking. The mountain is 1280 or so feet high at it's peak giving it a rise of about 800ft above the surrounding terrain. It was cool in the early afternoon, but the kiddos braved climbing up the green path to the peak. Took us about 30 minutes to get there from the west parking lot. Then we walked down the red path and turned left on the blue path to go back to the parking lot. Monkee and Poppa were waiting for us there. It was a good bit of exercise. The mountain stands out all by itself, unlike most mountains. It was fought over during the Civil War for use as a signal station. For more info on the mountain, check it out here... I can see the "hill" from my office window and I thought it would be fun for the kids and I to go there. I was right.

Next we headed to DC at Perrissa's request. We got there and I looked for The Brickskeller. When we finally walked into it at 4:15pm we discovered it didn't open until 6pm. Just enough time to visit Thomas Jefferson's Memorial. Perrissa bought a book while we were there that she can use in her home schooling. Then we headed back to The Brickskeller and enjoyed a very empty pub. Pete and I enjoyed some of the over 1200 beers that are available here. They included: Belhaven Scottish Ale from Scotland, MacTarnahan's Highlander Pale Ale from the US, and MaDonna WhiteBeer from Romania. Each were very good in their own right.

Ah, two day weekends are too short. Time to hit the rack and get some rest.

OS Configuration - isn't it grand?

2006-01-12T16:26:00.001-05:00

What I did today. Oh, the fun!

At work, got a new PC, configured it, and installed all these fun applications:
Some misc Windows Updates
and then....
1. Acrobat Reader with Yahoo Toolbar (so I could find my blog space again!) I love the Yahoo toolbar as it let's you keep all your bookmarks/favorites on their servers so you can reach them anywhere!

2. Got sick of the default Windows folders settings, so I set them up the way I like them...

3. Turned off the "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts" in Advanced settings on IE. I like having multiple IE settings open for browsing and I can not stand having the site I am currently browsing replaced by something else launch using Start->Run or launching a link from my filesystem. Yeah, yeah, I use Ie. So sue me. The majority of sites out there are written to adhere to it and even though many claim it looks better on the other free browsers out there I have yet to see the truth in that.

4.
5. Google Mail Alert
6. Windows Updates - upgraded to Media Player 10 and grabbed SP2 for XP.
7. NVidia updated display drivers with Multi-Display Technology (helps keep the apps going where you want them instead of always to monitor #1.
8. Remedy (oh, the joy of tickets!)
9. Microsoft antiSpyware Beta (if you don't have it you need to go get it!)
...and then....
I remember that I want to see an option in Windows someday that you set in the O/S that will cause all installers to just run quietly and install to their default locations. I am so sick of clicking Next->Next->Next->Next. Yeah, sure, I spent years trying to keep the files installing where I wanted them to, but I gave up because, who honestly cares?! Nearly all of them update O/S files and install junk in several other locations other than where you tell them to install. The DOS & Unix days are over, give up...move on. DLLs are here to stay. (I really hope that turns out to be untrue).
...and then....
with my rant over I set the Anti-Spyware beta to play nice. Most important, there is no need to scan your PC *every* morning at 2am, set that to once a week. One of my favorite tricks with this software is that you can stop pesky startup applications from running, like the Realplayer Nice to know that my local IT staff left a default windows password and didn't block anonymous access on my workstation. Gotta love this tool!
...and then...
10. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearType/tuner/Step1.aspx and set the clear type to my preferences. Not just enough to have it on, it has to be tuned!
11....

[Still setting it up so this will change as I go. It's stuff to publish a good list for me so I don't have to spend the rest of my life guessing what I did last time to completely overload my new PC and make it run just as slow as all it's predecessors. ;0) ]