Buckhorn Road

Republican dogs once again spit out the Romney pill

2012-02-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

I have always found Democrat strategist and former Clinton crony James Carville to be a repugnant human being. I do have to give him kudos for the best description yet uttered about how conservative Republicans feel about perennial presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Carville had to this to say after Romney barely won (and has since lost) the Iowa Caucuses while receiving fewer votes in 2012 than in 2008:

I think there’s one screaming huge story here tonight, and that is these Republicans just don’t want to vote for Mitt Romney. I mean, it’s like you’re trying to give a dog a pill that keeps spitting it out.

After Romney won the primaries in New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada (and for awhile looked like he won in Iowa), so many Rockefeller Republican cheerleaders were ready to hand Romney the nomination already (or fellate him; it's hard to tell).

The primary and caucus elections last night in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado, where Rick Santorum swept those elections, have certainly shown that Romney is not the lock that his sycophants in the GOP and in the media want you to think.

To that, I say Thank God!

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum ended up winning in Iowa over Romney, and has now added Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado to his swagger stick. Do I support Santorum for the nomination? No. Would I choose him over Romney? In a heartbeat. Would I vote for Santorum over Obama in the general election? Yes. Would I vote for Romney over Obama in the general election? No. Would I vote for Obama instead? Hell no.

Confused yet?

I know I am but one lowly blogger, but I am also a voter. Here is my official endorsement:

Of the Republican candidates still in the hunt, my preferences from first to worst are as follows:

Ron Paul

Rick Santorum

Newt Gingrich

Mitt Romney

The line I hear from many of my Republican friends is that they agree with Ron Paul on economic issues but they disagree with him on foreign policy. At issue is the question of what exactly our foreign policy is supposed to be. Our country's current foreign policy has strayed from our traditional foreign policy so far and for so long, that many have forgotten, or don't know, that the policy has been anything but what we have now and have had since the 1890s (with a slight timeout from 1920 to 1940). Ron Paul's belief is that we can no longer afford the expense and ill-will that we often cause from sending our troops all over the world to fight. As such, he is often accused of blaming the United States when we are attacked, such as on September 11, 2001.

What I have never heard addressed is that if our foreign interventions elsewhere had nothing to do with 9/11 and we would have been attacked that day regardless, then why not dispense with our foreign interventions and still deal with attacks like 9/11 when they happen, rather than wasting blood and treasure on foreign interventions that do not concern the security of the United States? That is Ron Paul's position. The more dishonest types out there have tried to paint Representative Paul as some pacifist peacenik who would never fight any war at all. That simply is not true. Paul simply adheres to the constitutional requirements of our foreign policy such as a declaration of war from Congress before our military is sent out to fight. When was our last officially declared war? World War II. How many U.S. troops have we lost in undeclared wars since the end of World War II? About 120,000. Paul believes in the constitutional role of our military, which is to defend our country from invasion, and protect American interests abroad, such as when Thomas Jefferson asked Congress for permission to send the U.S. Navy to the Mediterranean to protect American shipping from the Barbary Pirates. Notice though that when our Navy was sent to the Med, it was to protect the interests of the United States. When Clinton sent U.S. troops to the former Yugoslavia (I served 6 months with the United Nations in Macedonia) what exactly was our interest there? And why exactly are we still in Afghanistan, and have been since 2001? We removed the Taliban from power and defeated al-Qaeda in the caves of Tora Bora in early 2002. Why have we been there ever since? What exactly did we accomplish in Iraq? We got rid of Saddam? There are murderous strongmen all over the world. Why are they still in power?

Just like government programs never go away, even after they have outlived their usefulness, our wars seem to follow the same pattern. After all, we still have troops stationed in Germany and South Korea, and probably would still have them on the border of South Vietnam had we not folded up our tent and let the North Vietnamese take it over.

Do I agree with every one of Ron Paul's views? No. I think he underestimates the resolve of hardcore Islamists in the middle east with their desire to spread Sharia law throughout the world, but he does not underestimate the responsibility of the President to protect our shores from that kind of encroachment. And to tell you the truth, I am more worried about the loss of my liberties from my own government in its response to possible Islamic terrorism, than from Islamic terrorism itself. As talk of expanding TSA authority to our roads and railroads marches on, and my inability to carry a concealed or unconcealed weapon continues in my beloved state, I have a lot more immediate concerns here at home.

If you disagree with me on my views on Ron Paul, that is fine. However a debate we cannot have if Mitt Romney is preordained as the Republican nominee even before the state primaries have gotten into full swing.

Ultimately, if Mitt Romney ends up as the Republican nominee, I will vote for neither him nor Obama. I will vote for Ron Paul. If Santorum continues to surge and ends up with the nomination, I will think it over. Not that it matters anyway; the chances of Obama losing California's popular vote and 55 electoral votes are slim to none, no matter which Republican's name I mark. If you actually read up on Romney's positions, you will ultimately not see much of a difference between his and Obama's anyway. Whether we are talking health care, minimum wage, or taxes, do you honestly think we would see much of a change? Ask yourself: Do you think a President Romney would roll back the mess that Obama has created? He might stop (or more likely merely slow) the forward progress, but roll it back? Sheee-yeah, right. The same goes for Gingrich and Santorum. They will merely slow down the inevitable. Only Ron Paul talks about truly cutting the size of government, and abiding by the original intent of the Constitution. Based on his 40-year voting record, you know that he means it.

I endorse that.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Fun with Guns

2012-02-04T21:37:00.001-08:00

My son and I spent today with a friend and his son at my friend's 2000+ acre family ranch located in the Sierra foothills between Sacramento and Stockton. We caught lots of bass at one of the many ponds located on the ranch, ate lunch, then shot guns; lots of guns. I don't often get the chance to find a place to really stretch the legs on my SKS, but today was one of those opportunities. Watch:

By the way, my aimed shots were fired at some huge floating grapefruit that we tossed in the water, and for the record, that pond is not the same one in which we fished!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Just another day at the asylum...

2012-02-01T10:33:00.001-08:00

I thought you all would find enlightenment from this email I sent to the administration. All names have been changed or deleted to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent. Be warned that bad language follows... none of it uttered by me:

Good Afternoon,

During the passing period before the start of 8th period, I heard a commotion right outside my classroom that sounded like a fight brewing.

I got out in the hallway just in time to see the potential fight beginning to subside, but the two girls who were having words were still facing off at each other. I identified one student as *****, who I have as a student during 3rd period. I did not know the other female student with whom ***** was facing off. As soon as I got between the two students, ***** turned around and walked away without a word, but the other student continued to taunt *****, saying over and over again something to the effect of, “That’s right, Bitch,” or “You better walk away, Bitch.”

Due to her profanity and her efforts to make a fight still happen, I walked up to this student, showed her my ID tag, and told her to come with me. The student refused and began walking away from me. I followed her down the hallway and again identified myself as a staff member at this school and then asked her to identify herself, as I didn’t know who she was. The student refused to give me her name. I repeatedly instructed the student to not walk away from me and to tell me her name. The student repeatedly refused. In all, I asked the student at least 15 times to tell me her name, and she refused. The only things she said in response to my request was, “Get away from me,” and “I ain’t tellin’ you my fuckin’ name.” By this time, the student was walking down the outside stairwell on west end of the building. I couldn’t follow her, as my classroom door was open and my 8th period students had already begun to enter. As the student continued to walk down the stairs away from me, I informed her that her refusal to identify herself to a staff member at this school could get her suspended, and her response was to tell me, “I don’t care; fuckin’ suspend me then!”

As I entered back into the west side of the third floor, I met up with Mr. *****. I asked him if he knew this student, but he said he hadn’t caught a glimpse of her. At that point, he ran down the west end stairwell in an attempt to catch up with her. On my way back to my classroom, one of my students told me that the student with whom I had been dealing was named “*****nique.”

This was later confirmed by many other of my 8th period students, and then Mr. ***** himself, who confirmed that the student’s full name is *****nique ********.

*****nique’s repeated refusal to identify herself to me (in spite of the fact that I repeatedly identified myself as a staff member at this school), and her use of profanity directed toward me and the other student with whom she almost fought is absolutely unacceptable, and per CA Education Code Section 48900(k), I request an appropriate punishment be administered to *****nique *******; namely an out-of-school suspension.

Regards,

W.R. Chandler
Social Studies Teacher
Nameless Middle School

When I describe hostile encounters with students like this one, my standard rhetorical question is to ask what would have happened to this student in, say, 1959, if she had exhibited the same behavior that she did to me yesterday? It's called EXPULSION! No ifs, ands, or buts. In today's topsy-turvy, largely responsibility-free world, I will be astonished if this student actually gets even one day of the out-of-school suspension that I requested she receive.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Spotted...

2012-01-25T15:19:00.000-08:00

In the past day, I have spotted on I-80 two bumper stickers featuring our current President while I was both going to, and coming home from, work. One made me laugh, and the other gave me an incredulous shake of the head.

The first was on a big Dodge HEMI-type pickup. The left-hand side of the sticker showed a photo of Obama with his chin sticking up in the air in one of his classic Mussolini poses. Next to the photo, the sticker said DOES THIS ASS MAKE MY TRUCK LOOK BIG?

I love it!

The next sticker I saw was on the back of a Toyota Highlander. This one also featured a photo of Obama, only the photo was as flattering as possible. Next to the photo, the sticker said GIVE HOPE A CHANCE.

Good Lord, talk about a hopeless true believer. I think we have given Caesar Obummus more than enough of chance already, don't you?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Thank God no one will have to read that horrible prayer anymore

2012-01-18T19:21:00.000-08:00

I found out tonight about the story of Jessica Ahlquist, a busybody high schooler in Rhode Island who decided to impose her atheist beliefs on her fellow students at Cranston High School West.

For years, Cranston High had a banner hanging in the school that featured a prayer that students were free to look at (or not). After I read what was written on that banner, I guess it's a good thing that Jessica decided to wage her personal jihad on this banner and save her fellow students from its evil and corrupting influence. Witness now the text of the prayer that offended young Jessica so much that she convinced a U.S. District Judge into ordering it removed. You might want to tell your kids to leave the room if you plan on reading it out loud:

Our Heavenly Father,

Grant us each day the desire to do our best. To grow mentally and morally, as well as physically. To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers. To be honest with ourselves, as well as with others. Help us to be good sports, and smile when we lose, as well as when we win. Teach us the value of true friendship. Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.

Amen

Whew! Thank God that Jessica came along when she did. Who knows what kind of violence and mayhem that prayer might have caused her fellow students to commit.

On second thought, don't thank God for anything - Jessica might get offended.

This whole sad situation reminds me of one of my favorite verses from the Bible (Isaiah 5:20), which more and more shows Isaiah for the prophet he was:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

Woe unto you Jessica Ahlquist. You have declared this good and beautiful prayer to be evil, and even worse, you convinced a federal judge (Reagan appointee, unfortunately) into shoving your beliefs down everyone else's throats by having the prayer banner removed.

And our country continues to circle the drain.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The Debates: What the hell is the Republican Party thinking?

2012-01-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

In the days leading up to the New Hampshire Primary, I found out that a Republican debate would be moderated by ABC News talking head George Stephanopoulos. It is bad enough that a Republican debate would yet again be moderated by a news-critter who is on the other side of the political spectrum from the Republican candidates, but what made it that much worse was that George Stephanopoulos was no ordinary news-critter; he was President Bill Clinton's communications director and chief spinmeister. Not surprisingly, his political partisanship came through loud and clear during the debate. At one point, he was even booed by the audience.

Media Research Center's Brent Bozell has much more to say about the idiocy of the Republican Party, and its willingness to agree to have hostile leftists moderate their debates.

Bozell begins his piece with some rather poignant questions:

"Who in the GOP in his or her right mind invites a historically shameless Democratic spin controller like Stephanopoulos to "moderate" a primary debate like this — ever...?"

"Why must the Republicans keep handing over their debate stage in the primary season to the people who desperately want them all to bumble, stumble and fall on their faces on national TV?"

Read the rest here.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

How bad is our debt problem? Watch and laugh (and cry)

2012-01-11T15:09:00.000-08:00

Imagine a household budget composed of the following numbers:

Total Household Debt: $140,000

Household Income: $21,700

Household Spending: $38,200

Annual Household Deficit: $16,500

Amount of Spending Cut: $380

Doesn't work, does it? But just add a whole crap-load of zeroes to these figures, and you have the budget numbers for the United States of America. Taking away all of those zeroes really makes it all seem so painfully clear, does it not? For further perspective that tragically illustrates the impossibility of this situation, watch this humorous video of a man with this household budget going to his local bank to see about raising his debt limit:

Don't you feel for the poor kid? Mine are in the same boat. Oh, and keep in mind that this video is already out of date. That household debt is now over $150,000! Oh, you didn't know that our national debt has now topped $15,000,000,000,000?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Just like a movie... complete with techno-assassins and bumbling, wishy-washy U.S. bureaucrats

2012-01-11T14:43:00.000-08:00

Imagine this scene being in a movie:

An Iranian university professor who is involved in Iran's nuclear program is driving down a Tehran street. All of a sudden, two men on a motorcycle pull up alongside the professor's car, attach a magnetic bomb to the door of the car, and then speed away. Seconds later, the bomb explodes, killing the professor. And talk about a personal hit: the bomb is just powerful enough, and is shaped in a way to only kill the intended target - the other two occupants in the professor's car are left with non-life-threatening injuries.

Forget movies; what I just described really happened earlier today. When I read the article, I could totally picture the whole scene in my mind as it would play out in a movie, but believe me when I say that I realize that this isn't a movie, and a man died for real. On the other hand, this man was apparently helping to realize the nuclear dreams that the mullahs of Iran have had for quite some time. Or for all we know, this poor sap was balking at helping the mullahs, and they had him killed as an example to the other Iranian nuclear scientists.

Either way, that doesn't change the limp response from a spokesman from the Obama administration about the incident:

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the U.S. "had absolutely nothing to do" with Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan's death and the U.S. condemns "all acts of violence, including acts of violence like what is being reported today."

OK, denying U.S. involvement in, and condemning this particular assassination is one thing, but for the Obama spokesmouth to say that the U.S. "condemns all acts of violence" is a bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say?

Killing Osama bin Laden would be a considered an act of violence, would it not? A Navy SEAL sniper taking off the head of a Somali pirate is an act of violence, is it not? Our continued operations in Afghanistan, where we kill Taliban members all the time, is an act of violence, is it not? How about Obama's Justice Department allowing guns to be taken into Mexico to be used in the murders of over 300 Mexican citizens and 2 U.S. law enforcement agents? Does that qualify as an act of violence?

I swear, Obama and his minions never miss an opportunity to make asses of themselves. If only the lamestream news media would actually report it.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

And I went to high school because...?

2012-01-05T00:05:00.000-08:00

I have never been a big fan of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). As usual, it was seemingly passed by Congress and signed by President George H.W. Bush with seemingly the best of intentions. But as laws like this often demonstrate, the unintended consequences of legislation is an afterthought, or is not considered at all.

Very quickly, the ADA was used by ambulance-chasing lawyers to extort and shake down businesses that had the slightest violations of the law - whether it be a bathroom sink that was a few inches too high, or a step that blocked wheelchair access to an insignificant section of the establishment. Not to mention the fact that while the ADA was meant to stop workplace discrimination against handicapped employees, all the law did was to unintentionally encourage employers to not hire handicapped workers to begin with.

Now we have a new reason to despise the ADA. Apparently, the law is being violated when an employer requires a high school diploma. I will give you a link to a newspaper article about the particulars, but you really need to read the wording of the actual policy letter posted on the website of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). This is freedom and prosperity-snuffing bureaucracy at its finest:

Under the ADA, a qualification standard, test, or other selection criterion, such as a high school diploma requirement, that screens out an individual or a class of individuals on the basis of a disability must be job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity. A qualification standard is job related and consistent with business necessity if it accurately measures the ability to perform the job’s essential functions (i.e. its fundamental duties). Even where a challenged qualification standard, test, or other selection criterion is job related and consistent with business necessity, if it screens out an individual on the basis of disability, an employer must also demonstrate that the standard or criterion cannot be met, and the job cannot be performed, with a reasonable accommodation. See 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(6); 29 C.F.R. §§ 1630.10, 1630.15(b) and (c); 29 C.F.R. pt. 1630, app §§ 1630.10, 1630.15(b) and (c).

Thus, if an employer adopts a high school diploma requirement for a job, and that requirement “screens out” an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA’s definition of “disability,” the employer may not apply the standard unless it can demonstrate that the diploma requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity. The employer will not be able to make this showing, for example, if the functions in question can easily be performed by someone who does not have a diploma.

So, the high school diploma requirement is only a violation of the ADA if the requirement has nothing to do with the job duties. Right? Oh, wait, the letter goes on:

Even if the diploma requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity, the employer may still have to determine whether a particular applicant whose learning disability prevents him from meeting it can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without a reasonable accommodation. It may do so, for example, by considering relevant work history and/or by allowing the applicant to demonstrate an ability to do the job’s essential functions during the application process. If the individual can perform the job’s essential functions, with or without a reasonable accommodation, despite the inability to meet the standard, the employer may not use the high school diploma requirement to exclude the applicant. However, the employer is not required to prefer the applicant with a learning disability over other applicants who are better qualified. [Yeah, right!]

The EEOC lawyer takes his time with the legalese, but he finally gets around to essentially saying that if the job applicant had some sort of learning disability in high school, you can't require a diploma from him whether it is related to the job or not.

Oh, but worry not! The letter ends with this meaningless statement:

We hope this information is helpful. This letter is an informal discussion of the issues you raised and should not be considered an official opinion of the EEOC.

Sincerely,

/s/

Aaron Konopasky
Attorney Advisor
ADA/GINA Policy Division

It may not be an official opinion of the EEOC, but I think we are versed well enough with our Imperial Federal Government that when they "suggest" that you do something, you damned well better do it. For example, the government still insists that we pay our income taxes voluntarily. Hmmm... just watch what will happen to you if you volunteer not to pay them.

In the meantime, a proclamation like this from the EEOC is like chum for those sharks with law degrees who see a whole new lawsuit industry popping up that is just waiting to be exploited.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A lesson on how to handle the lamestream media

2012-01-03T13:55:00.000-08:00

I don't support Rick Perry for the Republican presidential nomination, but I must give kudos to his handling of leftist tool Mike Allen of Politico.com.

Politico is rather notorious for using unnamed sources to carry a spurious story forward (see Cain, Herman), but when Allen tried this tactic on Perry, the Texas governor wasn't having it. Watch and learn, kids:

Whenever a reporter uses the term, "some say," be very wary.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Now that the presents are opened...

2011-12-26T00:32:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to take a minute to remind myself and everyone else why we spent today opening gifts and stuffing ourselves full of glorious food. Hit it Linus:

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Bill of Rights eviscerated on their anniversary

2011-12-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

On December 15, 1791 - 220 years ago, today - the Bill of Rights were officially ratified and added to the Constitution.

How sad it is that on this day of all days, President Obama signed the 2012 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes Section 1031. This section gives the President the option of ordering the military to indefinitely detain American citizens without charges, evidence, or trial if the citizen is suspected of terrorist activity. Of course, if you have ever read the PATRIOT Act, "terrorist activity" is pretty much whatever the government wants it to be.

There are plenty of people who continue to insist that people like me are confused, and that Section 1031 of the NDAA does not apply to American citizens. The Hill, for instance reports that,

In both cases, the bill does not create any new authority to detain U.S. citizens, ensuring their rights to a fair trial, and the military detention language does exempts U.S. citizens.

Of course, that assurance leaves me with little comfort when all one has to do is listen to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), insist that the power to detain American citizens does indeed exist because after all, it was President Obama who insisted that that power be included in the bill. Don't take my word for it. Watch this:

In addition to Senator Levin's candid assertions, there also exists a letter, signed by 40 members of Congress - many of whom I usually disagree on many other issues - that was sent to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In the letter, the signatories express their concerns about the application of NDAA Section 1031, stating:

...[T]he Senate-passed version of the NDAA, S. 1867, contains Section 1031, which authorizes indefinite military detention of suspected terrorists without protecting U.S. Citizens' right to trial. We are deeply concerned that this provision could undermine the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth amendment rights of U.S. Citizens who might be subjects of detention or prosecution by the military.

I know that many people will scoff at these events and say that we average American citizens have nothing to worry about; that this law is only meant to snag American citizens of middle-eastern background who are actively engaging in planned terrorist attacks against the United States on our own soil. The problem with this myopic view is that anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear and a brain to think knows that inevitably, the power of government grows over time, and what was once unthinkable in our society eventually becomes commonplace, especially if the government is given what appears at first to be some innocuous tool meant for a specific purpose that they eventually use as a broad brush.

Don't forget that just yesterday, Obama stated without ambiguity or secrecy that if Congress didn't do what he wants done, he is just going to bypass them and do it anyway, saying

"Well, what we're going to have to do is continue to make progress on the economy over the next several months. And where Congress is not willing to act, we're going to go ahead and do it ourselves. But it would be nice if we could get a little bit of help from Capitol Hill."

With that kind of unconstitutional attitude, do you really want to put into Obama's hands, the kind of power that Section 1031 of the NDAA affords? Really?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Pearl Harbor: 70 years ago

2011-12-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

Before there was the Islamic attacks of 9/11, there was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

That infamous attack happened on December 7, 1941 - 70 years ago today.

They are getting a little slower in their step, but there are still survivors of that day. The Today show interviewed one of them, who was an 18-year old swabbie at the time. Click here to read his account of that "Day of Infamy."

I was born in 1972, so I missed the 30th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, however, I distinctly remember being 9-years old and sitting at the dinner table on the evening of December 7, 1981 as I watched a lengthy nightly news story on the 40th anniversary of the Japanese attack. Time flies.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

President Luddite

2011-12-06T15:23:00.001-08:00

Seriously, Barack?

Hey everyone, did you know that two of the reasons our economy is in the doldrums is because of ATMs and the Internet? After all, these two technological advancements took away the jobs of travel agents, phone operators, and bank tellers.

Honest to Pete, that is what is our "smartest guy in the room" president actually thinks. Click here to watch Obummer make a fool of himself... again.

I wonder how our country ever survived after the people who worked in buggy whip factories and telegraph offices lost their jobs?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The national unemployment rate: The devil is in the details

2011-12-04T00:52:00.001-08:00

You gotta hand it to government; they have a language all their own.

My favorite example is the government definition of a spending cut. Seldom is the amount of spending on any particular government program actually cut, whereby the government spends less tax money on a program this year than last year. No, to the government, a spending cut is actually a reduction in the annual increase in spending on that program. More is spent than the previous year; just not as much as originally planned. And that is considered a spending cut. Nice, huh?

Then there is the unemployment rate. Our local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, had splashed across the front page a headline that trumpeted a reduction in the national unemployment rate from 9.1% to 8.6%.

Look around you. Look at all the businesses that have closed their doors, that are shuttered, abandoned, and defunct. Look at all the housing developments sitting half-completed. You are not going to tell me that the unemployment rate is only 8.6%. Guess what? It's not.

Once upon a time, when the government reported the unemployment rate, they used to report the percentage of the workforce that was out of work, but was either actively looking for work, or wanted to work but had given up looking. In 1994, the Bureau of Labor Statistics under the Clinton administration began to only report the percentage of unemployed who were actively looking for work, and it has been done that way ever since. People who had been unemployed so long that the unemployment insurance had run out and they had stopped looking? Those people - according to the government - were no longer considered to be unemployed.

Buried deep within the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a frequently-updated table that shows the percentages of different categories of unemployment. The U3 row shows the "official" unemployment rate, which again is currently 8.6%. What you want to look at is U6. This tallies the percentage of the work force that is either actively looking for work, has given up looking for work, or is only working reduced hours or reduced pay because that is the only work they could find. Factor all that in, and the unemployment rate is not an unrealistic 8.6%, but instead a very believable 15.6%! Percentages like that during the 1930s indicated that we were in an economic depression. What are we living in now?

See the BLS table for yourself. It is often updated, so the numbers may have changed from the ones I reported.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Barney Frank is a weenie

2011-11-28T09:28:00.001-08:00

The 2010 Census caused Massachusetts to redraw their congressional districts, and look which district got more conservative as a result: the district represented by Democrat Rep. Barney Frank.

Frank is a bitter, nasty, mean, combative, insulting, pig of a man who also turns out to not have much courage either. Now that his redrawn district would provide some real competition for his reelection efforts, Frank is bowing out. He is not going to run for reelection next year. Thank God.

Now, the cynical conspiracy theorist inside me could easily believe that Frank is quitting for other reasons upon which he chooses not to elaborate, but if being a cowardly wimp is his story, then I will believe him. I know he is 71, but he just always struck me to be one of those power-hungry congresscritters who would only leave if they were not reelected or they were taken out on a stretcher or slab.

Either way, I am thrilled to see this... person... leave Congress in January 2013.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

It's like I'm a kid again!

2011-11-28T09:20:00.000-08:00

But not in a good way. Several times during my childhood, I suffered from bouts of Strep Throat, but I had yet to suffer from it as an adult... until now.

My son has it too; we both caught it while visiting relatives in Las Vegas. A doctor friend of my wife's told her that the streptococcus bacteria that causes this horrid condition thrives in desert conditions.

So here we sit today at home, playing hooky from school and work. We have a 10:30am appointment to pick up our anti-biotics, and we can't get them soon enough. I don't know if you the readers have ever had strep, but it makes you feel like you are swallowing a handful of thumbtacks... if you are even able to swallow at all; my uvula - you know, the hanging thingy at the back of your throat that causes the gag reflex - is swollen to at least four times its normal size and is resting on the back of my tongue, causing me to gag - how ironic; add to this the requisite fever, chills, body aches, and headaches, and you have one heck of an affliction on your hands.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

How many feet high is 57,000 pages?

2011-11-18T10:26:00.001-08:00

For the record, about 19 feet. What in the world would be a 19-foot tall stack of 57,000 pages? Try the 2010 corporate tax return for General Electric (GE).

But it gets better. After crunching GE's numbers into 57,000 pages of tax return, it turns out that GE paid not a penny on the $14 billion dollars in profit it made that year.

I'm sure it doesn't hurt that GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and that Immelt's company has received billions of dollars worth of tax credits from our federal government because they have joined in on the taxpayer-funded green energy gravy train.

Remember folks: human nature is human nature, and if the people who run corporations and businesses out there see a way to get a leg up on their competition, they are going to take it. When the government offers that leg up in the form of tax credits and the granting of monopoly status, a corporation would be stupid to not take advantage of that opportunity, as they figure if they don't, their competition will. What needs to happen then is that our federal government needs to get out of the business of picking winners and losers in our supposedly free-market economy.

The way to stop the federal government from picking winners and losers is to return it to the limits put upon it by the Constitution. Show me where in Article I, Section 8 Congress is given the authorization to grant tax credits to selected private businesses whose work the Congress (and the President) happens to like. If consumers in this country truly wanted CFL lightbulbs, wind power, and solar power, then they would voluntarily choose to use those products rather than have them forced upon the market through the use of coercive laws and taxpayer-funded subsidies to the companies who make these otherwise unprofitable products.

There is a reason that the Founding Fathers gave the federal government such limited powers in the first place. The power to use taxpayer money to pick winners and losers in our economy, and ensuing efforts by companies to influence government in order to be in the winner column is why the federal government was not given this power in the first place.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A "Reader's Digest" version of two Obama Administration scandals that the statist media would rather you forget

2011-11-17T21:09:00.001-08:00

It must be nice to be on the left side of the political aisle and thus have an entire media apparatus run interference for you by not reporting to the American people that which would be blasted from the rooftops if a conservative President occupied the White House. Here are the two scandals currently flying under the radar, either of which would sink a conservative presidency:

Solyndra:

It's simple really: Barack Obama hates oil and coal. He is one of these eco-topia nutballs who thinks we should do away with carbon-based fuel sources that are actually effective and inexpensive, and replace them with so-called "green" or "clean" sources of energy such as wind and solar that are mostly ineffective, prohibitively expensive, and not nearly as clean as he would like you to think. That is why his administration has been handing out billions of our taxpayer dollars to private companies - or more specifically, EVIL CORPORATIONS - that produce these pie-in-the-sky power products that can only turn a profit if they are heavily subsidized by Joe Taxpayer. Even then, after being thoroughly padded with our hard-earned tax money, many of these "green energy" companies still go under. And the tragic part is that apparently, the Obama administration is willing and able to give these companies our money even when it is perfectly clear that the company is doomed to financial failure.

One such example was Solyndra, a Fremont, California-based company that produced solar panels. Notice I speak of this company in the past tense because Solyndra is now bankrupt and defunct. But not before Solyndra first received about $530 million of our taxpayer dollars in the form of a federal loan guarantee. Emails are now surfacing due to FOIA requests and a House investigation revealing that the Obama administration pushed to have Solyndra receive this half-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded, loan even though it was already apparent that Solyndra was going broke. In fact, it now looks like the Obama administration was strong-arming Solyndra to not announce their inevitable layoffs until the day after the November 2010 mid-term elections. But boy, in the meantime, Solyndra made for a great success story photo-op when Obama made a visit to the company building to showcase to the American people what a great alternative solar was to that icky oil and coal on which we so much depend. Not only that, these "clean energy" loans somehow tend to end up in the hands of wealthy campaign donors and bundlers who helped Obama get elected, or are trying to help him get re-elected.

Fast and Furious:

Two years ago, the American lamestream media made great hay out of reports that many of the guns that were being used to commit crimes in Mexico were being traced back to the United States as the country of origin. In April of 2009, President Obama announced in a speech that more than "ninety percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States." That turned out not to be the whole truth, as not every gun recovered was traced. What was likely happening was that the Mexican government was submitting for tracing, guns that likely had come from the United States. That will of course increase the percentage.

Now that the Fast and Furious scandal has begun to gain some traction in the wake of the beginning of Congressional hearings that have made AG Eric Holder look like a liar or a blithering idiot, we can start to get an idea of why so many guns captured in Mexico turned out to be from the United States: because U.S. federal law enforcement agencies were ensuring that guns from U.S. gun stores were being smuggled into Mexico and handed over to Mexican drug cartels. Ultimately, those guns have been estimated to be involved in the murders of at least 200 Mexican citizens and 2 U.S. law enforcement agents.

Now why would Obama's Justice Department do such a thing? The purported purpose was to allow these guns to be traced to the cartels so that criminal charges against them could be shored up. However, accountability of the guns was quickly lost, and they disappeared into the netherworld of the Mexican crime world, only to resurface at the scenes of hundreds of murders.

I will now add my opinion. I believe Fast and Furious was an effort by Obama and Holder to demonize gun dealers and gun owners in the United States, and use the violence caused by the use of these weapons in Mexico as a pretext to strip law-abiding Americans of our right to defend ourselves through the keeping and bearing of arms as is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Why do I think that? Because I remember when the "90%" meme was being bandied about in 2009, politicians were calling for the stripping of the rights of law-abiding American gun owners in order to remedy the situation. How convenient is that?

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Like I stated, this was only a "Reader's Digest" version of these two scandals; a primer if you will. For the finer details, do your own research. If you will only Google or Bing "Solyndra scandal" or "Fast and Furious scandal" you will find mountains of news stories, both from so-called mainstream and alternative sources, that will cover every angle of these scandals. The mainstream media do report on these scandals, but they either bury it on page A24, such as the N.Y. Times did with Solyndra news the other day, or they report it and then move on without further comment. A good example of this technique was noted the other day by the conservative blogo-sphere when the statist talking heads on MSNBC's Morning Joe program spent oodles of time mocking and insulting the Republican presidential candidates, but when a news story was mentioned about the Obama administration requesting that news of Solyndra layoffs be held off until the day after the 2010 midterms, those same talking heads clammed up, and far off in the distance, a cricket chirped. They spent a lot more time making fun of Herman Cain's fedora than they did about the deliberate waste of a half-billion taxpayer dollars.

Watch Newsbusters' compilation of the hilarity:

With that kind of hard-hitting coverage (/s) of Obama's scandals, it is not surprising that the average citizens out there haven't a clue what is going on.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Consistency is for fags

2011-11-12T01:02:00.000-08:00

WARNING: EXTREMELY BAD LANGUAGE QUOTED AHEAD... SERIOUSLY, DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU OFFEND EASILY:

Now, now. Before you get all worked up, allow me to explain the context of my catchy title for this post.

I have become less and less interested in the annual Academy Awards broadcast as the years go by, but I couldn't help but shake my head in disbelief when I found out the reason that the director of this year's show, Brett Ratner, was fired.

When asked by a reporter about his methods of management, Ratner was quoted as saying, "Rehearsal is for fags!" That is it. According to news stories, that simple comment got him canned as Academy Awards show director. I heard that news while driving to work to the other day, and I yelled at the radio, "What about Eddie Murphy?!"

See, Eddie Murphy had been picked months ago to be the host of this year's show. But when Ratner was fired, Murphy quit. Nevertheless, the producers of the show had been fully intent on going with Murphy.

Does no one remember Eddie Murphy's stand-up comedy routine from the 1980s? Remember his 1983 show called Delirious? In one sketch, he imagined what it would be like if tough-guy actor Mr. T were homosexual.

So let's juxtapose. Which of the following statements should get you fired (or never hired)?

Brett Ratner: "Rehearsal is for fags."

Eddie Murphy (as a homosexual Mr. T): "Hey boy... Hey boy... you look mighty cute in them jeans. Now come on over here... and fuck me up the ass... Hey boy slow down... or I'll pinch up my butt cheeks and rip your dick off."

Unless I'm missing something here, I can't understand how Hollywood can get so worked up over Ratner's statement, when under that kind of standard, Eddie Murphy's past performances should have been something to keep him from ever being hired to host the Oscars. One might make the argument that Ratner was speaking his true feelings, while Murphy was just performing on stage. But if that argument were to be valid, why did comedian Michael Richards (you know, Kramer from Seinfeld) get in so much trouble when he repeatedly uttered the word "nigger" while performing on stage a couple years back?

I will never understand society's selective outrage where some people are allowed to say a word or phrase with no repercussions, while other people are crucified for saying the same thing.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Throwing bad court decisions after bad

2011-11-12T00:41:00.000-08:00

A flurry of lawsuits have been filed by assorted state attorneys general since the atrocity known as Obamacare was shoved down the American peoples' throats in March of 2010.

While we have won some and lost some, we had a big loss the other day when Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found that one of the worst features of Obamacare - the individual mandate that requires that Americans purchase health insurance - is constitutional.

It is bad enough that this judge put lipstick on this pig of a law, but what really steamed me was his rationale for finding the law unconstitutional. Hear it from the judge first before I pick it apart:

The mandate, Silberman wrote, “seems an intrusive exercise of legislative power" and “certainly is an encroachment on individual liberty, but it is no more so than a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race, that gravely ill individuals cannot use a substance their doctors described as the only effective palliative for excruciating pain or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family.”

“The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local — or seemingly passive — their individual origins,” Silberman wrote.

I know I am just one of those lowly proletarians with no law degree, but this judge is out of his friggin' mind. Just look at the past examples of legislative overreach he uses for his justification:

...a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race: While people like to morally preen and feel all self-righteous by singing hosannas toward the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it is still a law that Congress was given no power to pass under our Constitution. A business today that tried to ban all members of a certain race as was done in the past would not be in business for long in our society. This would be true even if the 1964 CRA did not exist. Boycotts, social pressure, and ostracizing have always been more effective in shaping peoples' actions and behavior than laws ever have. Changes in attitudes about race were taking place even before the 1964 law, and would have continued to do so. The bottom line is that one can vociferously believe that the practice of racial discrimination by private businesses is wrong, but still demand that the Constitution be amended before the Congress passes a law in an area of concern for which they were given no authority under the Constitution.

...that gravely ill individuals cannot use a substance their doctors described as the only effective palliative for excruciating pain: Once again, show me in the Constitution where the federal government has the power to outlaw the use of drugs. News flash! There used to be no federal drug laws. Were there addicts out there? Yes. Did society survive? Yes. Like the previous example, you can be against the use of illegal drugs, but still recognize that regulating them is not the job of the federal government.

...or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family: This one is my favorite. As part of the New Deal, FDR and the Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which limited the amount of crops that farmers could grow. The intention was to prop up the price of food by creating an artificial shortage. One farmer - last name Wickard - grew more wheat on his farm than the law allowed, even though he was growing the extra wheat simply to feed his family. After being pursued for this act by the federal government, Wickard argued in federal court that Congress had no jurisdiction over his growing of wheat because what he grew not only stayed within his state, it stayed on his farm. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court. In the infamous Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Supreme Court found that even though farmer Wickard was growing the unauthorized wheat for his and his family's own consumption, and the wheat did not cross any state lines, Wickard's growing of the wheat still constituted interstate commerce (and thus the ability for Congress to regulate the situation) because that meant there was some wheat somewhere out there from another state that would not be purchased because Wickard had produced his own.

And let us not allow to slide by this final comment: ...and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local — or seemingly passive — their individual origins. No matter how local? The Tenth Amendment truly is dead with Circuit Court judges saying such things. It is so simple, I can type it from memory: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. That means if the issue is local, then it is NOT up to Congress to get involved, no matter how much they may want to.

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I am disheartened by Judge Silberman's comments. His justification for agreeing with the health insurance mandate is essentially that the federal government has run roughshod over our rights so completely over the past 70 years, what does it matter if they do so just a little bit more.

With different federal courts at both the district and circuit level giving differing positions on the constitutionality of Obamacare, and especially its mandate to purchase health insurance, the chattering classes are in almost unanimous agreement that the Supreme Court is going to take up this issue. If their decision-making processes are along the lines of Wickard vs. Filburn (or Kelo vs. New London, or Dred Scott vs. Sanford, for that matter), then we are in serious trouble.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Thank You

2011-11-11T06:18:00.001-08:00

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What the heck is a "Body Man," and why does the President have one?

2011-11-11T06:05:00.001-08:00

President Barack Obama just had another member of his staff quit. This time, it was his long-time personal assistant, Reggie Love, to whom the President, and even the news agencies reporting the story, refer to as the President's "Body Man."

To whose body does the term refer? Is it similar to a bodyguard? If so, doesn't Obama have the Secret Service for that? Have other presidents employed someone in a similar capacity?

Just another headshaking feature of the Obama administration.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Catch it early on, folks

2011-11-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

I took the day off from work today, and for my trouble I now have 12 stitches that run from the side my nose to the top of my lip. The reason? Basal cell carcinoma. I had a mole removed from that area a few weeks ago, and the biopsy came back positive. So now I am left lying here feeling like I got punched in the face. The worst part of the ordeal was when the doctor would use a cauterizing device to stanch the bleeding as he cut away the offending tissue. The smell of burning flesh is bad enough, but when the procedure is taking place a quarter of an inch from my left nostril? Yuck!

With my stitches and my deformed fat lip, I either look like I got in a fight, or I look like a villain from a James Bond movie. Hopefully in a few weeks, I will just look like me again.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Jesse Jackson: "Occupy Atlanta" reminds him of the Civil Rights Movement

2011-11-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I see a headline that causes me to utter an audible Scooby Doo-esque "Huhhhh?" A headline on Drudge that said Jesse Jackson compared the "Occupy Atlanta" movement to the Civil Rights Movement elicited that reaction from me.

The reason is that the only other thing I have seen of the "Occupy Atlanta" movement is when a bunch of cultish, statist, twinkle-fingered protesters (most of them white, by the way) rejected civil rights icon, Representative John Lewis, and kept him from speaking at their rally.

How cultish were they? Watch them repeat everything the moderator says as they eventually tell Lewis to take a hike. The video is 10 minutes long, but just watching the first minute or two will give you the gist:

Creepy.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The "Nanny State" is now literal

2011-11-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

I can't believe stuff like this is really, truly happening in this country -

Can't afford diapers for your kids? Not to worry. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) is riding to the rescue.

Senate Bill (SB) 1778 authorizes states to use federal block grant money to provide diapers for parents who have their children in federally funded daycare.

But wait, there's more! Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) is taking care of business on the House side by introducing the - this is serious now - DIAPER Act, or the Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act. Seriously.

Bottom line: These statist northeast Congresscritters from the Democrat Party are trying to use our tax dollars to give free diapers to poor people who are squeezing out kids they cannot afford in the first place.

Hear that sound? That's the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

"There is no sight quite so terrifying as ignorance in action" -Johann von Goethe

2011-10-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

WARNING - Bad language ahead

You gotta love teenagers. They are often so smugly sure of their own brilliance, even when they make complete asses of themselves.

On a typical day, after I get off work, I pick up my two kids (aged 7 and 5) from school, and then when we get home, they love to play on the driveway. They ride their bikes, Ripsticks, and scooters on the driveway, climb the tree on the front lawn, and basically wind down. It is especially nice to do now that the Sacramento summer is over, and the late-afternoon weather is positively beautiful outside.

How angry I was then when on Friday afternoon (10/28), I looked down my street to see a pack of about ten teenagers from the local high school walking down the middle (literally, the middle) of the street. They were dressed in their finest slacker gear, with shaggy uncut hair spilling out their backwards baseball caps, and their skateboards being carried alongside their sagging skinny jeans. If that had been it, I would have tolerated it and moved on. What I could not tolerate was the filthy, vulgar language that was loudly pouring out of their mouths as they swaggered down my quiet residential street. I had to send my kids into the house, it was so bad.

As they walked past my house, I stood there on my driveway and watched them pass by; their filthy conversation continuing unabated as the words "fuck", "fucking", "motherfucker", and all other manner of words violated our quiet neighborhood.

I couldn't let this one go. I yelled, "Excuse me. Could you please not talk like this in our neighborhood? I just had to send my 7 and 5 year-old kids into the house so they wouldn't have to hear your foul language."

One of the boys turned toward me while continuing to walk, gave me a mocking salute, and said, "Yes, Sir!" in a very mocking and disrespectful fashion. One of the other boys yelled, "First Amendment, my friend! We can say whatever we want!"

I yelled in response, "First Amendment? I'm not the government! How about just common decency?!"

They continued walking.

And there it was, one of the major problems of our society on full display: The exercise of rights without regard to responsibilities. Although I could make an argument toward the budding lawyer's ignorant comment that you indeed do not have a right under the First Amendment to yell vulgarities as you walk down a residential street (disturbing the peace, anyone?), for the sake of argument, let's say that you did have that right. Should you exercise it? Where was that little voice inside their heads, that realization that perhaps cussing like that in front of my children wasn't exactly a good idea? Where was that sense of shame when confronted by me about it where instead of mocking me, they could have given a quick apology for possibly corrupting the innocence of my children, and moved on without further comment?

I wonder the same thing when I walk down the halls of the school at which I teach and listen to the atrocious and vulgar language uttered by my students as they flitter down the hallways and the lunch grounds outside.

When I am around my friends, do we cuss like sailors? On occasion, you bet! But the difference is that I do it out of earshot of my kids, and my friends' kids. And when I slip on occasion and say a bad word in front of my kids, such as when I drop something or hurt myself, I profusely apologize to them for having done it. I make sure they know that it is not OK to publicly cuss with abandon.

Too bad no one taught these boys the same lesson. Whether or not they learned anything, that lesson was left to me to give in front of my house on a Friday afternoon.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

And I thought I have it bad...

2011-10-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

When it comes to posting, I love nothing better than a juicy story about something that happened to me at work; a story that serves as a microcosm of the problems with our nation's education system.

I have had school years in the past where certain class periods caused me to drink entire bottles of wine when I got home. So it is rather refreshing that so far this year, I honestly don't have much to complain about. I am now just a bit over two months into this school year - plenty of time for the honeymoon to end - and overall, my students are pretty darn well-behaved. Is every day going to be all sunshine and bunny rabbits? Yeah right. But for the most part, I tell my students to calm down or quiet down and they... do.

My wife on the other hand...

She teaches first grade in a different district than mine. Her student population makes mine look like a bunch of private school Stepford children. She teaches in a very poor area full of apartment complexes, drug use, family dysfunction, and victim mentality. When we get home at the end of the school day, my report of how my day was can usually be summed up with a succinct, "No problems; I had a good day." Whereas, my wife usually has a couple tales to tell. Today was especially true.

While my wife has plenty of challenging students, her first grade teaching partner in the room next door is fighting what appears to be a losing battle. My wife often gets a call from him in the middle of the day because he needs her assistance reining in an out-of-control student (or two). Today, she got that call and walked in to see one student standing on the teacher's desk, and another student tossing the classroom computer monitors on the floor. At the same time, my wife had been babysitting yet another student from her partner's class - a female student who my wife describes as "pure evil." Keep in mind, this girl is a six year-old first grader. This girl also began seriously acting up, to the point where my wife ended up having to carry this girl to the principal's office while the girl struggled, tried to bite my wife and spit on her, and upon being delivered to the principal, slapped my wife on the arm.

Of course, one of the reasons behavior like this has become the norm at my wife's site is largely due to the administration's inability or outright refusal to do anything about it. Between fear of lawsuits from belligerent parents,; fear of loss of ADA money if the kid is suspended; and fear of damaging the self-esteem of the precious little monsters, these students act out in the most disruptive and atrocious ways, yet they are right back at school the next day, ready to do it all over again.

And my wife is right in the middle of it all.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

If they don't like this bathroom policy, wait until they get a load of mine!

2011-10-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

It seems some parents and students are in an uproar about a new bathroom visitation policy at a suburban Chicago high school. The school has a rule in place that limits to three the number of times a student can leave class to go to the bathroom during a given semester.

In typical overbearing, helicopter parent-type fashion, these overprotective parents - of high schoolers, mind you - gnashed their teeth for the news cameras as they denounced this horrific policy.

One parent, Bea Bailey, said, "This principal -- let him find out he's got diarrhea, and he's only told that he can go to the bathroom three times a semester and we'll see how this policy holds up with him."

Sorry, Bea, but you apparently have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Judging by her quote (and the way she said it, if you watch the video at the news story I linked) it almost seems like she believes the school is only going to let students go to the bathroom thrice in a semester under any circumstances. Uh, no. Again, the three time-only limit only applies to leaving class to go to the bathroom. Students still have before school, after school, during lunch, and passing periods between classes to go potty as much as they desire. I wish I could inform Bea that I teach straight through from 9:00am to 12:15pm, when my lunch starts. At that time, my morning coffee is ready to be purged, and off I go. How is it that I am able to make it long periods of time without having to use the bathroom, but these pitiful students, with their enabling parents, aren't able to go the distance? Are you telling me that the bladder of a high schooler isn't yet fully developed?

I learned early on as a new teacher that there are plenty of students who will ask to go to the bathroom every class period of every single day. Quite often, students who have different classes with their friends will coordinate their clocks and ask their respective teachers to go to the bathroom at a designated time, and then the friends will meet up to do God-knows-what.

You think three visits is harsh? For years now, I have had a ONE-visit-per-quarter policy that has worked quite nicely. At the beginning of each quarter, I issue to every one of my students a bathroom pass that is good for one visit to the bathroom. The pass is the size of a half-sheet of paper. I have it saved on a Word document with two passes on one sheet of paper. After I make my copies, I cut the stack in half with a slicer.

This bathroom pass has been one of the most successful policies I have ever instituted in my classroom. Every quarter, I enter the bathroom pass as an extra credit assignment on my gradebook. After I hand out the passes, I record on the gradebook that the students received their pass. I then inform/remind them that this is their one and only chance to go to the bathroom for this quarter. If they absolutely, positively have to go now now now, then that is what the pass is for. If they don't use the pass, and they hang on to it without losing it for the entire quarter, then at the end of the quarter, they can turn in their bathroom pass to me for a 3% bump on their final quarter grade. For example, if their final quarter grade is an 87%, the unused bathroom pass moves their grade up to a 90%. If a student actually uses the pass (and I do everything I can to remind them of what they are giving up if they use it), they turn it in to me upon their return from the bathroom, and I record in the gradebook that they used it. This way, it does no good for a student to make copies of his pass, as I check the gradebook to make sure they haven't used it.

I usually have between 160-180 students. Every quarter, I get an average of maybe 5 students who actually use their bathroom pass. Before I instituted my bathroom pass policy, I had dozens of students going to the bathroom every day.

We teachers see the reality of what it is like if visits to the bathroom are not regulated, which makes me shake my head in indignation as I watch these parents in that news clip with their knee-jerk reactions against the school's very reasonable and overly-generous bathroom policy. I actually think three visits is too many. One has worked just fine in my classroom for years.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What was the worst song of the 1980s?

2011-10-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

I might be the world's biggest '80s music fan. If a song was in the Billboard Top 100 during that decade, chances are that I can tell you not only what year that song was popular, but which season of that year.

I therefore took great interest the other day when Rolling Stone magazine released a list based on a reader poll of the ten worst songs released in the 1980s.

What can I say? I agree with some of the choices; some I don't. Here is a rundown of the list, along with my thoughts:

10. Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Winter 1988)
I'm not sure if this one belongs on the list. It is definitely high up on the cheese-o-meter, but it has a beat and you can dance to it. The most memorable thing about this song was the reaction from people when they saw the video. The deep baritone that people heard on the radio had everyone assuming that it belonged to some black Motown singer. Imagine everyone's surprise when they saw that voice emanating from a waif-ish, wimpy Brit who looked like the skinny version of a Bob's Big Boy statue.

9. Taco - Puttin' On The Ritz (Summer 1983)

This one so belongs on this list. In fact, I believe this song should be in the #1 spot. How bad is it? Take a Jazz Age song, synthesize it and add some Eurotrash vocals, then make it sound like some jam session where the studio engineers were making stuff up as they went, and Voila! You have what I believe is the worst song of the 1980s.

8. Toni Basil - Mickey (Fall 1982)

Yeesh! Oh Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind.... While Toni's mind is being blown, I am blowing chunks. I can't stand this song; never could.

7. Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry, Be Happy (Fall 1988)

I could think of other songs that should be on the list instead of this one, but this a capella stinker from the soundtrack to one of the worst movies of the 1980s - Cocktail - is still pretty bad. When your song has lyrics like this: Your landlord say your rent is late; he may have to litigate - it can't help but make people want to put the song on a "worst of" list:

6. Falco - Rock Me Amadeus (Spring 1986)

This song bugs me for three reasons. First, it was such a nakedly shameful attempt to capitalize on the success of the movie Amadeus, which had won the Best Picture Oscar the previous year. Second, the strange halting rap that Falco strains through during the song was his obvious attempt to cover up the fact that he barely spoke a lick of English. And third was the annoying bridge in the song where, while the synthesizers were still going strong, some strange far away voice begins listing Mozart's life accomplishments. Right in the middle of the song!

5. Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance (Summer 1983)

Whoever voted to include this song on the list ought to be ashamed of themselves. This is a great song.

4. Wham! - Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go) (Fall 1984)

This song is so impossibly happy, it is evil. Add in the short shorts that George Michael wears in the song's video, and there is just nowhere to go but down. This song does NOT make me want to do the jitterbug... oh do the jiiitterbug.

3. Chris DeBurgh - Lady In Red (Spring 1987)

The ultimate in '80s high school slow dance cheese. By the way, when I was a junior in high school, my prom date wore a red dress and we danced to this song. Cool huh? Of course, since Chris DeBurgh really laid on the thick British/Irish accent in this song (just like the Psychedelic Furs liked to do), my prom date wasn't "dancing" with me, she was "dah-ncing" with me.

2. Europe - The Final Countdown (Winter-Spring 1987)

The ultimate in pretentious hair band cheese. I don't think this song is terrible, but there is something about it that bugs the heck out of me. Obviously, it has the same effect on others, since it is in the #2 spot. If you want to hear a much better song from Europe, try Superstitious from 1988.

1. Starship - We Built This City (Fall 1985)

Oh the irony. The 1960s counterculture group known as Jefferson Airplane had, by the 1980s, morphed into a canned, corporate schlock factory called Starship. One of their biggest hits was this atrocity that includes a radio weather forecast/traffic report during the song's bridge. I think what makes me despise this song even today is not so much that it is so bad, but that it got so much radio airplay when it was released, that 26 years later, I am still sick of hearing it.

Since I expressed my misgivings about the presence of some of the songs on this list, you are probably wondering what I would have put there instead. That's easy. The following songs are so awful, that they are forever seared into my memory. Whenever I hear any of these songs on the radio, I immediately turn the station:

Blondie - Call Me (Winter-Spring 1980)

Irene Cara - Fame (Summer 1980)

Blondie - Rapture (Winter 1981)

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - I Love Rock 'n' Roll (Winter-Spring 1982)

Soft Cell - Tainted Love (Summer 1982)

Wall of Voodoo - Mexican Radio (Spring 1983)

Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science (Spring 1983)

Prince - Little Red Corvette (Spring 1983)

Donna Summer - She Works Hard For The Money (Summer 1983)

Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield (Fall 1983)

Night Ranger - Sister Christian (Spring 1984)

Mike Reno and Ann Wilson - Almost Paradise (Summer 1984)

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It (Summer 1984)

Cyndi Lauper - She Bop (Summer 1984)

Stevie Wonder - I Just Called To Say I Love You (Summer 1984)

New Edition - Cool It Now (Fall 1984)

The Time - Jungle Love (Fall 1984)

Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On (Winter 1985)

Katrina and the Waves - Walking On Sunshine (Spring 1985)

Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (Spring 1986)

Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle - On My Own (Spring 1986)

Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone (Summer 1986)

Simply Red - Money$ Too Tight To Mention (Summer 1986)

Stacey Q - Two Of Hearts (Summer 1986)

Whew! That felt good to get off my chest. Any decade is going to have its stinkeroos. For the 1980s, those songs were definitely it!

On another note, I am happy to report that the 1980s sound is beginning to make a comeback! There are bands that are recapturing that happy, poppy, synth sound but with a post-modern angsty twist that we can't quite seem to shake these days, as the 2010s are not exactly Morning in America. One of the best examples is a group that is currently tearing up the sales called Foster the People. What great music they are producing! Another group making "new waves" is One Republic. I am happy to see music from these groups showing up on the charts and supplanting some of the dominance we have seen in the last two decades from shi*-hop and (c)rap music. I remember ten years ago or so when so-called music from that genre occupied every spot in the Billboard Top Ten. That's not the case nearly as much any more. My wife and I have both noticed a shift in music and we are tickled about it.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Checkmate complete: Statist governor and legislature outlaw open carry of handguns in California

2011-10-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

Back in August, I wrote a post about Assembly Bill (AB) 144, which called for the outlawing of the open carry of handguns by law-abiding citizens in California.

Being a "may issue" rather than a "shall issue" state when it comes to handing out concealed carry (CCW) permits, the one way that law-abiding citizens in California could still exercise their right to self-defense as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was by carrying their handgun in plain view, usually with the use of a holster on the hip.

Now, California gun owners will no longer be able to openly carry their handgun. Late Sunday night, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 144 into law. As I have been saying: Checkmate. Most Californians are already unable to obtain permission to carry their handgun concealed; now they no longer have the option of carrying openly either. For all intents and purposes, the carrying of handguns in California is now entirely illegal.

I fully expect this newly-signed law to be challenged in court, however, there is the matter of a federal court case that has already been decided, but the basis for the decision has been negated by the signing of AB 144 into law.

In the 2009 case of Richards v. Prieto, Adam Richards sued Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto after Prieto refused Richards' application for a concealed carry permit. The federal district court judge found in favor of Prieto because, after all:

"...even if Plaintiffs are denied a concealed weapon license for self-defense purposes from Yolo County, they are still more than free to keep an unloaded weapon nearby their person, load it, and use it for self-defense in circumstances that may occur in a public setting. Yolo County's policy does not substantially burden Plaintiffs' right to bear and keep arms."

Translated: Even though Richards got turned down for a CCW permit, he was still free in California to open carry, so quit complaining.

Uh, now what?

In the meantime, Open Carry advocates are not going to give up. AB 144 does not go into effect until January 1, 2012. After that, people will start walking down the street with rifles and shotguns strapped around their shoulder, as AB 144 only applies to handguns.

Anthony Portantino (Democrat, naturally), the legislator who created this noxious bill-turned-law, cited as one of the reasons he wanted AB 144 passed was that some people were "uncomfortable" at the sight of someone with a pistol holstered on their hip. Awwwww.

How would these faint-hearted wimps feel with me walking by them with my SKS 7.62X39mm carbine hanging off my shoulder? That is what this anti-gun madness is coming to.

Since carrying a handgun openly is so visually upsetting, the best thing for the California legislature to do would be to change state law so that we are a "shall issue" rather than a "may issue" state when it comes to issuing CCW permits. Better yet, we could change the law to make California like Vermont, Arizona, and Alaska. In those states, you don't need a permit to carry concealed, let alone openly.

What is the California legislature (and our Governor) so afraid of?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

"Occupy Sacramento" protesters seek publicity, but reject their opportunity to receive it

2011-10-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

When a few hundred people hold a public protest in a public park in the middle of downtown Sacramento, you would think they would not only expect the media to show up, they would welcome the media's presence.

That thought was occurring to me as I watched this amazing bit of video from the local CBS (Channel 13) station here in Sacramento. Not only did these insipid people in Cesar Chavez Park not know why they were there, many of them did not want to tell the media even if they did know why they were there. Perhaps all they knew is that they wanted to piggyback on the Wall Street protests in New York, but that is only as far ahead as their drug-addled minds could think. Watch this and shake your head in amazement:

I have seen other public assemblies where protesters did not want to be filmed by bloggers with cameras (like me) or something like that, but I don't know that I have ever seen this kind of hostility directed at members of the news media by people who are seeking public attention.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Sacramento restaurant closures provide a lesson in free-market economics

2011-10-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

The Sacramento Bee ran an article today about the travails of the eateries in downtown and midtown that unintentionally provided a wonderful lesson in the concepts of what in free-market economics is called "creative destruction."

Since the economic downturn began in 2008, quite a few restaurants in downtown and midtown Sacramento - some very well known - have gone out of business. Does that stink if you work at one of those restaurants? You bet. But a cursory drive around downtown/midtown quickly dispels any notion you may have that all the restaurants are going to go out of business. Many are doing quite well, thank you very much. In fact, the closure of one restaurant means opportunity for other restaurants that are succeeding:

Still, some restaurateurs are betting things will get better. They're snapping up vacated restaurant space at bargain rates for future expansion...

The silver lining for entrepreneurs is that the commercial real estate market is now full of bargains.

"The deals are good right now," [local restaurateur Randy] Paragary said. "What used to be $2 a square foot is now $1.50, or maybe you get six months' free rent. Landlords just want to get a new tenant."

Many restaurants that recently closed are being scouted by potential new owners. For instance, the space formerly occupied by California Pizza Kitchen at 15th and L streets is being remodeled into a sports bar by the families behind Mix Downtown and de Vere's Irish Pub.

Bazett of Golden Bear and his business partners are also branching out with Hook and Ladder Manufacturing Co., a bar and eatery that will occupy the former Hangar 17 at 17th and S streets come February.

"It was too good of a deal to pass up," said Bazett. "The next five years could hold some promise for Sac, but yeah, it's kind of scary at times."

The tough part about economics is that people only see half the story. When a business goes out of business, what people see are a boarded-up building and dozens of employees out of a job. What often goes unseen, however, is the opportunity for expansion of a competing business that is obviously delivering a superior product. How do we know their product is superior? Easy - they are still in business and the other is not. This expansion means the buying up of the inventory and real estate of the business that failed, and the hiring of many of the people who lost their jobs after the other establishment went out of business; or the opportunity for those people who have learned enough about their trade to try their hand at opening their own business rather than working for one.

If these restaurants were treated like the banks that were "too big to fail," Uncle Sugar would come swooping in with Joe Taxpayer's money in order to "save" Red Lotus, Brew It Up, Spin Burger Bar, L Wine Lounge & Urban Kitchen, Celestin's Island Eats, California Pizza Kitchen's 15th and L street location, Good Eats, The Terrace, Slocum House, and any other eatery that has been unable to attract enough customers to stay open in these difficult times.

As for the restaurants that are attracting enough customers to stay open? They don't need a taxpayer bailout; they are creating taxpayers with their successful business. What sense does it make to take money from the success stories and transfer it to the failed businesses in an effort to prop them up when they would otherwise close down?

Like I said, it's a great economics lesson.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

You can't make this sh** up!

2011-09-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

Those words are often uttered by my wife after she regales me with yet another story of something that happened that day at her school where she teaches first grade.

While I teach in a middle to lower-middle class school, my wife teaches at a school that is located smack dab in poverty central. With neighborhoods in which the majority of residents live under the poverty threshold, there is always a certain amount of dysfunction to be found there.

Case in point:

Today, my wife watched as her principal affixed a district police officer sticker to the chest of a female first grader who had found and turned in a baggy of marijuana that she had discovered on a bench near the playground.

Later, my wife asked the student how she even knew that what she found was a bag of pot. The student told my wife, "Oh, I know what that stuff is. I see my mom and dad smoke it all the time."

You can't make this sh** up.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The violence of the War Between the States; can history repeat itself?

2011-09-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

In this era of high explosives, automatic weapons and Islamic terrorists who are willing to saw your head off in front of a video camera, it can be difficult to envision the absolute violence that was also prevalent in wars of the not-so-recent past.

That can be especially true of the American Civil War, AKA the War Between the States, AKA The War For Southern Independence. When you see the old photos of these genteel-looking men with their bushy beards and dapper uniforms; and add to that the sanitized dramatizations of battles shown in movies like Gettysburg and Gods and Generals; it can be hard to imagine these men in a desperate fight for their lives where they would do whatever it took to survive and to win the battle.

Aside from the brutal photographs, such as the famous batch from after the Battle of Antietam, nothing dispels the myth of the civility of the Civil War as well as written accounts of what men experienced in battle, and to my knowledge, no combat in that war was more ghastly than the fighting that took place at "The Bloody Angle" during the Battle of Spotsylvania on May 12, 1864.

I am borrowing a book from my neighbor - entitled Campaigning With Grant - that was written by one Horace Porter, who served as an aide-de-camp to General Ulysses S. Grant during the Overland Campaign of May-June, 1864. The Overland Campaign was possibly the most brutal month-long period of the Civil War, with the Union Army alone losing over 2,200 dead at the Battle of the Wilderness; 2,700 dead at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House; and just under 2,000 dead at the Battle of Cold Harbor. At Cold Harbor on June 3rd, the Union assault waves lost over 7,000 men, dead or wounded, in just the first 15 minutes of the attack on the Confederate lines. In all, the Overland Campaign saw the killing or wounding of 55,000 Union soldiers and 32,000 Confederate soldiers; or roughly half the strength of each army... in just over one month of fighting.

During the Battle of Spotsylvania, General Grant noticed that a segment of General Lee's line of fortifications bulged outward toward the Union line, creating what, in military parlance, is called a salient. This particular Confederate salient was in roughly the shape of a horseshoe or muleshoe; hence, it was called the Mule Shoe Salient. In the early morning hours of May 12, 1864, Grant ordered a massive assault on the Mule Shoe Salient. After almost 24 hours of uninterrupted combat in that area, the salient was renamed "The Bloody Angle." Here is General Porter's first-hand observations of that horrific event, and the violence it entailed:

I had been anxious to participate in the scenes occurring at the "angle," and now got permission to go there and look after some new movements which had been ordered.

Lee made five assaults, in all, that day, in a series of desperate and even reckless attempts retake his main line of earth works; but each time his men were hurled back, defeated, and he had to content himself in the end with throwing up a new line farther in his rear.

The battle near the "angle" was probably the most desperate engagement in the history of modern warfare, and presented features which were absolutely appalling. It was chiefly a savage hand-to-hand fight across the breastworks. Rank after rank was riddled by shot and shell and bayonet thrusts, and finally sank, a mass of torn and mutilated corpses; then fresh troops rushed madly forward to replace the dead, and so the murderous work went on. Guns were run up close to the parapet, and double charges of canister played their part in the bloody work.

The fence rails and logs in the breastworks were shattered into splinters, and trees over a foot and a half in diameter were cut completely in two by the incessant musketry fire. A section of the trunk of a stout oak tree thus severed was afterward sent to Washington, where it is still on exhibition at the National Museum. We had not only shot down an army, but also a forest.

The opposing flags were in places thrust against each other, and muskets were fired with muzzle against muzzle. Skulls were crushed with clubbed muskets, and men stabbed to death with swords and bayonets thrust between the logs in the parapet which separated the combatants. Wild cheers, savage yells, and frantic shrieks rose above the sighing of the wind and pattering of the rain, and formed a demoniacal accompaniment to the booming of the guns as they hurled their missiles of death into the contending ranks.

Even the darkness of night and pitiless storm failed to stop the fierce contest, and the deadly strife did not cease till after midnight. Our troops had been under fire for twenty hours, but they still held the position which they had so dearly purchased.

My duties carried me again to the spot the next day, and the appalling sight presented was harrowing in the extreme. Our own killed were scattered over a large space near the "angle," while in front of the captured breastworks the enemy's dead, vastly more numerous than our own, were piled upon each other in some places four layers deep, exhibiting every ghastly phase of mutilation. Below the mass of fast-decaying corpses, the convulsive twitching of limbs and the writhing of bodies showed that there were wounded men still alive and struggling to extricate themselves from their horrid entombment. Every relief possible was afforded, but in too many cases it came too late. the place was well named the "Bloody Angle."

What makes this excerpt even more incredible to comprehend is that what is described here was Americans fighting their fellow Americans. When reading this account of extraordinary violence inflicted by Americans upon their fellow countrymen, I think of all the instances in the past couple years where I have read that in the United States today, Americans have not been this politically and culturally polarized since the Civil War. When you look at the increasingly divided "Red" and "Blue" portions of the country, and imagine relations between these two areas continuing to deteriorate, I can't help but wonder if the two sides would be willing to engage against each other in the kind of violence that was above described?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Teacher invokes Godwin's Law, proves to be an embarrassment to the profession

2011-09-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

Although no one can ever accuse me of not being a political conservative, my participation in the teaching profession does often put me at odds with my fellow conservatives regarding the conventional wisdom about teachers and teaching.

One assumption conservatives often have about teachers is that they are all a bunch of raving left wing wackos. While I can attest that many of them are, I stand as living proof that this is definitely not always the case. And hey, my wife is a teacher, and she is conservative, too.

What doesn't help counter this blanket accusation of leftitude is knuckleheads like this high school government teacher who recently spoke at a Tea Party forum that focused on illegal immigration. The teacher was reduced to invoking Godwin's Law, which states that when one is losing a political argument with his debating opponent, you can be assured that the losing debater will call his opponent a Nazi. Watch:

How old is this teacher? 12? Aside from simply using the "N-word", just the way he calls the guy a Nazi betrays him as a snot-nose little punk who, when he was in high school, probably had upperclassmen shoving each other out of the way to see who could make him push a penny down the hall with his nose.

And shame on him for dragging his minion-esque students to the forum to serve as props. This guy should do himself a favor and find another line of work. If he taught my kids, I would pull them out of his class yesterday.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The true power of the Reno air race crash

2011-09-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you have all heard of the tragedy near Reno, Nevada when a souped-up P-51 Mustang nose-dived into a crowd of spectators near the tarmac, killing 10 (so far).

Most of the videos I have seen were taken quite a distance away, so you see the explosion, but it seems like a major puff of dust. This video I found today is not like that. The person who filmed this was so close to the impact zone, I wouldn't be surprised if he was hit with flying shrapnel. The sound of the plane just before it hit, and the sound of the collision with the ground are truly horrifying:

Naturally, there are those who are calling for the air races to be permanently cancelled, and in some cases, all air races. I am not one of them. Heck, I didn't even know these air races happened every year, but now that I do, I would love to go!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Medal of Honor: Sergeant Dakota Meyer, U.S. Marine Corps

2011-09-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

For only the second time since the Vietnam War, a member of the U.S. Armed Forces has survived to receive his Medal of Honor in person rather than posthumously.

Sergeant Dakota Meyer, USMC, was presented with the nation's highest award for valor by President Obama, and judging from what I have read about his actions, he deserves it and then some.

Here is his citation:

Corporal Meyer maintained security at a patrol rally point while other members of his team moved on foot with two platoons of Afghan National Army and Border Police into the village of Ganjgal for a pre-dawn meeting with village elders. Moving into the village, the patrol was ambushed by more than 50 enemy fighters firing rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and machine guns from houses and fortified positions on the slopes above. Hearing over the radio that four U.S. team members were cut off, Corporal Meyer seized the initiative. With a fellow Marine driving, Corporal Meyer took the exposed gunner's position in a gun-truck as they drove down the steeply terraced terrain in a daring attempt to disrupt the enemy attack and locate the trapped U.S. team. Disregarding intense enemy fire now concentrated on their lone vehicle, Corporal Meyer killed a number of enemy fighters with the mounted machine guns and his rifle, some at near point blank range, as he and his driver made three solo trips into the ambush area. During the first two trips, he and his driver evacuated two dozen Afghan soldiers, many of whom were wounded. When one machine gun became inoperable, he directed a return to the rally point to switch to another gun-truck for a third trip into the ambush area where his accurate fire directly supported the remaining U.S. personnel and Afghan soldiers fighting their way out of the ambush. Despite a shrapnel wound to his arm, Corporal Meyer made two more trips into the ambush area in a third gun-truck accompanied by four other Afghan vehicles to recover more wounded Afghan soldiers and search for the missing U.S. team members. Still under heavy enemy fire, he dismounted the vehicle on the fifth trip and moved on foot to locate and recover the bodies of his team members. Corporal Meyer's daring initiative and bold fighting spirit throughout the 6-hour battle significantly disrupted the enemy's attack and inspired the members of the combined force to fight on. His unwavering courage and steadfast devotion to his U.S. and Afghan comrades in the face of almost certain death reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

I continue to live in awe of these seemingly ordinary men who, when called, did something extraordinary. I am also happy to see that in an age when every kid gets a trophy, and even when the criteria to receive some lower military awards, such as the Bronze Star, have been watered down, the criteria for receiving the Medal of Honor are as exacting as they have ever been. The combat in Iraq and Afghanistan has dragged on for almost exactly 10 years now, and in that time, only 10 Medals of Honor have been awarded, for an average of one per year.

My hat is off to Sgt Dakota Meyer. Well done!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The Solyndra scandal for dummies

2011-09-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

If you have any confusion about what exactly is happening with the scandal involving the now-defunct solar panel manufacturing company Solyndra and its ties to the Obama administration, then this should clear it up for you.

My thanks to Atlanta talk radio host Neal Boortz for breaking it down for us:

Obama decides that he is the one who will decide where the new jobs will be, and he wants green jobs. Green jobs make liberals happy.
Since Obama thinks that green jobs are cool, he decides to throw taxpayer money to private businesses who promise him green jobs.
Solyndra needs money. So Solyndra gets in line for some ObamaMoney.
Obama thinks that Solyndra is the perfect backdrop for his green jobs program, so he designates Joe Biden to go make a speech at the groundbreaking for a new Solyndra facility.
But wait! Solyndra has applied for a $500 million plus loan guarantee, and the application hasn’t been approved yet!
Obama’s own Office of Management and Budget tells him that the loan isn’t a very good idea.
Obama remembers, though, that Solyndra principal George Kaiser is huge contributor to his campaign.
Emails fly at the White House. Some suggesting that the loan guarantee isn’t a good idea, some saying we need to move ahead on this project.
Somewhere along the line the loan agreement is modified to protect Solyndra investors while putting the American taxpayers on the hook.
Obama administration officials actually sat in on some Solyndra board meetings while all of this, and Solyndra finances, were being discussed. (Imagine of Bush administration officials had sat in on Enron board meetings.)
The loan guarantee goes through. The administration gets their day in the sun with Joe Biden speaking at Solyndra headquarters.
About a year later Solyndra is in the tank.
The taxpayers take it on the chin for over $500 milllion.
The Democrats blame Bush, saying that the loan application happened during the Bush administration, not Obama’s.
The Republicans are rude enough to point out that the Bush administration rejected the Solyndra loan application. It only gained new life when Obama took office and started spouting off about green jobs.
The FBI raids Solyndra headquarters.
Democrats and the Obama folks go into pure defense mode.
Where does this go from here? That is going to depend on whether or not the ObamaMedia is compelled to really cover the story.

I continue to be amused by what the news media decides is a scandal and what is not. I can pretty much guarantee you that had Nixon and Reagan been Democrat presidents and taken the same exact actions that they did when they were president, the terms "Watergate" and "Iran-Contra" would not be in our national consciousness. Tell me I'm wrong.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

I would check for the union label, but whatever is written on it is probably too profane to read

2011-09-14T13:59:00.001-07:00

If you haven't heard about the longshoremen strike up in Washington state that turned violent and felonious, then I'm not surprised. Somehow, the lamestream media isn't too enthused about reporting on the nefarious activities of one of Obama's and the Democrats' core constituencies.

During their strike/attack at a grain shipping terminal in Longview, Washington, these upstanding union members:

1. Threw rocks and sprayed pepper spray at police officers.

2. Restrained commerce by blocking trains on railroad tracks.

3. Cut brake lines on train cars.

4. Destroyed other property such as vehicles and building windows.

5. Assaulted several security guards and took them hostage.

Golly, just think what kind of national news coverage this would have received had these people been Tea Party activists. Think the coverage would have been sparse? Or positive? Instead, the very day that these union thugs did all this, the leader of their parent union, AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka, was a guest of honor at President Obama's speech given before a joint session of Congress.

One of the union thugs who - allegedly - carried out multiple crimes that day was one Ronald Patrick Stavas, age 45, of Kelso, Washington. One of Stavas' - alleged - victims identified him after viewing video of him "confronting" - in the words of a Clark County, Washington newspaper - a KGW TV news crew.

Somehow, I think the word "confronting" doesn't quite convey the magnitude of the abuse that the KGW crew received at the hands of Mr. Stavas. After listening and watching to his actions and words, I have little trouble doubting that he was capable of committing some of the crimes that were carried out at the Longview shipping facility. What Mr. Stavas didn't think through was that TV news cameras tend to have playback ability. What you are about to watch is absolutely, positively NOT SAFE FOR WORK, so turn down those speakers:

Remember, according to The Narrative, it is the Tea Party that is violent.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

I wonder if Obama employed this strategy the first time he tried to get laid?

2011-09-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is starting to look like the wheels are coming off the bus in the Obama administration and - after last night's shellacking in New York and Nevada - the Democrat party as a whole. How desperate does Dear Leader sound when he says something like this?

As one comment from another blog retorted to Obama: "If you love me, you'll resign!"

Is this man really the President of the United States? Please tell me it is all a bad dream.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Talk about a rebuke to Obama!

2011-09-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

If the Democrats have lost the voters of the Brooklyn/Queens congressional district that sent raging statist Anthony Weiner to the House of Representatives seven times, then the times, they might be a-changin'.

Tonight, in the special election to replace Weiner the Perv, Republican Bob Turner defeated Democrat David Weprin. Most of the votes have come in, and Turner is currently leading Weprin by 54%-46%.

It was pretty impressive when Massachusetts sent Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, but with two Republican governors (Weld and Romney) in its recent past, and the fact that it is easier for a candidate of the opposite party to appeal to an entire state rather than just a single congressional district (think a Republican trying to get elected in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district versus getting the whole state of California to approve him) I would say that Turner's win in New York City is even more impressive. Anthony Weiner was one of the most leftist members of the House, and Obama won that district in 2008 with a comfortable 55% of the vote.

Don't get me wrong though; never ever count out the cult-like following who will vote for Barack Obama next year no matter how destructive and/or incompetent he is. This election in New York may or may not be an indicator of how the 2012 election will go, but I can assure you that Obama will not go quietly. If you think he can lose on his record, keep in mind that Franklin Roosevelt was president during sustained periods of 20+% unemployment, yet the voters kept sending him back three more times.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

"Bow" or "Bow"? - As it turns out, President Obama knows about neither

2011-09-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

I have finally had the opportunity to view some of last Sunday's 9/11 ten-year commemoration coverage. Most of it was done in a respectful and somber manner, even to a fault it seemed - this morning, local talk radio duo Armstrong and Getty expressed their disdain at Sunday's "griefgasm" that included a commercial showing the Budweiser horses bowing toward New York City.

What left me most appalled at Sunday's coverage was the speech given by our Dear Leader at the site of the World Trade Center Memorial. President Obama, who, after attending Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ for 20+ years and says he prays every day and should know something about the Bible, made a faux-pas that I believe ranks up there with the time he called a Navy Corpsman a "Corpse-man."

Obama was reciting (reading off his teleprompter) the 46th Psalm, which talks about snapping a spear and breaking a bow... as in a bow and arrow. Since Obama is actually unfamiliar with the Bible seeing as how all his church talked about was hating America and hating whitey, and is also unfamiliar with all things military, as his "Corpse-man" mispronunciation shows, it is no shocker that Obama flubbed his 46th Psalm reading by pronouncing "bow" the other way, such as: "Bow before the Japanese Emperor, a Saudi ruler, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives."

Hey Barry, you want to know how to properly recite the 46th Psalm? Let Color Sergeant Bourne from Zulu show you how it's done. God, I love this movie:

But wait, our Dear Leader wasn't done making an ass of himself. Since he is so good at bowing, you would think he would know that if there is anyone to whom you should bow your head, it is not the Emperor of Japan or some Saudi potentate, but to God. Did Obama do that? Yeah right:

If you look up "juxtaposition" in the dictionary, the above image should be included there. Doesn't this just tell you everything you need to know about the arrogant, narcissistic man-child that currently occupies our Oval Office? How can he bow before God when he is too busy working on his Mussolini impression? This one has always been my favorite:

If Obama had any shred of dignity left, he would "bow" out of the 2012 election and go back to Chicago.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

In Memorium: September 11, 2001

2011-09-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

On the 5th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I posted a memorial to one of the victims of those attacks. I did this as part of an Internet project called 2,996: Honoring the Victims of 9/11. Three years later, I took part again, and posted a new memorial to a different victim. Both of them died at the World Trade Center. Even though it has been five years and two years respectively since I posted these memorials, I have received occasional comments about them, including two comments just in the past couple of days. Obviously the victims' names were Googled by interested parties, and they came across my posts.

Sadly enough, I never saw any project advertised like the one five or two years ago, so I have decided to repost the two memorials I wrote in 2006 and 2009. The first memorial that I wrote in 2006 is for Christopher Faughnan:

Christopher Faughnan, 1963-2001

I recently told you that I, along with thousands of other bloggers, signed up to honor a victim of the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It is now time for me to carry out my promise. I know I am early (I am writing this on 9/6/06), but I think Mr. Faughnan deserves more than one day, don't you?

Christopher Faughnan was born on October 31, 1963 in Colorado. He attended the University of Colorado, Boulder, graduating in 1985. Chris met his wife Cathy while both were undergraduates at CU. He was working as a security guard, she as a lifeguard. One day, Cathy held up a piece of paper to Chris that said, "Cute Butt."

Chris and Cathy had three children: Siena, Juliet, and Liam. The Faughnan family lived in South Orange, New Jersey and Chris worked as a government bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, which was located on floors 101-105 in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

When Chris got home every weekday at 6:30 p.m. from his job, "he would get the kids all crazy," Cathy said. "They would jump around him, laughing and kissing him." Chris and Cathy bought a minivan, and Chris ferried the three children to art classes, gymnastic practice, ballet lessons and soccer games.

According to Chris's younger brother Michael, Chris was a, "compassionate, respectful and generous man. He stood in defense of our environment, volunteered his time and money in support of human rights, and gave unselfishly to help disadvantaged, vulnerable members of our society. He spoke openly against unjust government policies, and followed a private ethic of compassion."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Chris was working in his office in the North Tower. At about 8:30am, Chris had talked to his youngest daughter, Juliet, who was four years old at the time. Chris cajoled Juliet into saying "I love you" to him. Juliet was the last Faughnan family member to speak to Chris. At 8:46am, Islamic terrorists piloting American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center just below the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald. Chris was one of 658 employees of Cantor Fitzgerald who died that awful day. Chris Faughnan, husband and father of three, was 37 years old.

After Chris's death, Cathy and the children moved to Boulder, Colorado to be closer to family.

In a November 2003 tribute to his brother, Michael Faughnan had this to say about Chris:
"There are many adjectives I could use to describe my brother, but words always fall short. So I guess I'll just identify a scene perhaps many may relate to. It may sound superficial but it really is quite telling. You know when you're in a bar and there's somebody in the group that looks to you and says, 'what are you drinking?' and he comes back with three or four drinks for others - that's an example of Chris. Not keeping score on who buys the next round, but because he wants you to have a beer and not pay for it.

So the next time somebody buys you a beer - not expecting one in return- think of my brother."

God Bless you, and Good Day to You, Christopher Faughnan

Sources:
http://www.legacy.com/Sept11.asp?Page=Story&PersonID=96021
http://www.irishtribute.com/tributes/view.adp@d=236920&t=245269.html
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill_faughnan.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor_Fitzgerald_Securities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center

Next is the memorial I wrote in 2009 for Joan Francis:

Three years ago, I profiled Christopher Faughnan, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I have linked the profile to his name if you wish to read it. I wrote about Mr. Faughnan as a part of the 2,996 Project, which was begun to help remember the 2,996 innocent people who were killed on September 11, 2001 in the World Trade Center, in the hijacked airplanes, or in the Pentagon. The way the Project works is that bloggers sign up to honor one or more victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The person I was assigned is a woman named Joan Francis. While I found all kinds of information for Christopher Faughnan, it was very difficult to find any information on Ms. Francis. After Googling her name, I noticed that on list after list of all the 9/11 victims, Ms. Francis was the only person on the entire list who did not have her age and town/state of residence listed beside her name. I found one website that quoted a government official from the Carribean island nation of Trinidad-Tobago identifying Ms. Francis as being a citizen of that country.

The lack of information or photos of Ms. Francis saddened me greatly, as I could not find out if there is anyone - friends or family - who miss her or give tribute to her memory. So Joan Francis of Trinidad-Tobago, although I have never met you; I don't know what you look like; I have no idea what kind of person you were or what kind of life you led; I do know that you were present in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and you deserve to be remembered and honored for giving your life on that horrible day that still haunts my dreams.

God Bless you, and Good Day to You, Joan Francis

Source: http://www.caribvoice.org/Features/caritoll.html

God Bless these two people, the thousands of other victims who died that day, and also the thousands of American servicemembers who have died in the wars that were born out of the aftermath of that day ten years ago that changed the United States forever.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Ten Years Later: September 11, 2001

2011-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Where were you when you first heard or saw the news? My wife and I were getting ready for work. This was before kids, so we always had the TV tuned to the local news as we got ready. At around 5:50am PST, the local news cut away to a special report, saying that apparently, an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center and one of the towers was on fire. At that time, they didn't know if it was an accident or what kind of plane it was.

As my wife and I watched the smoke rise from the gaping hole in the top of the North Tower, I watched another airplane flash into view from the right side of the screen. It disappeared behind the towers, and then a split second later, a giant fireball filled the screen. I'm sure you have seen this footage yourself.

It is crazy how the mind works during a stressful moment. Even after I watched the second plane fly into the South Tower, I will always remember my first thought, which was, "Man, there is some air traffic controller who is royally screwing up." My mind still hadn't wrapped itself around the fact that this was a terrorist attack! Talk about having a "September 10th" mentality.

As the morning quickly unfolded, my wife and I had to continue getting ready for work. But when news came in that the Pentagon had been hit as well, that is when I called my parents. My Dad answered the phone, and I will always remember what I said. I asked, "Are you watching the TV?" He said he wasn't. I told him, "Turn on the news right now!"

I wasn't teaching in 2001; I was still working full time at the California National Guard State Headquarters in the Inspector General office. I had called in earlier to ask if they wanted us to come in and they said to wait and they would call. They finally did call at about 6:45am and said come in to work. It was during my drive to work that the news on the car radio announced that the South Tower had collapsed. That was 6:59am PST. I got into my office and the rest of the staff already had the TV on. We watched the North Tower collapse at 7:28am PST. After the North Tower collapsed, the leadership at the CalGuard HQ changed their minds and sent everyone home. My wife was not so lucky. She attempted to teach her 1st graders for the rest of the day, but not much teaching was accomplished. She was told that she could not talk about it with her class (understandable with six year olds). Every recess she shuffled her students out as fast as possible so she could turn on the TV. As for me, I spent the rest of the day in front of the television with a perpetual look of astonishment on my face. When one of the newscasters said that, based on how many people worked in the World Trade Center on a typical day, as many as 30,000 people could have been killed, I burst into tears.

As the day wore on, I also tried to digest the news that a fourth plane had been crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. By the time my wife got home, she and I were both absolutely numb.

In the years since that awful day, our entire society has changed. Life has almost become Orwellian, as we live in an increasingly repressive police state with the TSA molesting and manhandling us at the airport; we live in a state of perpetual warfare in such places as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya ("We have always been at war with Eastasia"); and through laws like the PATRIOT Act, the federal government has the ability to conduct surveillance on Americans that, while the feds insist now that abuses of these laws cannot happen, there is no guarantee that these laws will not be abused in the future, if they are not being abused already. Creeping tyranny in this country has become so pronounced that, more often than not, I question which I should fear more: Islamic terrorism or the actions of my own federal and state governments? What should I fear more: the one in lightning-strike chance that I or my family could be killed in a terrorist attack, or the almost 100% chance that the legislature and governor of my home state of California are - through Assembly Bill 144 - about to shut off any method for me to defend myself and my family with a firearm? What should I fear more: A one in a lightning-strike chance that Islamic terrorists will kill me or my family, or a fifty-fifty chance that due to job-killing and crony-protecting laws, regulations, and spending passed by the federal government, my wife and I will lose our livelihoods, our home, and God knows what else?

My children were born in 2004 and 2006. They will never know an America as it existed before September 11, 2001; just as I, having been born in 1972, will never know the America that existed before the national cultural and financial upheaval that began in the mid-to-late 1960s. Even after the 1960s ended, I like to think that the United States still enjoyed just a smidgen of innocence in the decades that followed. I believe that smidgen of innocence was extinguished on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, and I don't know if we will ever get it back. The thought that my children are growing up in the roiling cauldron that is Post-9/11 America pains my wife and me to no end.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Who do U.S. military members like better, Obama or Bush?

2011-09-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

h/t to Bookworm Room (see blogroll):

Say what you will about George W. Bush (and I have plenty, and it isn't pretty), it was always very obvious that he was loved by the servicemembers he commanded. Just watch this rousing reception when Bush was introduced to a crowd of Marines during his presidency:

Now contrast that with the reception a group of what looks to be Marines and Navy personnel gave Obama just the other day. Notice what it takes to get them to finally applaud:

Can't say I blame them. I ended my 12-year stint in the U.S. Army and National Guard during Bush's presidency, but I served all four years of my active duty under Bill Clinton. I swear to you, I felt more honored to serve under Clinton than I would under Obama. Left-wing politics aside, at least Clinton has some wisp of masculine gravitas to him. Obama is just a preening metrosexual who I can't imagine would last more than a week in the military.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Agency Fee Payers: It's that time of year again

2011-09-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

It is time once again for the yearly ritual that teachers like me who are not members of the California Teachers Association (CTA) must accomplish if we wish to get back a portion of the union dues that we are nonetheless forced by law to pay to the CTA if we want to continue teaching in this benighted state.

California is a "closed shop" or "non-right to work" state whose laws force teachers like me to pay approximately $900 in annual dues to the CTA, even if I am not a member. Luckily, I get about $300 of that money back, as that is the approximate amount of my dues that the CTA uses, not for work related issues, but for political activism - the lion's share of that money going to Leftist/Statist/Democrat causes. If a member of the CTA wants that money back, he has to donate it a charity that is on a CTA-approved list. If the member simply wants the money back free and clear, he must quit the CTA, as I have done.

If you are a conservative teacher like me who is sick of having his money forcibly confiscated and used to support causes that disgust you, you can get that money back. And as for liability insurance and all those benefits that that CTA promises its members? You can use your $300 refund to buy better benefits from the Association of American Educators (AAE), who are linked in my blogroll at left. I have been a member for about five years now, and I couldn't be happier with them.

For further information, you can also check out the California Teachers Empowerment Network (CTEN), who also writes about such issues, and can also be found on my blogroll.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A bumper sticker that would make Orwell blush

2011-09-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

Traveling the highways and byways of the Sacramento area on a daily basis gives me witness to occasional displays of stupidity on the bumpers of people's cars.

On my way home from work this afternoon, I glimpsed a bumper sticker that said this:

Pro-Child

Pro-Family

Pro-Choice

Really? So which part of this stance is "pro-child"? Is it when a pair of scissors is inserted into the back of the baby's skull? Is it when a baby is torn and picked out of the womb, limb by limb? Is it when a still-alive baby that has just been aborted is shuffled off in a bucket to the corner of the room where he or she dies slowly and painfully?

At this point, a naysayer throws the usual argument at me that it is just as well that these abortions take place because many of these aborted babies would have been born into terrible circumstances such as poverty and abuse. To that I say, if this is your criteria for playing God and deciding who is born and who isn't, then why should we stop at the unborn? My wife and I both teach in pretty dysfunctional parts of town. We could give you quite a lengthy list of elementary and middle school-age kids who live absolutely miserable lives, and this jackwagon driving the car with that bumper sticker could end their misery right quick. Heck it makes more sense to kill these kids who have been born, as we know they live miserable lives, whereas with unborn babies, we can only guess. I know this is quite a swiftian proposition I am making here, but it is a road that has been traveled before in world history.

When I was young and dumb, I considered myself "pro-choice." Now that I am a father of two children, I definitely don't think that way anymore, but I actually changed my stance in my mid-20s, years before I had kids of my own. I think what changed my views on abortion the most was a news story sometime in 1998 out of Montana - or some state up in the northwest - where a pregnant woman was jailed and slated for trial on charges that she was using illegal drugs while pregnant, thereby abusing her unborn baby. So you know how she got the child abuse charges dropped and gained her freedom? She got an abortion. Think about it: She skated on the charges of abusing her baby by killing her baby.

Let's put that on a bumper sticker.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Yeah, more debt. That'll do it!

2011-09-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

So, our Dear Leader wants to stack $300 billion more onto our already out-of-control debt.

Just to remind you of what this means, check out how far we have come and where we are headed; and keep in mind that the red bars begin the same year as Obama's presidency:

It's as if the house was on fire when Firefighter Obama arrived, but he started spraying it with a tanker truck full of gasoline.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Technical difficulties repaired?

2011-09-01T14:08:00.002-07:00

That was weird. I had to copy and paste the last three posts onto a Word document, and then delete them off the blog. I then reposted them, and my menu is back up on the left side. Hopefully, this was a permanent fix.

I am getting sick of Blogger; maybe I'll switch to WordPress.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Representative Wilson, meet Mayor Nutter

2011-09-01T14:08:00.001-07:00

I don't know how this clown got past my radar, as I had never heard of her until today. Florida Congresscritter Frederica Wilson appeared on MSNBC yesterday to explain the reasons that blacks in the United States are being affected by the Great Recession more than other ethnic groups. Her list was of the tired, unimaginative, cliched variety that included racism, of course. She also mentioned this digital divide that supposedly exists.

And then there is the hat. Apparently wearing a ridiculous hat everywhere she goes is this woman's schtick. She has even petitioned House Speaker John Boehner to drop the "No hats in the House Chamber" rule that has been in place since 1837. Wearing a hat like this while performing your official duties as a sitting member of the United States Congress is an absolute disgrace, and this woman should be ashamed of herself. I get the feeling however that shame is not something that is part of her personality profile. Enough of my written description of this clown; don't just read the transcript, roll the tape!

When you look at African American males, 40% of them are unemployed, those under 30 years of age. I understand exactly the entire nation must be involved in this recovery but the black community is experiencing a great recession. That's what we're experiencing... And all of the growth in the past 30 years, we see it slipping away. From home ownership, the middle class; it's slipping away from our hands. And it has a lot to do with many issues. Racism, shipping jobs overseas, access -- no access to technology. You know, the digital divide is there and many of the new jobs that's what it requires. So, we have a problem.

For good measure, this same Congresscritter referred to the Tea Party as "the real enemy" in a speech she gave yesterday. Frederica Wilson apparently decided to join the Civility Brigade with Maxine Waters.

As for Wilson's concern about why black Americans under the age of 30 are especially having trouble finding work, I refer her to the words spoken by the Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter (who is also black).

In his speech last week to a Philadelphia church congregation about the mobs of young blacks who are tearing that city apart, Mayor Nutter doesn't blame the problems that young blacks face finding a job on racism, shipping jobs overseas, or the digital divide. His reasons are a bit less esoteric:

I'll tell you one thing - if I was interviewing job candidates, and one walked in wearing a hat as ridiculous as that worn by Frederica Wilson, I would toss that application in the trash as soon as the person walked through my door.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Now that's what I call school spirit!

2011-09-01T14:06:00.000-07:00

Some parents at our kids' elementary school told my wife about a YouTube video made last May by a local middle school that you just have to see.

With our educational system the way it is, government bureaucrats would look at these students not studying their language arts and math and shake their heads with a tsk, tsk. However, years from now, when they are all grown up, these students will never forget what they did in this video and the work they did preparing for it.

The best part is that this is the school to which my kids are slated to attend when they reach middle school. Knowing what can go on in middle schools (after all, I teach in one), it does my heart well, and my wife's heart well, to know that this is the kind of enthusiasm and spirit that awaits our children in a few years:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Maxine had more to say... don't cut her off!

2011-08-22T22:19:00.001-07:00

All day long today, I heard about and read about Kleptocrat California Congresscritter Maxine Waters, who represents south central Los Angeles, saying during a speech to her constitutents and SEIU thugs that the Tea Party, "can go straight to hell."

I thought that was bad enough, but then on the way home from work, as I was listening to talk radio, Mark Levin was gracious enough to play the entire quote. Telling the Tea Party to go straight to hell is bad enough, but what she said a few seconds later was even worse. Ms. Waters waited for the applause to dissipate a bit, then then added that she intended to help the Tea Party get to hell.

Watch and listen to this vicious, hateful creature:

Again, for the record, the exact money quote to her minions from the lovely Maxine Waters was:

...You can't be intimidated, you can't be frightened; as far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell! And, and I intend to help 'em get there!

And how was Maxine figuring she would send me and my fellow Tea Party members to hell? Did a sitting member of the United States Congress just say that she wants us dead and is going to try to make that happen? First, we are terrorists, and now we belong in hell. This just gets scarier and scarier. Seriously. Remind me again, what was it our Dear Leader, Barack Obama, said during his speech in Arizona in the wake of the the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and several others? Oh yeah:

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized -- at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds....

Somehow, I don't think Maxine will be upbraided by the Messiah for that comment. On the other hand, I can see him giving her a nasty call about what she said in Detroit to a black audience a few days before telling the Tea Party where they can go:

Hear that? The Congressional Black Caucus is, "tired, y'all." They are tired of defending this president who, according to Maxine Waters, did not visit a sufficient number of black communities on his recent BlunderBus tour through Iowa, and she was practically begging the black audience to turn her and the CBC loose on the President in response to his inability to drag the black community out of their jobless morass in which they currently find themselves.

I wouldn't be surprised if Maxine made her Tea Party remark in order to take the focus off what she said about Obama in Detroit. When she made those remarks, she was messing with his most loyal voting bloc. On the other hand, the Tea Party remark will cost Maxine Waters and Barack Obama not a single thing.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Back in the trenches

2011-08-20T14:23:00.001-07:00

After a short staff meeting and spending the rest of the day setting up my classroom back on Monday, I just finished up my first week back teaching 8th grade U.S. History. I feel like a combat veteran with survivor's guilt. Last year, two of my fellow social studies teachers - who had been hired by our district just one year after me - were let go in the great budget crunch. One of the teachers taught all 8th grade, the other taught all 7th grade. They have been replaced by one teacher who is teaching half 8th and half 7th. With one fewer teacher teaching our subject, I have seen a significant increase in the number of students in my individual classes. My first clue that this was going to happen was when I first walked into my classroom and saw that the 32 desks that were in my classroom when I walked out two months ago had increased to 37. Uh oh.

Last year, I had a class that started out at 22, fell to 17 at one point, then rebounded to 23 by the end of the year. This year, my smallest class is 33 students. I teach 5 periods, so the total number of students I have right now is 178. Some of my fellow teachers have classes in excess of 42 students.

This is when some of members of the chattering classes - many of whom are, unfortunately, conservative - smugly tell us that in Japan, or Korea, or Singapore, teachers have no problems with classes of 40 or even 50 students, so what is my friggin' problem? Of course, these teachers across the vast Pacific don't have problems with their large classes! Their students are actually expected to behave, and the teachers and administrators of schools over there actually have the ability to make the students behave, or else. Due to a state education code that ties both our hands behind our backs and then lashes them to our ankles, we teachers and administrators here in California do not have the same classroom and campus management tools at our disposal.

Judging by the campus-wide behavior of our students so far this year - five students have already been suspended for fighting, including three of my students - I have a feeling I will have plenty of opportunities this year to lay out a sobering picture for you of just how dysfunctional our state's education system continues to be.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Jackson-Lee and Pelosi attempt to out-stupid each other

2011-08-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Last month, in the middle of the debt ceiling debate, Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) sidled up to the podium on the House floor and threw down the race card:

"I do not understand what I think is the maligning and maliciousness [toward] this president,” said Jackson Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Why is he different? And in my community, that is the question that we raise. In the minority community that is question that is being raised. Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully? Why has the debt limit been raised 60 times? Why did the leader of the Senate continually talk about his job is to bring the president down to make sure he is unelected?”

Earlier in her speech, Jackson Lee said Obama has been targeted unlike any other president.
"I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president — only this one, only this one — has received the kind of attacks and disagreement and inability to work, only this one," said Jackson Lee from the House floor.

"Read between the lines," she continued. "What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful treatment of when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statute and the 14th amendment?"

Michelle Malkin's guest blogger, Doug Powers, best summed up the obvious response to Jackson-Lee's bloviating with sarcastic flair:

And all this time I thought opposition to raising the debt ceiling might have something to do with the fact that Obama’s record so far on deficit spending is making even Bush look like a piker. I stand corrected.
But Jackson Lee’s frustration stems from the obvious: Democrats treated George W. Bush with great respect, always gave him the benefit of the doubt, didn’t block his appointments and always supported his requests to raise the debt ceiling, so she only wants Republicans to return the favor now that Obama is president.
Five years ago, Senator Obama said “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. America deserves better.” Now, when people agree with Obama’s statement, Sheila Jackson Lee insinuates that they’re racists? Color me confused.

You would think that one would hear no more about this; that no one in his or her right mind would double down on this "Criticizing Obama is always racist" theme. Ahhh, but folks, statist stupidity knows no bounds. As the presidency of our Dear Leader, President Obummer, continues to circle the drain, Barack's sycophants become more and more desperate.

Now we have San Francisco's finest, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, making a speech to a group of Sheila Jackson-Lee's constituents where she agrees with Jackson-Lee's assessment of Obama's critics. Talk about being stuck on stupid:

What really disturbs me is the enthusiastic applause from the crowd. We really are becoming two nations, and I don't mean on racial lines; I mean political ones.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

California's statist legislature is close to checkmating state gun owners

2011-08-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

California has what are most likely the most stringent gun laws of any state in the nation. If you wish to defend yourself and your family by carrying a concealed handgun in California, you must endure a byzantine application process where your request is at the mercy of the Sheriff of your county of residence. You must show cause for your desire to carry a concealed handgun, and as far as I know, defense of yourself and your family is not considered a good cause. From what I understand, being a crony or good friend of the Sheriff and lining his pockets with a substantial financial contribution to his or her election campaign is a cause that is much more likely to get one's concealed-carry permit approved.

As the state law is currently written, if someone is not approved for a concealed-carry permit (and most applicants are not) one can still open-carry in California. What this means is that according to California Penal Code section 12031, you can carry a handgun on your person as long as it is visible and unloaded. Most open carriers have their unloaded pistol in a holster on one hip, and their loaded magazines in a magazine holster on the other hip, as the law states that your ammunition must be visible as well. Oh, and you cannot open-carry within 1,000 feet of a school. Oh, and a police officer can stop you and check to ensure your weapon is unloaded. So even though there are all kinds of nit-picky rules for open-carry as well, at least you do not need any kind of permit to do this. For now.

State Assembly member Anthony Portantino (Democrat, naturally) is currently guiding Assembly Bill (AB) 144 through the state legislature. Last I checked, it had cleared the Assembly, and is now being considered in the State Senate, which is dominated by Democrats. If it passes through the Senate (which it will in all likelihood), it will then go before our Democrat Governor, who is not a fan of the Second Amendment. Once AB 144 passes, then that is it. Checkmate. You cannot carry concealed; you cannot carry openly. You are totally disarmed.

For a good summation of all this, I urge you to view this 8-minute video put out by the Reason Foundation. They interview an Open-Carry advocate from San Diego who eloquently explains his position, and then they interview none other than Portantino himself, where he proceeds to display his absolute imbecility with the arguments he makes in support of his AB 144:

What is particularly frustrating is that there have been federal lawsuits in the past where citizens of California have tried to vacate or ease back California's concealed-carry laws, but federal judges have refused to do so, because after all, if you can't get obtain a concealed-carry permit, you can always open-carry. In a recent case out of Yolo County - Richards v. County of Yolo - in which plaintiff Adam Richards attempted to obtain a concealed-carry permit after being denied one by the Yolo County Sheriff, the judge found against Richards because after all...

Under the statutory scheme, even if Plaintiffs are denied a concealed weapon license for self-defense purposes from Yolo County, they are still more than free to keep an unloaded weapon nearby their person, load it, and use it for self-defense in circumstances that may occur in a public setting.

Hmmm, so if Portantino's unconstitutional travesty of a bill becomes law, then what? What do the law-abiding citizens of California do? Must we walk down the sidewalk carrying a rifle or shotgun? Or will Portantino then call for that to be outlawed as well? If AB 144 becomes law, I think people should break out their long guns and take a friendly stroll down the street (staying at least a thousand feet away from schools of course) and it goes without saying that the law would also need to be challenged in court. California's concealed-carry restrictions are bad enough, but to also outlaw open-carry and leave California's law-abiding citizens even more defenseless than they already are sickens me.

In case you are interested in letting Portantino hear your respectful thoughts on what you think of his attempts to kill all efforts of law-abiding Californians to defend themselves, here is his telephone number and a link to his Assembly website. Right now, he has a big feature on his homepage where he is bragging about his beloved AB 144:

Assemblymember Anthony Portantino

(916) 319-2044

Should you also like to contact your State Senator and urge their "No" vote, since AB 144 currently resides on the Senate calendar, you can find the contact information to your State Senator here.

Oh, and one last thought on which to chew: In Vermont, you don't even need a permit to carry concealed, let alone open. Have you heard about any crime problems in Vermont lately?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Idiotic Dems say: Unemployment benefits create jobs

2011-08-11T15:41:00.001-07:00

Who knew? We now have two high-ranking Democrats in Washington going on record saying that the fastest and bestest way to economic prosperity is to keep handing out unemployment benefits.

Nancy Pelosi from last summer:

"[Unemployment benefits] injects demand into the economy," Pelosi said, arguing that when families have money to spend it keeps the economy churning. "It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name."

And now we have Obama's spokesmouth, Jay Carney, saying essentially the same thing just the other day:

There are few other ways that can directly put money into the economy than applying unemployment insurance... It is one of the most direct ways to infuse money directly into the economy because people who are unemployed and obviously aren't running a paycheck are going to spend the money that they get. They're not going to save it, they're going to spend it. And with unemployment insurance, that way, the money goes directly back into the economy, dollar for dollar virtually.

Seriously, how can people who are this ignorant make it that high into the upper echelons of power in this country? I mean, try to wrap your mind around their so-called logic: Perpetually paying people not to work creates jobs? This line of thinking begs the obvious question: If paying people unemployment benefits creates jobs, then why doesn't the government give EVERYONE unemployment benefits? I always think of the same thing regarding the minimum wage. If raising it from $5/hour to $7/hour with the stroke of a pen helps people so much, then why not force employers to pay employees at least $10/hour? Or even better $100/hour? That'll fix everything right? Quit pussyfooting around!

Please understand, I realize the immediate relief that people feel when they can fall back on unemployment payments while they ride a rough patch between the job they lost and their next job. However, if someone is unable to find another job after 99 weeks of supposedly (or actually) looking, then we have bigger problems facing the nation. Unemployment benefits do not create more jobs; employers who have the available capital and the confidence of consistent economic conditions unencumbered by excessive government taxation and regulation are the ones who create jobs. Keeping tax rates high in order to extend unemployment benefits does nothing but take more money away from the business owners and employers out there who could take that money and use it to hire more people.

Our government continuing to confiscate money and hand it to other people harkens to the old economic metaphor of scooping a bucket full of water from the deep end of a swimming pool and dumping it in the shallow end, with the expectation that it will improve the water level of the shallow end. What needs to happen is for government to put the bucket away and let the pool owners put in more water.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Time to fit me for an orange jumpsuit?

2011-08-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a Tea Party member. I even have the t-shirt. According to the ubiquitous meme that I have been hearing all over the airwaves, however, I guess I should prepare myself to trade in that t-shirt for an orange Guantanamo jumpsuit.

It is one thing to be called a terrorist by the morons in the statist media, such as Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News, Chris Matthews of MSNBC, Joan Walsh of Salon, and Thomas Friedman of the New York Times; it is quite another to be called a terrorist by our elected officials, who have the power of life and death over me.

When the Vice President of the United States is agreeing with the statist nutballs in the congress that Tea Party members are acting like terrorists, I have to seriously wonder what are the intentions of Biden and company? Are they laying the groundwork for something?

Pass it off as paranoia if you wish, but in this day and age, I am wary of putting anything past our imperial federal government.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

So Barack, what do you think about raising the debt limit?

2011-07-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

Why aren't the spineless, squishy Republicans playing and referencing this quote at every opportunity? Why? Oh yeah, they're spineless and squishy.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

Senator Barack Obama
March 20, 2006

Keep in mind, that was when he was arguing against raising the debt limit to $9 Trillion. Now, five years later as President, he wants to raise the debt limit past $14.3 Trillion.

Please folks, vote out this clown in 2012.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Rule number one of interviewing: Never ask a question to which you do not already know the answer

2011-07-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

So learneth Contessa Brewer of MSNBC while questioning Representative Mo Brooks (R-Alabama).

He should have asked her what degree she has. Somehow I doubt it is in economics. What a ditz.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Crowds and unbelievable beauty: Yosemite lives up to its reputation

2011-07-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I was not looking forward to going to Yosemite National Park during our just-finished vacation. While it has a reputation for being beautiful, Yosemite is also known for huge crowds, waiting in line, and vehicle-choked roads leading in to the place. In all categories, Yosemite lived up to its reputation.

I detest crowds, so hiking in the Yosemite area will never be my first choice; I know of so many wilderness areas where you will see nary a soul during your entire hike. However, there is a reason there are such crowds in Yosemite: It is breathtakingly gorgeous!

While our home base during our vacation was a house near Bass Lake directly to the south, our whole group of ten family members ventured into Yosemite last Tuesday. Here are some of the photographic highlights I took during that day, and remember, you can click on any of the images for better detail:

At the end of the day, I wasn't satisfied with the views we saw, so I resolved to return the next day, and take the road to Glacier Point, which overlooks much of Yosemite Valley from about 3,500 feet up. Everyone else wanted to go to the beach at Bass Lake, so I went solo. Here is what awaited me when I got to the top:

Rather than a wilderness destination, I felt more like I was at some sort of living, interactive art gallery. I can tolerate crowds for something like that!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

On to my next vacation

2011-07-08T23:19:00.001-07:00

Not that I have blogged much this summer, but my paucity of postings may get more meager yet.

The family and I have already spent a week enjoying the zoo and beaches in San Diego this summer. Now, we leave tomorrow for a week of swimming and sightseeing at Bass Lake, which is about a half-hour south of Yosemite.

We have never been to this lake before, but we have seen it quite extensively on celluloid, as it was the location filming spot for the 1988 comedy The Great Outdoors, starring Dan Aykroyd and the the late, great John Candy. Let's hope I have a better time than John Candy's character. My brother-in-law will even be there at the lake with me, but he is nothing like Aykroyd's character!

During one of the days next week, we will be driving up to Yosemite. The last time I was there, I was too young to remember, so it will essentially be a first for me. I hope to take some amazing photos. I'm no Ansel Adams, but I figure you can't go wrong snapping Yosemite.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What goes up, must come down: The United States ends its Space Shuttle program. Now what?

2011-07-08T22:38:00.001-07:00

The Space Shuttle Atlantis took off today on the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, which has been launching the Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis into orbit since April of 1981.

I marginally remember watching the launch of the first space shuttle - the Columbia - when I was 8 years old, but for some reason, I never forgot the names of the two astronauts who flew that mission: John Young and Robert Crippen. Since that time, 355 astronauts have flown on 135 missions, with two of those missions ending in the destruction of the Challenger and Columbia, at the cost of 14 lives.

I am torn regarding the conclusion of the Space Shuttle missions. Being the free market guy I am, I believe that the private sector should be leading the way to space. There are still satellites to send up and, maybe someday, passengers to carry and asteroid minerals to mine... who knows what the possibilities are? But with the possibility to make a substantial profit, entrepreneurial men and women will figure it out. With NASA dominating the space race for the last 50 or so years, with its access to an almost endless supply of taxpayer largess, private enterprise couldn't quite compete against the U.S. government. Now that NASA is out of a job - save raising the self-esteem of Muslims - perhaps all these soon-to-be-out-of-work NASA engineers will find new life in the private sector.

What it boils down to is that while I am always uncomfortable with the government performing extra-constitutional functions that the private sector can and should perform, I do admit to harboring a special nostalgia and pride for our government space programs: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, Hubble Telescope, Mars Missions, solar system probes, and the International Space Station. For goodness sake, we put men on the moon! Yet, the Obama administration seems to have brought a glorious government program to an inglorious end. I feel like our space program deserves a more respectful conclusion. Instead, there is nothing in the hopper, nothing planned for the future (that I know of). The Obama administration comes off like a little kid who has had his fun with his space toy and just tosses it off to the side before moving on to something else.

On the other hand, I am feeling rather queasy thinking about a spacecraft plastered with sponsor stickers like some stock car at Daytona. I'll get used to it.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Don't forget our Founders' sacrifices

2011-07-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

As we celebrate the 235th birthday of the united States of America, please be sure to pause and contemplate the sacrifices made by our Founding Fathers in their efforts to make our country a reality. While liars like the late Howard Zinn would have you believe that the Founders only wanted independence in order to make money and exploit people, the reality is that many of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence lost everything they had.

One such example is signer Richard Stockton. After returning from Philadelphia after signing the Declaration, here is what happened as he returned to his home state of New Jersey:

As he returned from Philadelphia to his home in New Jersey, Judge Stockton was warned that British troops were coming to arrest him. He fled to a neighbor’s house with his wife and children. But a Loyalist, a supporter of the British cause, betrayed the family’s hiding place. Here is what happened next, as described in a wonderful little book Personal Liberty has made available in PDF form:

The judge was dragged from bed and beaten, then thrown into prison. This distinguished jurist, who had worn the handsome robes of a colonial court, now shivered in a common jail, abused and all but starved.

A shocked Congress arranged for his parole. Invalided by the harsh treatment he had received, he returned to (his home at) Morven to find his furniture and clothing burned, his fine horses stolen, and his library — one of the finest private collections in the country — completely destroyed. The hiding place of exquisite family silver, hastily buried, had been betrayed by a servant.

The Stocktons were so destitute that they had to accept charity. For the judge’s fortune was gone, too. He had pledged it and his life to his country. He lost both. He did not live to see the Revolution won.

For more information on the fate of the signers of the Declaration, please finish the article.

Happy Independence Day, and God Bless America.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Jeremiah Wright proves who the racist is

2011-07-03T20:43:00.001-07:00

As you listen to this toxic racist give an extended discourse about how all white people are liars, remember that our Dear Leader, Barack Obama, spent 20 years sitting in this man's pews and considered Wright to be his mentor:

I think what bothers me most of all is the overwhelmingly positive response that Wright receives from his enthusiastic audience at the African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia.

God save us.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The War Between the States was deadlier than previously thought

2011-06-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

The oft-agreed upon and repeated number of Americans - North and South - who were killed in the U.S. Civil War/War Between the States/War for Southern Independence is 620,000. That is the number I have always seen, and that is the number I have always taught my students.

However, historian J. David Hacker will soon release an article in which he pegs that number as at least 20% higher than previously thought. Hacker believes that the number of Americans killed during the War Between the States could be as high as 850,000, but is definitely about 750,000.

With the U.S. only containing a population of 31 million at the time, this number of dead is mindboggling. 620,000 was bad enough.

Hacker's numbers find most of the increase in the number of Confederate dead. Historians have always conceded that record keeping was never as complete on the Confederate side, and their casualties were notoriously undercounted.

If this new estimated number of 750,000 holds water, that would put the number of Americans killed in the War Between the States as about 50,000 more than the number killed in the American Revolution, War of 1812, Mexican War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do the math yourself, and keep in mind that these numbers include deaths from all causes; not just combat. In fact, I will provide two numbers for each war, with the second number being the approximate number of actual combat deaths:

American Revolution: 25,000/4,400

War of 1812: 20,000/2,200

Mexican War: 13,000/1,700

Indian Wars: 2,000/1,000

Spanish-American War: 2,000/385

World War I: 116,000/53,000

World War II: 408,000/292,000

Korean War: 54,000/33,000

Vietnam War: 58,000/47,000

Persian Gulf War: 363/148

Iraq/Afghanistan: 5,000+/???

As if the War Between the States wasn't horrific enough...

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The needle on Obama's gaffe meter hits a new low

2011-06-24T21:42:00.001-07:00

This one is not just embarrassing, it is tragic. The other day, our Dear Leader was speaking to the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum in upstate New York. In what seemed to me as a cheap way to try to endear himself to his military audience, Obama name-dropped one Sergeant First Class Jared Monti of the 10th Mountain Division, to whom Obama presented the Medal of Honor early in his presidency.

Obama told the soldiers in the audience:

“First time I saw the 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq,” Obama said on Thursday. “When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there.

“I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.”

One problem there genius: you cited the wrong friggin' soldier. SFC Monti did receive his award posthumously - he was killed in Afghanistan in 2006 while peforming the heroic act for which he received the award. Obama presented the posthumous Medal of Honor to Monti's parents at a White House ceremony in September, 2009. You can read SFC Monti's MoH citation here.

The name Obama was trying to recall was Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, which is based out of Vicenza, Italy. SSG Giunta did survive to receive his Medal of Honor from President Obama in November, 2010. You can read SSG Giunta's MoH citation here.

It gets better though folks. When the White House was queried as to how Obama could have made such an egregious error, the White House spokesmouth said that Obama had "no prepared remarks" during his Fort Drum speech. You know what that is code for right? NO TELEPROMPTER!

Are politicians - presidents included - going to make verbal gaffes? Of course. What continues to bother me and many others is the continuing double standard whereby conservative politicians are never allowed to live down their gaffes, but statist politicians are forgiven theirs. When the life story of President Obama is recounted in later years, do you think this horrific speaking error will be part of the narrative?

On the other side of the political aisle, the leftist dead tree media have never let us forget that Vice President Dan Quayle misspelled potato as "potatoe."

Which gaffe do you think is worse?

Since Quayle is rather old news, let's focus on a more current conservative that the Left loves to lampoon, and that is Sarah Palin. All we hear from the media is how stupid Palin is, but those same media morons look right past the many stupid statements made by that brilliant, god-like Obama.

Here then is a brilliant compilation of clips showing these media types railing on about Palin while, in juxtaposition, playing the many verbal missteps of Barack Obama. If you want to listen how truly mediocre this supposedly brilliant man is, just watch and listen for yourself. There are a few bad words from Bill Maher, so turn down the volume a bit:

The man is an embarrassment to the office.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Local Republican who is black demonstrates selective outrage

2011-06-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

Local political activist Ken Barnes was, until recently, a Republican who is also a black man. Notice I do not say "Black Republican" because making someone's race their primary identifier has never sat well with me. I have kept track of Barnes's doings, such as his unsuccessful 2010 run for a spot on the Los Rios College board (I voted for him). Though I don't know him personally, Barnes is one of my Facebook friends, where I always read his posts that show up on my Wall.

In the most recent edition of the Sunday Sacramento Bee, Barnes announced in an special editorial that he was leaving the Republican Party, mostly because of the fallout over a racially offensive cartoon that an Orange County Republican official named Marilyn Davenport sent to her friends by email. The cartoon insults President Obama thus:

Yes, I agree; this is extremely offensive, and Davenport ought to be ashamed of herself. She apologized, but for the good of the party, she would be better off resigning her position. She was rebuked by just about everybody around her, however, this is not enough for Mr. Barnes:

While the Orange County GOP chairman and a number of other committee members were quick to condemn the image and Davenport, what's disturbing is the incredible number of people who continue to defend Davenport's actions as well as the cartoon itself.

Had this been an isolated event, it could be set aside as a mere aberration. However, when placed in the context of similar offenses by the same self-identified tea party-conservative Republicans, there emerges a disturbing pattern of extreme intolerance.

Over the past two years, we have seen Republicans use long-held racist imagery in portrayals of Obama. The president has been depicted as a communist witch doctor, a man inclined to plant watermelons on the White House lawn, and we watched in disbelief as his face was placed on an "Obama Buck Food Stamp" along with stereotyped pictures of fried chicken, barbecue ribs, Kool-Aid and the obligatory watermelon.

Again, Mr. Barnes, you are right - there are idiots on the right side of the aisle who do themselves or the conservative side no favors by engaging in this kind of rotten behavior. However, I would venture to say that people who are supposedly defending what Marilyn Davenport did are not so much saying that is OK what she did as they are pointing out the hypocrisy of the political Left who get the vapors about images such as the Obama/Chimpanzee family cartoon, but have no problem with images like this:

For cripes sake, there is even an anti-George W. Bush/anti-Republican website called The Smirking Chimp that still operates as we speak. Its byline says "In Dishonor of the Worst President in U.S. History, 2001-2009."

Ah, but I know what the argument will be next: But George W. Bush is a white guy! It doesn't matter as much if he is made to look like a chimpanzee. OK, then let's take a look at what Democrats and the Left have done to Republican political figures who happen to be black:

First, there is this political cartoon from a leftist black website that performs a two-fer by insulting jurists Janice Rogers Brown and Clarence Thomas:

Black Commentator online magazine, which ran this cartoon, tried to defend it by saying they were just trying to make Rogers-Brown look like Clarence Thomas, but I'm not buying it. Last I checked, Clarence Thomas does not have a towering crop of nappy hair or a mammy-esque physique. Neither does Janice Rogers-Brown.

Then, there was the big-lipped image of Bush's National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, drawn by leftist political cartoonist Pat Oliphant:

Did this get you worked up Mr. Barnes? Or do you even know it exists?

The Left wasn't done with Condoleezza Rice. How about when leftist cartoonist Ted Rall called her a "House Nigga" and accused her of wanting to be white?

Did this get you worked up, Mr. Barnes? Or did you even know it exists?

Remember, far from being condemned or repudiated, Black Commentator, Pat Oliphant, and Ted Rall continue to be celebrated by their leftist peers. It is this double standard that is being brought up by people who are "defending" Marilyn Davenport.

Ken Barnes either does not care, or is not aware of the rampant racism that is being practiced by the political Left. The difference is that missteps like that done by Republican Marilyn Davenport are blasted all over the newspapers, while racism exhibited by leftists in the media gets a pass.

I wish Ken Barnes had studied this issue more thoroughly before making his decision to leave the Republican Party.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Sarah Palin wins another U.S. History contest against the smug morons in the media

2011-06-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Since I have not been blogging much of late, I haven't had the chance to throw in my two bits about Sarah Palin's awkward explanation of a little-known aspect of Paul Revere's famous Ride of April 18, 1775.

While visiting Boston, Palin had this to say about Revere's famous feat:

"He who warned uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."

Was Palin's explanation awkward? Yes. Giving answers off-the-cuff can be a bit scatterbrained sometimes; just ask our Teleprompter-in-Chief who "Uhh's" and "Ahh's" his way through statements that are not scrolling before him on little glass screens. However, despite her tortured syntax, Palin was historically correct in her statement. While Revere's main purpose that night was to warn the militia scattered throughout the countryside between Boston and Lexington/Concord, he did have opportunity to tell some of the British soldiers that night exactly what was awaiting them.

Even the Vicar of the Old North Church (from which hung the "one if by land" lantern) says that Palin not only got her statement correct, she got much of the information from him!

But the lesser-known tale of Revere warning the British of the American response to the march from Boston to Concord is nothing new. I just happened to find out just how not new the story is, and I found it purely by chance.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my family and I are currently staying with my wife's sister and her family in San Diego. I was perusing their bookshelf and came across a rather old-looking book that was given to my brother-in-law from his mother. The book is called Paul Revere and the Minute Men, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. It was published in 1950 by Random House - New York. I flipped through the book to see if it mentioned anything about Revere warning the British, and lo and behold, starting on page 162, I found the following passage (emphasis mine):

Paul and [William] Dawes turned their horses towards Concord, and a young Dr. Prescott rode along with them. He lived in the district, knew everyone and all the lanes and byroads.

This time, halfway to Concord, there were not two, but four British officers suddenly blocking the way. the Americans were forced into a field where six more British were waiting. In the darkness and confusion Dawes slid off his horse and managed to hide in the bushes. Prescott jumped a stone wall and rode off. But Paul was squarely cornered with a pistol cold against his forehead.

"Who are you? Where did you come from?"

Paul thought quickly. Someone might recognize him. Boldness was his only hope. "My name's Revere," he said. "I left Boston about ten o'clock...."

Then a bell, quite near, started ringing. The British looked at one another, worried. they quieted down and one of them, remembering orders, tried to explain why they were here. "We're only out after deserters," he said.

Paul saw his chance. "I know better. I know what you're after. But you won't get it. The alarm has been given everywhere. And it's spreading."

The British put their heads together and talked in tones too low for Paul Revere to hear. Then they took the reins out of his hands and led his horse in their midst back along the road to Lexington. the major waved his pistol and said, "As for you, Paul Revere, don't try to escape or I'll blow your brains out. You go back with us. We'll send you to England to be tried and hanged for treason."

Paul answered briefly. "Do as you like about that. But what chance have you to get to Boston? There are only ten of you. Your troops are hours away. There are at least five hundred Minute Men heading here at this minute. In an hour, there will be thousands more."

It was slow work leading Revere's horse. the road was dark and lonely. The Englishmen got uneasy and alarmed. With good reason. what chance did they have against a whole countryside swarming with armed men who hated them?

All at once a gun was fired. In the darkness, it rang out very loud. The officers drew their horses sharply to a halt.

"What was that?" the British major snapped out.
"Only another alarm gun. They're being fired like that everywhere from here to Connecticut. You've a mighty slim chance of getting back to Boston with whole skins." Revere spoke out boldly though he knew he was still in mortal danger.

The British officers had another short whispered talk. "Dismount," they told him. As Revere had hoped, they began to see that they had a better chance to escape without being burdened with a prisoner.

They mounted one of their sergeants on Paul's horse and, spurring their mounts to a run, vanished down the road.

So what do you think? Did Revere also warn the British about anything that night, as Palin said? Remember, this book from which I just quoted was published in 1950. Palin's assertion is not some new knowledge. Instead, people have just remembered what they want to remember, and then in their ignorance, belittle anyone who mentions something not commonly known.

Speaking of which, a classic case of the media morons who displayed their own ignorance in their attempt to showcase Palin's can be summed up by Daniel Kurtzman, who writes for About.com. Kurtzman had this to say about Palin's statement:

As any elementary school student can probably tell you, Paul Revere was not attempting to warn the British when he rode around crying, "The British are coming." Nor was he ringing bells and trying to protect gun rights.

Looks like you need to go back to elementary school Mr. Kurtzman, because in your attempt to show us how brilliant you are compared to Sarah Palin, you got at least four historical facts wrong in that one short little missive.

First, we have already established that Revere did warn the British (some, not all, obviously) about what they were facing that night. Second, Revere did not yell, "The British are coming!" as Kurtzman states. That little canard was put to pasture a long, long time ago, yet Kurtzman still clings to it. Revere yelled, "The Regulars are coming!" or "The Regulars are out!" Third, Revere wasn't ringing bells, but as his warnings and those of the other riders blanketed the countryside, church bells did begin to ring as a signal for the militia to grab their weapons, as did warning shots being fired, as is mentioned in the book excerpt above. And fourth, the Battles of Lexington and Concord were all about gun rights. One of the primary missions of the British that day was to seize and/or destroy the militia's munitions caches which had been hidden in Concord. Yes, that is correct: The very first battle of the American Revolution was about gun control, and it was Paul Revere who is the most famous of the messengers who warned the militia about the British soldiers who were were on the way to seize that militia's means of defending itself and the colonies. Even the textbooks from which I teach my 8th graders do not shy away from explaining this. Yet, the smug (and very wrong) Mr. Kurtzman somehow missed something that elementary and middle school students are taught every year.

You know, the funny thing is that Sarah Palin is not even my first choice for the Republican presidential nomination, nor my second choice. Heck, she is not even running for President right now! Yet, I cannot help but chuckle in amusement at this obsession the lamestream media have with Palin. What is it about this woman that causes these media morons to make themselves look like utter fools in their vain efforts to discredit her? Remember when Palin rightly referenced that the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773? The media morons got that wrong too, even though they were convinced that they finally nailed her.

Right now, they are still poring over the 24,000 emails from her time as Alaska governor that were recently released. If only Barack Obama had received just one-quarter of the scrutiny that Sarah Palin has received from the lamestream media.

And Mr. Kurtzman, my sign-off quote is written especially for you:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Kickin' it in San Diego

2011-06-15T09:25:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts during this month so far. This typically happens in June. My school year ends, and I go into shutdown where I don't feel like doing much of anything. Then, on Friday afternoon, we departed for the always-lovely city of San Diego, so blogging on the road is never easy; especially when I am doing the driving. My wife's sister and her family live there, and there are always beaches to visit, zoos to enjoy, and so on.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a day at the world-famous San Diego Zoo, and while I took many obligatory photographs of the animals and the scenery, nothing compares to the shot I took on Monday morning when I went with my brother-in-law to Dog Beach, which is a small area near the mouth of the San Diego River where dog owners are allowed to let their dogs run off their leash.

As I was walking along the sandy riverbank, I noticed a ripply formation of sand that had been exposed by the low tide. I was so intrigued, I made the image the wallpaper for my iPhone:

It looks so beautiful, but the reality is that the location of this particular spit of sand was rather nasty.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The Golden State... soon to be sans "Golden"

2011-06-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

The lunacy continues unabated in California. Pop quiz everyone, what was the primary motivator for thousands of Americans risking their lives to come to California in the late 1840s and early 1850s? DING DING DING - If you said "Gold," you are correct.

Next question: The dredge mining of what substance is about to be outlawed in California if the state's Democrat-controlled government has its way? DING DING DING - If you said "Gold," you are correct.

Can you even fathom this? The mining of the very metal that put California on the map, is about to be, for all intents and purposes, outlawed within the state.

I grew up in a tiny town in the northwestern corner of California called Happy Camp. Yeah, yeah, it's a funny name, but there is a story behind that name. You see, Happy Camp is located in a small valley within the Klamath River canyon where Indian Creek empties into the Klamath River. Originally the area was called Murderers Bar. Yikes. However, in 1851 or so, a bunch of gold miners discovered copious amounts of the yellow stuff in the area, and not surprisingly, they celebrated their new-found fortune in their mining camp. It sure was a happy camp.. Aha!

After the easy-to-find gold petered out in the Happy Camp area, the residents moved on to other endeavors; especially logging. However, in the 1980s, the Spotted Owl was used by those same environmentalist wackos to shut down the logging industry in the Happy Camp area. Around the same time, gold mining returned in a big way to the area, especially when an organized group called The New 49ers set up shop in town. After the logging industry went belly-up, these gold miners were a welcome addition to the struggling local economy, along with any tourism that happened along (especially river rafters using Happy Camp as a taking-off point).

With gold mining now about to take a huge hit from our statist legislature who are in the pocket of environmentalist groups who want to control every aspect of our lives, I don't see how the economies of little towns like Happy Camp - already on the ropes as it is - can survive much longer.

It is that kind of history and heritage that has defined our Golden State, and now, in the name of appeasing the environmentalists out there who don't want the little people defiling the forests, a large piece of our state's past is about to be thrown on the dust heap of history.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Eat as I say, not as I do

2011-06-05T20:25:00.001-07:00

First Lady, Michelle Obama, seems to have a serious obsession with trying to control what we eat. Too bad that doesn't carry over to her own family.

First, chuck the ol' food pyramid folks and check out what's on your plate now:

Seems healthy enough (too much grain perhaps?), but tell me where this meal fits on the plate:

There is your president, yesterday in Toledo, Ohio, scarfing down two chili dogs and french fries. Do the fries count as a vegetable?

Remember folks, the rules only apply to little people like us, not the royal couple in the White House.

Then of course, there is my oft-repeated inquiry. Where in the Constitution does the Executive Branch (through the USDA, which produced the plate chart with over $2 million of our tax dollars) get the Constitutional authority to even deign to tell me or my family how we should eat? C'mon now, cite me the Article, Section, and Clause.

This imperial federal government of ours, and the hypocritical elitist prigs who run it, make me sick to my stomach.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Is it illegal to be an a**hole?

2011-06-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

In Vernal, Utah, apparently it is. When a man was forced to pay a disputed $25 medical bill, he paid it with 2,500 pennies.

I don't see what the problem is; the medical clinic accepts cash, and pennies are legal tender - good for all debts, public and private.

Nevertheless, the man was cited by local law enforcement for disorderly conduct and he could possibly be fined $140.

If the guy has any balls, he should pay the fine with 14,000 pennies!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Victor Davis Hanson seconds my opinion

2011-06-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

In his latest column, Victor Davis Hanson (one of my favorites!) lays out the three-prong strategy that Obama and his minions are going to unleash during the 2012 election campaign, and what we can do to stop them. First, the strategy:

Whether always officially sanctioned or not, Obama’s campaign will focus on three general themes: a) the 2008 meltdown of the economy on Bush’s watch; b) conservative heartlessness in gutting cherished entitlement programs; and c) racial bias behind any criticism of Barack Obama.

After going into detail on each of these strategies, VDH has a suggestion for those quivering and quaking Republicans/conservatives out there who are perpetually terrified about what the Democrats/statists think and say about them:

So will this tripartite strategy work? Only if the president’s opponents allow themselves to be caricatured as greedy Wall Street profiteers who want to punish the elderly and are prejudiced against blacks. And if they can’t answer back defiantly to that nonsense, then they really do deserve to lose.

"Answer back defiantly." In my previous post, what did I say about how to counter the slanderous bile of people like Representative James Clyburn?

The whole premise of blaming criticism of Obama on racism is absolutely absurd, but you know how this story goes. If the charges are not answered, no matter how stupid the charges are, then the meme is cemented in people's minds. You cannot let these slimy lowlifes like Jim Clyburn control the narrative. Remember the concept of "The Big Lie"? The bigger it is, the more likely people are willing to believe it. Calling me, and others like me, a racist because I disagree with Obama is a pretty big lie, wouldn't you say? All the more reason to call people out when they accuse you of it.

Victor Davis Hanson agrees. Don't back down to these soulless liars. Call them out every time.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Representative James Clyburn: Obama is only criticized because of racism

2011-05-26T13:49:00.001-07:00

It seems that the desperation strategy for the Democrats/Kleptocrats/Statists going into the 2012 election cycle is to paint all critics and criticism of President Obama as being racist.

This is no better clearly illustrated than by the verbal vomit uttered by Democrat Congressional Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina. In an interview with McClatchy News Service, Clyburn had this to say:

"You know, I'm 70 years old," he said. "And I can tell you; people don't like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is, the president's problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin."

OK, I'll bite. Tell me Rep. Clyburn, how it is that Obama's approval rating could have gone from around 65-70% at the beginning of his presidency down to 45-50% now, without some of that disapproval coming from many of the people who voted for him? Are those people racist now, but were not racist in November, 2008? The same people who don't like Obama's politics (including me), don't like the politics of Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter very much either (including me). I am white; am I a racist for not liking Clinton or Carter either? The whole premise of blaming criticism of Obama on racism is absolutely absurd, but you know how this story goes. If the charges are not answered, no matter how stupid the charges are, then the meme is cemented in people's minds. You cannot let these slimy lowlifes like Jim Clyburn control the narrative. Remember the concept of "The Big Lie"? The bigger it is, the more likely people are willing to believe it. Calling me, and others like me, a racist because I disagree with Obama is a pretty big lie, wouldn't you say? All the more reason to call people out when they accuse you of it.

Clyburn then delved into the birth certificate controversy in an attempt to prove that the people who insisted that Obama release his birth certificate were/are motivated by racism:

Clyburn suggested that the "birther" movement of Americans who say Obama wasn't born in the United States is fueled by racism.

"I don't know why anybody didn't ask for John McCain's" birth certificate, Clyburn said. "He wasn't even born in this country."

Is Clyburn trying to purposefully deceive the unknowing out there, or is he really that stupid that he doesn't know that McCain's birth status was investigated by the New York Times and a Senate hearing was ultimately held on the subject? In fact, a member of the Senate committee that found that John McCain was indeed a natural-born citizen was none other than Barack Obama; the same Barack Obama who took three years to finally release a PDF file of his long-form birth certificate only after countless pundits, lawsuits, authors, and millions of Americans urged him to do so.

Fight the "Big Lie" folks. Unfortunately, there are way too many people out there who are ready and willing to believe it. The least you can do is stand up for yourself.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Injured in the line of duty: Teacher Edition

2011-05-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

I was slightly injured yesterday breaking up a fight between two male eighth graders. When it was all over, I had to report to the health office and turn in an incident report. I was once again left wondering if my actions were worth it.

It doesn't happen very often, but every couple of years I happen to be not only present when a fight breaks out, but close enough to the epicenter where I have time to take action before it is all over. This time, I was doing bus duty yesterday afternoon. The buses were all lined up on the blacktop behind the school and I was in the process of shepherding the students toward their respective lines. I happened to look to my right and saw two male students walking toward each other across the blacktop, their respective entourage and onlookers in tow behind them.

I and another male teacher began quickly moving in the direction of the impending ruckus, but I was still about 15 or 20 feet away when the fists between the two boys started flying. It was at this point that I froze for a split second as I assessed the situation. I took stock of the size of the two combatants, their level of violence, and the mood of the crowd surrounding them. During that split second of decision-making that I endure every couple years, I wonder to myself whether I should just stand there and let these two bozos beat each other black and blue, or should I risk my own health by getting in between the two combatants, flying fists and all.

In the end, I cannot in good conscience let two boys beat the hell out of each other while I stand there and watch, so I waited for them to momentarily disengage to spar a bit, and in that split second where there was space in between them, I pounced. It just so happened that the other male teacher who had descended upon the scene made his decision to intervene at the very moment I did. I ran in between the two boys and grabbed the one who was facing me. I clotheslined my right arm around his chest and let my forward momentum take him away from the fight. I then twisted my body so that I was directly behind him, and then I put both my arms around him, pinning his arms against his sides. The boy continued to lunge toward his nemesis, who had been similarly restrained by the other teacher. As I held on to this struggling boy for dear life, I could feel his heart beating a mile a minute. As he yelled at me to let go of him, I yelled back, "Are you going to try and fight him again? I won't let go until you promise not to continue this!"

He finally relented and I escorted him to the office. After I deposited him outside the VP's office door, that is when I noticed that something was amiss. I ran my tongue against the inside of my bottom lip and could feel a fresh contusion from which seeped the coppery taste of blood.

Sometime during the melee', when I had thrust myself between the two combatants, I had been hit in the mouth by a glancing blow from one of them; probably a forearm, probably from the boy I had ended up restraining.

I have been injured one other time while breaking up a fight. It was about five years ago, and of all things, it was between two girls. I stepped in between them, thinking that would stop it cold. Nuh uh. They simply began reaching around me to continue punching each other. They finally grappled, with me still in between them, and all three of us ended up hurtling toward the pavement. My right knee was the first thing to impact the ground. The two girls got up and began chasing each other while punching at the same time. I got up to pursue, but fell right back to ground with my injured knee. That was definitely the worse of two injuries I have now received breaking up fights, but it is still enough to give me pause before getting between two aggressive, irrational, flailing students.

However, standing by and doing nothing does not sit well with me either. Quite a dilemma.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

I support free speech... except for those nasty conservatives!

2011-05-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

I am becoming quite the fan of the folks at exposingleftists.com, who go around college campuses with a petition and a camera and show typical leftist hypocrisy in all its glory.

In this case, people gladly sign a petition that calls for the banning from airwaves of broadcasters like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. While these people are signing the petition, they are asked if they support free speech and the First Amendment. At this point, their words and their actions don't quite mesh.

Check it out:

Just think, in their hands lies our future.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Arnold "Schwarzenkennedy" now truly lives up to his nickname

2011-05-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

I am proud to say that I did not vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger either time he ran for governor of California. I voted for former California State Senator and current California Congressional Representative Tom McClintock in 2003, and in 2006, I voted for the Libertarian candidate; I think his last name was Olivier. So why did I twice vote for someone other than the Republican Schwarzenegger? Because he wasn't a Republican, although he called himself one. I can call myself a Chinese jet pilot, but that doesn't make it so. Schwarzenegger was known for some rather left-of-center stances from the get-go, and he did nothing but go further left as his governorship went on. We conservatives didn't call him Arnold "Schwarzenkennedy" just because he married into that famous family; his politics fit in quite nicely as well. Now that we know about his extra child that he fathered with his maid, I would confidently contend that Arnold is now officially a true Kennedy!

And now that we know that the entire time he was governor, he was hiding a rather illicit part of his life from not only his family, but the voters, I have to wonder about something: Were any of Schwarzenegger's decisions as governor influenced by this delicate situation? What if someone who had his ear to the political landscape had knowledge of this "love child" and used the information to blackmail favors from the governor? Like for instance, what if a prison sentence for a convicted voluntary manslaughterer came up for review, and the governor inexplicably lopped off almost half of that 16-year sentence? What if that man slaughterer was the son of a former speaker of the California State Assembly?

Am I saying that is the reason Schwarzenegger commuted the sentence of Estaban Nunez, son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez? Of course not. However, when politicians do things of questionable morality that open them up to possible exploitation, blackmail, and extortion, then every act or decision that politician makes is open to suspicion.

Of course on the other hand, the Jesuit monk currently sitting in California's governor's seat is making some rather questionable decisions as well. What's his excuse?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A more simple and easy-to-understand reason why no Conservative/Republican should ever support Newt Gingrich for President

2011-05-17T13:45:00.001-07:00

Forget Newt's reign as Speaker during the 1995 government shutdown for which he let the Republicans get the blame.

Forget Newt's abandonment of his cancer-stricken wife.

Forget Newt's criticism of Rep. Paul Ryan's economic plan.

Forget Newt's enthusiasm for socialized health care.

Here is all you need to see and hear to convince you to never support this RINO for president.

Remember this?

My work here is done.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

CTA/SEIU members make fools of themselves at the California State Capitol

2011-05-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

The "California State of Emergency" activities planned by the California Teachers Association (CTA) took place all week at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, with several dozen CTA members even being arrested for trespassing after refusing to leave the Capitol after closing hours.

Another teacher I want to see arrested is the dunce who made and carried this misspelled sign and put it out there for all the world to see. The sign had the same thing written on both sides, and the word "Crisis" was misspelled on both sides!

All the week's events, however, were just filler for the big event to come, and that was yesterday's rally on the south steps of the Capitol. Thousands of union members arrived to demand that the California legislature and Governor Brown raise taxes on Californians so that teachers can keep their jobs.

This is all great stuff, right? Wrong! And remember, I am a California public school teacher.

As it is, approximately 40% of all tax revenues in California currently go toward our bloated education system, and over the past seven years, education budgets have seen a healthy net increase, to the tune of just under 26% between 2003 and 2009. Ask a typical CTA member however, and they will swear that there is no money for education in California. To that I say, there is plenty of money alright, they are just horrifically mis-spending it on things like increased administrator salaries and Taj Mahal high schools that cost over a half-billion dollars. How many teacher jobs might that money have saved?

Let's take a look at some of the attendees of yesterday's rally.

The majority of the attendees were CTA members and members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Then of course, there were also the school students who were brought to the Capitol as human shields for the wage and benefit demands of the teachers. Seeing these gullible, ignorant students being used as props by these petulant childish teachers frankly creeped me out:

If you weren't aware, the song they were singing - "Solidarity Forever" - is a radical piece of fluff that was written for the far-left International Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies" as they are known). The song was later made even more famous by communist singer/songwriter, and long-time Stalinist, Pete Seeger.

As a matter of fact, there was quite a bit of eyelash batting at the idea of socialism and communism at this shindig. First, I was handed this flyer:

Then, a few steps later, I looked up and saw this:

Well, Hola Che! Fancy seeing you here! Not surprising, though.

Adding to the partisan flavor of the rally, there were scenes like this:

And this:

Then we had the "Education is a Right!" crowd:

Sorry folks; it isn't a right, no matter how much you may want it to be. Education can only be provided by taking time and money from someone else. You have the right to seek education, but you do not have the right to have it provided for you by the taxpayer.

There weren't just teachers at this rally. Very soon after I arrived, I found my first SEIU member:

And where there is one, there are many more. The thugs of the Purple Ocean always travel together in packs:

I couldn't stay long, as the batteries on my FLIP Camera were failing me (oops.), and I had a dinner date scheduled with my wife (Cafe Bernardo at 28th and Capitol is always a hit!). As I was getting ready to head out, that is when I heard it: the pounding feet, the wimpy voices, the indecipherable chant. OH NO! IT'S CORNY STREET THEATER!!!

I think they are saying, "We left our classrooms and came to the Capitol to make sure our students aren't left behind...." The first lesson on chants is that you don't make them too verbose. I give these teachers an F.

As I headed back toward my car, I turned and took a long shot of the event:

Most of the people there seemed nice enough. I'm sure they believed in their cause; the question I was left with was what that cause was. While they were quick to push the kids out in front of them and say it was all for them, it was quite easy to tell that these teachers were here to save their own skin, and not the skin of their students. And that's fine, the CTA is a labor union. The job of a labor union is maximize the number of employees in its profession, and get for them the highest pay and benefits possible. But see, the CTA didn't do that. They couch it as being all about "the kids."

The amusing part is that the whole reason for this event had already been solved by the time it happened. An unexpected $2.5 billion dollar rise in incoming tax revenues enabled the Republican minority in the state legislature to offer a budget that fully funded Prop 98, which mandates a certain percentage of the state budget go toward education. Of course, the Republican-hating attendees of this rally didn't want to hear that. I'm sure the thought of the Republican Party saving their bacon is a horror they wish not to contemplate. But then, that wasn't the main motivation for this whole affair in the first place. This sign gives a better summation:

I give this teacher an A for honesty.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A deserving suspension courtesy of the Eye in the Sky

2011-05-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

On principle, I am opposed to laws such as those that ban smoking in private establishments... even though I love frequenting a restaurant or bar without coming home smelling like an ashtray.

I am also opposed to the idea of cameras watching us all hours of the day, everywhere we go. I don't like how our younger generation, especially, is growing up in a world where they are accustomed to accepting this situation as normal.

On the other hand, when behavior in our society takes a sharp turn downward, as it has done in the last several decades, measures must be taken. It comes back to the old adage that when we can't control ourselves, others must do it for us. When this happens, I am glad there was a camera in our school hallway to back me up when I caught a student doing something she should not have, and she probably would have gotten away with it were it not for the fact that we got it on video.

First of all, important to this story is the fact that my classroom door has a narrow window in it that is about 8 inches wide and about 2 feet tall. It is situated right above the doorknob. Because students passing in the hallway can look right in to my classroom as they walk by, I have blocked off the bottom portion of the window by taping some construction paper over it. The top half of the window is still unobstructed. At 6 feet 2 inches tall, I can look over the construction paper and through the window, but your average middle schooler cannot.

During second period yesterday, I was giving my lesson at the front of the classroom and just happened to look to my right toward the classroom door. I don't know what prompted me to do so; maybe I picked up some of my students subtly looking towards the door? When I looked at the door, I saw an arm visible outside the unobstructed portion of the window, and the hand attached to the arm had its middle finger extended toward the class and me. Whoever this person was, he or she was standing outside my classroom door flipping us all the bird.

As soon as I saw this, I sprinted to my classroom door and flung it open. I quickly looked left; I saw nothing. I quickly looked to the right, and saw something; movement, a shadow. I moved toward the classroom next door to mine to just see a student entering that classroom. The student turned out to be "Mariah," who I have in another period later in the day, and she is often quite disrespectful and disruptive.

I entered the other classroom and told Mariah to come back outside with me. With a sheepish grin on her face, she immediately began saying, "I didn't do anything, oh my Gawwwd!" Once out in the hallway, I asked her what the heck she was thinking, and she again said she didn't do anything. I told her fine, if she didn't do anything, then she had to see who the person was who was standing in my doorway flipping off my class through the window. She said, "I don't know, I didn't do anything."

Fine, whatever. I took Mariah into my classroom, wrote her a pass to the Vice Principal and sent her on her way. As she walked out, she said to herself, "There goes graduation." I then phoned the VP and told him Mariah was on her way to him and why. The VP asked me, "How long ago did this happen." I told him that about two minutes had passed. He then said, "I'll check the hallway cameras and see exactly what happened."

Right after 2nd period ended, I logged onto PowerSchool and checked Mariah's referral log report. The VP had suspended her, and here was the reason why:

Mariah is suspended for violating education code 48900k-Disruption of school activities. As she was sent back to class she walked by a teacher's classroom and flipped him off through window. This was also seen on the school cameras. She will return 5-16-11. Parent was notified.

So, it turns out that she did do something, oh my Gawwwwwd! And the cameras confirmed it. My question is, what if we didn't have cameras? Would she have gotten away with it? Would it have been her word versus a teacher's, even though I am a teacher with an exemplary record and she is a repeat offender? Would I have had to endure a whole bunch of meetings where her parent(s) would have sat across from me and tell me that their daughter would never do such a thing and that I am just a racist teacher who is out to get her?

The camera shut down all those possibilities, and showed that Mariah did exactly what I said she did. And now because of that little stunt, and the two-day (too short in my opinion) suspension from school that goes with it, Mariah is now barred from walking at 8th grade graduation in two weeks. I would like to think she will learn something from this incident, but I have a bad feeling that it will just make her feel like that much more of a victim who has been wronged. Not a productive way to go through life.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Blogger where art thou?

2011-05-13T12:20:00.001-07:00

Just had to vent: Blogger, the site that hosts this, and millions of other blogs, had been down for almost 24 hours. Now that it is back online, my most recent post on what it takes to be a Navy SEAL has disappeared.

They must have had a heck of a crash.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What makes a Navy SEAL... and what doesn't

2011-05-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Navy SEALs have been getting quite a bit of publicity lately in the wake of the Osama bin Laden affair (You know: the one where there are no photos of the body that has conveniently been thrown in the ocean).

Nevertheless, the training that goes into making a SEAL is the toughest military training in the world.I came across this rather interesting article that ran in the Wall Street Journal that was written by a former Navy SEAL. The writer did a nice job of summing up who makes it through this training and who typically doesn't:

What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That's hard to say. But I do know—generally—who won't make it. There are a dozen types that fail: the weight-lifting meatheads who think that the size of their biceps is an indication of their strength, the kids covered in tattoos announcing to the world how tough they are, the preening leaders who don't want to get dirty, and the look-at-me former athletes who have always been told they are stars but have never have been pushed beyond the envelope of their talent to the core of their character. In short, those who fail are the ones who focus on show. The vicious beauty of Hell Week is that you either survive or fail, you endure or you quit, you do—or you do not.

Some men who seemed impossibly weak at the beginning of SEAL training—men who puked on runs and had trouble with pull-ups—made it. Some men who were skinny and short and whose teeth chattered just looking at the ocean also made it. Some men who were visibly afraid, sometimes to the point of shaking, made it too.

Almost all the men who survived possessed one common quality. Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear and ask: How can I help the guy next to me? They had more than the "fist" of courage and physical strength. They also had a heart large enough to think about others, to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose.

I remember reading an entire book on SEAL training, and just reading the detailed description of Hell Week left me feeling exhausted. The hardships of Army basic training and advanced individual training were enough for me. Hell Week during SEAL training would do me in right quick, as I get quite punchy and admittedly a little panicky when I am forcefully deprived of sleep. Believe me, there were times during my years in the Army when I caught very few Zzzz's, but it was nothing like Hell Week, where you maybe get 2 hours total over a five day period. Kudos to the hard-charging men out there who are willing to put themselves through the kind of punishment that is SEAL training.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Watch a slimy class-action lawyer have a meltdown

2011-05-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

This is video gold right here folks! John Stossel brought on a walking cliche' of class-action lawyer named Al Pires to ask him about the alleged massive fraud going on with the Pigford case in which some black farmers were truly discriminated against by the USDA in getting loans, but tens of thousands of others have signed up to receive $50,000, even though they never farmed.

Al Pires didn't much like being called out on this by Stossel, and he especially didn't like it when Andrew Breibart was brought on to make specific allegations including names and dates.

What was Pires' response? Ridicule, name-calling, and flat out lying. It was really embarrassing to watch. Therefore, I think you should watch Stossel and Breitbart take down this slimeball. It is 11 minutes of pure bliss:

For a lawyer, this guy doesn't argue very well, does he?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

First 2012 Republican debate has a "surprise" winner

2011-05-06T15:29:00.001-07:00

I put "surprise" in quotes because if you know anything about the man who overwhelmingly carried the debate last night, you wouldn't be surprised. I have been excited about this man's candidacy since the moment he announced.

Watch this short video of pollster Frank Luntz - who has never seen this overwhelming of a reaction in all the focus group polling he has ever done - as his focus group of South Carolina Republicans show how racist they are with their pick of the winner:

What? How could they have picked him? I thought people who don't support Obama only do so because he is black! How can this be? /sarc

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Obama won't release Osama death photo

2011-05-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

Our Dear Leader says that releasing any photos of a dead Osama bin Laden would be "an incitement to additional violence."

Ah, I see. OK.

Releasing some other photos however, didn't seem to bother the conscience of our delicate president. Remember this from early 2009?

Barack Obama to release up to 2,000 photographs of prisoner abuse

President Barack Obama is to release up to 2,000 photographs of alleged abuse at American prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan in a move which will reignite the scandal surrounding Abu Ghraib prison in 2004...

This man is a disgrace.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Beware the bounce

2011-05-04T22:17:00.000-07:00

The chattering hens on The View said in the wake of Osama bin Laden being killed that they might as well not even hold the 2012 election, because after taking down bin Laden, Obama guaranteed his reelection then and there.

Not so fast. I guess one of the easier things about being a leftist is that history always begins today. How quickly these ladies forget that high approval ratings now, can mean jack-diddly a year later.

Just ask George H.W. Bush. In March 1991, after an overwhelming U.S. victory in the Persian Gulf War, President Bush enjoyed an approval rating pegged at right around 90%. By November 1992, George H.W. Bush received only 38% of the popular vote and lost his reelection bid to Billy Jeff Clinton. This is because GHW Bush may have had his shining moment during the Gulf War, but too many other issues, such as going back on his "read my lips" no-tax pledge, sank him in the end.

I haven't studiously checked to see what kind of bounce in the polls Obama has received in the wake of bin Laden's killing, but from what I have read, it isn't much. Whatever bounce he does receive, keep in mind that just a few days ago, his poll numbers were not dropping like a rock because he had not yet found Osama bin Laden. Gas prices still stink and are getting stinkier, unemployment is still tragically high, ObamaCare is still wildly unpopular, and Obama seems to be fulfilling his promise to make sure that "electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket."

Put all that together, and I can easily surmise that by November 2012, Osama bin Laden will be way off people's radar screens, but the hits to their pocketbook - courtesy of our fascist-leaning president - will not be.

On the other hand, the Republicans need to field a candidate who can actually win. Good luck with that one.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What does Nancy Pelosi think about taking out Osama bin Laden?

2011-05-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess that depends on who the President of the United States happens to be at the time. I saw this incredible piece of juxtaposition on the website of Commentary Magazine, and I had to run it here, because this woman has some chutzpah.

Here is what Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference on September 7, 2006:

[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done . . . is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.

Hmm, let's take a look at what Pelosi said just the other day in the aftermath of Osama's killing, and with her fellow Democrat Obama at the helm:

The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. . . . I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. . . . [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic. . . .

And then the little two-faced backstabber called former-President Bush and congratulated him on his role in getting bin Laden:

Pelosi said she thought Bush appreciated the call.

“I wanted him to know the appreciation that many of us have in a bipartisan way ... that his role was important," she said.

The woman is just unbelievable. How can she stand to look at herself in the mirror?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

American women are giving it the old college try

2011-05-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

In the United States, there are now more women attaining college degrees than men.

According to figures from the Associated Press, American women hold 10.6 million Masters Degrees to the mens' 10.5 million. For Bachelors Degrees, it stands at women: 20.1 million versus men: 18.7 million.

With that in mind, the hysteric questions always seem to immediately get thrown out there, asking why women make less than men if women are going to college more, receiving, on average, 77 cents for every one dollar earned by a man.

The important piece of the puzzle that the article does not address however is what those degrees are in. Reason Magazine has a wonderfully succinct article that fills in the holes and explains why men earn more average pay than women.

For instance:

But read more, and you learn things that don't get much notice on Equal Pay Day. As the report acknowledges, women with college degrees tend to go into fields like education, psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering, math and business. They are also more likely than men to work for nonprofit groups and local governments, which do not offer salaries that Alex Rodriguez would envy.

As they get older, many women elect to work less so they can spend time with their children. A decade after graduation, 39 percent of women are out of the work force or working part time -- compared with only 3 percent of men. When these mothers return to full-time jobs, they naturally earn less than they would have if they had never left.

My wife is a prime example of this. She is an elementary school teacher, and has been employed in that capacity since 1995. However, she does not get paid for that many years of teaching because she took a few years off to stay home with our children during their infant and toddler years. I, on the other hand, haven't taught as many years as she, but I continue to accrue seniority at an unbroken pace because I never took any years off after our kids were born.

In the meantime, the males of this country need to get their act together and start going to college again.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Tell me again why I live in California?

2011-04-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

The title of the article says it all:

22 Facts About California That Make You Wonder Why Anyone Would Still Want To Live In That Hellhole Of A State

Some of those facts are rather regional, such as Oakland's police department having to disregard certain calls due to budget cuts. But I will list three more relevant facts to get you started:

#3 The state of California currently has the third highest state income tax in the nation: a 9.55% tax bracket at $47,055 and a 10.55% bracket at $1,000,000.

#4 California has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation by far at 8.25%. Indiana has the next highest at 7%.

#5 Residents of California pay the highest gasoline taxes (over 67 cents per gallon) in the United States.

The statists, environmentalists, and anti-business fanatics have taken this beautiful state and flushed it right down the toilet. It's a damn shame.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

I'm thinking this guy got beaten up a lot when he was a kid

2011-04-21T13:16:00.001-07:00

He probably also received quite a few head swirlies in the boys' bathroom toilets, along with quite a few wedgies as well. Not to mention, he probably deserved every one of them.

Washington Times reporter Kerry Pickett was attending a recent presser where the mayor of D.C. was explaining why he opposed any school voucher program being implemented in the District. Pickett's earlier questions to the mayor (that had already been asked when the following footage began) obviously riled some in attendance, especially the pasty-faced second guy who literally looks like he just crawled out from under a rock and pipes up in this video footage from Pickett, who had her camera rolling during the event.

Kudos to Pickett for keeping her cool, as it made this insufferable so-called man increasingly hostile and obnoxious. Watch if you can stand it:

When I took psychology in college, I learned about something called projection. That is where you take your psychological defects and attribute them to your opponent. The Left is quite adept at doing this, and this creature is no different.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The planet they would save depends on which planet they are from

2011-04-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Brian Sussman, the morning talk host from conservative radio station KSFO in San Francisco (yes, there are conservatives in the Bay Area!) took a little trip down to Santa Cruz and went undercover at an Earth Day Fair being held in that hippie hot spot.

He went around with a video camera and asked some of the attendees a simple question:

"How can we save the planet?"

The answers, appearance, and vacant cult-like countenances of the interviewees is something to behold. I sat there in disbelief that people like this and people like myself actually live on the same planet.

Behold:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

TSA: Freedom of Speech, just watch what you say

2011-04-15T14:51:00.001-07:00

So what helps TSA officials at the airport decide who to pick out of line for a goosing and who to let slide by?

Here's one indicator that will send up a red flag: Displays arrogance and verbally expresses contempt for the screening process.

CNN has a refreshingly candid story about this lesson in keeping your feelings about our all-powerful benevolent government to yourself if you know what's good for you.

Yup, uttering your disgust at watching your fellow passengers get the reach-around from TSA goons will likely get you a molestation session of your own.

Gosh, it makes me wonder what this six year-old girl said right before her lesson in the birds and the bees, courtesy of the TSA.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Tax Day TEA Party Rally - Cal Expo, Sacramento

2011-04-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow (Saturday, April 16, 2011) from Noon to 3pm, there will be a TEA Party event being held at Cal Expo in Sacramento.

My son has a baseball game in the late morning, so I will be showing up late to the Party, but I do plan on attending. I will be wearing a gold t-shirt with a coiled DONT TREAD ON ME snake on the front and back. Don't be afraid to say howdy; I don't bite. However, I will most likely have both my kids with me, and they do bite. I'm just kidding. Not really.

For more information on tomorrow's rally, click here.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

It's the most... wonderful tiiiime... of the yeeeeear!

2011-04-15T11:01:00.001-07:00

It's April 15th, and you know what that means, kids: It's Tax Day!

If you haven't already done so, it's time to pull out those checkbooks and hand over your blood, sweat, and tears to Uncle Sugar!

And if you were "fortunate" enough to receive a refund this year, remember not to get too giddy. Keep in mind that you still paid a fortune in income taxes; the refund is just the amount that the feds overcharged you. So instead of you having access to that money, where it could have been sitting in an interest-bearing account, it was instead residing with the federal government, where they were enjoying your little interest-bearing loan for a few months! My wife and I took a good-sized chunk of our refund and bought silver with it, but we had to wait for the refund. If we had access to the money earlier, we could have bought the silver at a much lower price. As it is, silver has gone up by $8 and ounce since we purchased ours at the beginning of March.

It does my heart well to think of President Obama's deficit speech from the other day and think about what he and his fellow kleptocrats in the Congress want to do with our hard-earned money.

Today's festivities arrive just three days after this year's version of Tax Freedom Day, which is the date when we have worked long enough to earn the money to pay off our local, state, and federal taxes. Hope you enjoyed working all of January, February, March, and half of April just to pay off the Man.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Loretta Sanchez steps in it again

2011-04-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

I have previously written about the racist ranting of California congresscritter Loretta Sanchez in the days leading up to the 2010 mid-terms when her seat was on the line with a challenge from California state legislator Van Tran. Sanchez ultimately prevailed in her reelection, but not before using racist scare tactics by going on a Spanish language television station and informing viewers that the Vietnamese were trying to take her Hispanic congressional seat.

Now Sanchez is back, and this time, she not only reinforces her racist bonafides, but she also proves how ignorant she is of the Constitution.

While being interviewed in friendly radio territory by ultra-statist host Stephanie Miller, Sanchez went off on her Republican colleagues, complaining that they think everything she wants to do is unconstitutional, and then making fun of them by joining in with Miller by speaking with a stereotypical southern redneck accent.

Listen for yourself:

Stay classy, Loretta.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

California Teachers Association is planning on pulling a Wisconsin

2011-04-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

Yet another reason that I am proud to proclaim that although I am a California teacher, I am not a member of the California Teachers Association (CTA). If I still was, my dues money would still be going to pay for what is scheduled to take place next month.

Although the infantile behavior by the public employee unions in Wisconsin was ultimately unsuccessful in achieving their goals, it seems that their California counterparts think they will prevail. Seeing as how California is in the grip of the political left in a way that Wisconsin is not, the CTA and their cohorts in the state's public employee unions are probably right.

The CTA has a plethora of activities planned for the week of May 9-13 of this year. To get a handle on all the fun, check out their online flyer that gives a day-by-day breakdown of their plans. My favorite is their quest for at least 300 volunteers to participate in a sit-in at California's capitol building in downtown Sacramento, with the sit-in scheduled to last throughout the week.

Seeing as how my teaching location is not too far from downtown, I will look into going down to the capitol after I get off work to see if I can record anything of note with my Flip camera.

I am a teacher in this state, and believe me, the budget affects me directly. That being said, I cannot agree with my fellow teachers and their precious union that there is not enough money in this state going toward education; there is plenty of money. The problem is that California's education budget is grossly misappropriated, mismanaged, and generally wasted away down countless bureaucratic black holes.

I will provide more information about this week-long event as it becomes available.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

So do "the rich" pay their fair share?

2011-04-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

President Obama made it very clear in his campaign speech last night that he thinks that "the rich" are getting off easy in our economy. He even said that they can afford to, "pay a little more."

So how much exactly are they paying right now? It just so happens that the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) has the breakdown of who pays what when comes to our income taxes:

The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay 38 percent of all the income taxes despite having just 20 percent of the income.
The top 10 percent of taxpayers pay 70 percent of the income tax while having just 46 percent of the income.
At the other end, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers pay just 2.7 percent of the income tax while having 13 percent of the income.

So percentage-wise, the people who are getting off the easiest are the people who Obama calls "the less fortunate."

My question is - and people like Obama never seem to have the answer - how much is enough? Exactly how much should we tax the rich? It is always described as, in the words of Obama, "a little more." How much more?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

My thoughts on last night's Obama campaign speech

2011-04-14T09:48:00.001-07:00

You bet I called it a campaign speech. Just days after our Dear Leader made it official that he is going for another four years in the 2012 election, he came out last night and gave a speech that had all the right class warfare buzzwords and appealed to the basest emotions of his silly supporters who seem to never stop thinking of how they can get something for nothing.

Since I can no longer bear to listen to that lisping, clipped way of speaking at which our Dear Leader excels, I went to the White House's website this morning where last night's campaign speech is posted and I read what Obama had to say - and boy did he say a lot!

Just a few fisking comments about his rhetoric, and any emphasis you see is mine. First he sets us up with something people on my side can agree with:

From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.

Not bad except for using the word "faith." Having faith means you believe something is so, even though you have no evidence of it. Sorry, but that does not apply to our adherence to a free market system. But why quibble about a single word? After Obama sets us up with trying to find common ground with us conservative free-market people, he then slams down the big "But":

We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff may strike any one of us. “There but for the grace of God go I,” we say to ourselves. And so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, those with disabilities. We’re a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further. We would not be a great country without those commitments.

First off, we don't "contribute" to these federal social programs; our so-called contributions are forcibly taken from us by the government simply because we draw a paycheck. As bad as the use of that word is, this paragraph ends with the end all, beat all of Obama's life philosophy, and the philosophy of so many statists of the political left. Obama thinks this country is great because of government, not because of our reputation as rugged individualists who exhibit self-reliance. What Obama failed to mention is that even though billions, if not trillions, of our tax dollars are forcibly taken from us in the name of government-mandated charity, we Americans are still the most generous people on the planet when it comes to giving to charity of our own free will. Imagine how much more we could give if our money wasn't first taken and squandered by an inefficient government.

My next point of contention comes when Obama said the following:

Now, for much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally borne a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. Everybody pays, but the wealthier have borne a little more. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well -– we rightly celebrate their success. Instead, it’s a basic reflection of our belief that those who’ve benefited most from our way of life can afford to give back a little bit more. Moreover, this belief hasn’t hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale. They continue to do better and better with each passing year.

Seriously? Our nation found a way to afford these "investments"? Looking at our current national debt, I don't think that statement is very accurate, do you? And then Obama goes deep into the tried-and-true cliches of the class-warfare rhetoric. First he mentions "fairness." Apparently, it's not fair that some people make more than others. What, does he think a ditch digger should make the same income as a brain surgeon? Next he throws in the term "less fortunate." I am not a wealthy man, however my family and I live rather comfortably. This is not because I am simply "fortunate," - read "lucky." I worked my caboose off and risked my life in the military to gain the financial resources to pay for the opportunity to work my caboose off to finish a B.A, a teaching credential, and an M.A, so I could work my caboose off on a daily basis as I attempt to teach the next generation. All this did not happen from luck. It happened from conscious effort and preparation. After explaining all of that, it then makes no sense that if I give to charity to help those that Obama calls "less fortunate," I am not "giving back" to anyone. I am simply giving. To "give back," as Obama calls it, implies that I took something from someone else in the first place. I did no such thing, and I take offense when someone uses that term.

Now, we move to Obama's misinformation on the Bush tax cuts:

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program -– but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts -– tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.

How exactly does government "pay for" a tax cut, unless the government believes that all our income is theirs to begin with, and the government is simply letting us keep part of what we make in income? Not to mention, the Bush tax cuts did not reduce revenues to the government, in fact, revenues from income taxes increased after the tax cuts were implemented. Unfortunately, what also increased at an even greater rate was government spending, which outstripped the rise in revenues. And yes you can "thank" George W. Bush for that, even though the spending increases on which he signed off absolutely pale in comparison to what Obama has approved. Bottom line folks - and our governments at all levels are loathe to tell you this - we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

Next:

It’s a vision [of the Republicans] that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. Who are these 50 million Americans? Many are somebody’s grandparents -- may be one of yours -- who wouldn’t be able to afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some of these kids with disabilities are -- the disabilities are so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.

And worst of all, this is a vision that says even though Americans can’t afford to invest in education at current levels, or clean energy, even though we can’t afford to maintain our commitment on Medicare and Medicaid, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about that.

Everything that Obama just mentioned - and that I bolded - that he thinks it would be horrible if funding was reduced is unconstitutional for the federal government to fund. Those are all state functions. You can scream all you want about how the cow has already been let out of the barn on these federal functions, but I'm sorry, these are all state functions, not federal ones.

One last critique:

Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have an obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments. If we believe the government can make a difference in people’s lives, we have the obligation to prove that it works -– by making government smarter, and leaner and more effective.

You want to know how the government can make a difference in people's lives? By getting out of the way, letting us live our lives without meddling in them, and only intervene if some people's actions are resulting in some sort of injury, be it physical or property.

There is plenty more of this speech I could dissect, but this post is already way too long. It just goes to show how off-base I believe our Dear Leader to be.

Hopefully, on January 20, 2013, we won't have to worry about speeches like these any longer.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Sowell's take on solving our budget crisis

2011-04-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

I do love me some Thomas Sowell. In another outstanding column, he gives a criticism-proof plan of how to seriously reduce our deficits by cutting spending. When conservatives talk of cutting government spending, out come the usual canards from the Harry Reids and Nancy Pelosis of the world about how these spending cuts will kill children and the elderly.

Not so with Sowell's plan:

My plan would start by cutting off all government transfer payments to billionaires. Many, if not most, people are probably unaware that the government is handing out the taxpayers' money to billionaires. But agricultural subsidies go to a number of billionaires. Very little goes to the ordinary farmer.

Big corporations also get big bucks from the government, not only in agricultural subsidies but also in the name of "green" policies, in the name of "alternative energy" policies and in the name of whatever else will rationalize shoveling the taxpayers' money out the door to whomever the administration designates, for its own political reasons.

The usual political counterattacks against spending cuts will not work against this new kind of spending-cut approach. How many heart-rending stories can the media run about billionaires who have lost their handouts from the taxpayers? How many tears will be shed if General Motors gets dumped off the gravy train?

It would also be eye-opening to many people to discover how much government money is going into subsidizing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with helping "the poor" or protecting the public. This would include government-subsidized insurance for posh and pricey coastal resorts, located too dangerously close to the ocean for a private insurance company to risk insuring them.

This approach would not only circumvent the sob stories, it would also circumvent the ideological battles over whether to cut off money to Planned Parenthood or National Public Radio.

The money to be saved by cutting off agricultural subsidies to the wealthy and the big corporations is vastly greater than the money to be saved by cutting off Planned Parenthood or National Public Radio, much as they both deserve to be cut off....

By all means, read the rest!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Buckhorn Road

Republican dogs once again spit out the Romney pill

Fun with Guns

Just another day at the asylum...

Spotted...

Thank God no one will have to read that horrible prayer anymore

The Debates: What the hell is the Republican Party thinking?

How bad is our debt problem? Watch and laugh (and cry)

Just like a movie... complete with techno-assassins and bumbling, wishy-washy U.S. bureaucrats

And I went to high school because...?

A lesson on how to handle the lamestream media

Now that the presents are opened...

Bill of Rights eviscerated on their anniversary

Pearl Harbor: 70 years ago

President Luddite

The national unemployment rate: The devil is in the details

Barney Frank is a weenie

It's like I'm a kid again!

How many feet high is 57,000 pages?

A "Reader's Digest" version of two Obama Administration scandals that the statist media would rather you forget

Consistency is for fags

Throwing bad court decisions after bad

Thank You

What the heck is a "Body Man," and why does the President have one?

Catch it early on, folks

Jesse Jackson: "Occupy Atlanta" reminds him of the Civil Rights Movement

The "Nanny State" is now literal

"There is no sight quite so terrifying as ignorance in action" -Johann von Goethe

And I thought *I* have it bad...

If they don't like this bathroom policy, wait until they get a load of mine!

What was the worst song of the 1980s?

Checkmate complete: Statist governor and legislature outlaw open carry of handguns in California

"Occupy Sacramento" protesters seek publicity, but reject their opportunity to receive it

Sacramento restaurant closures provide a lesson in free-market economics

You can't make this sh** up!

The violence of the War Between the States; can history repeat itself?

Teacher invokes Godwin's Law, proves to be an embarrassment to the profession

The true power of the Reno air race crash

Medal of Honor: Sergeant Dakota Meyer, U.S. Marine Corps

The Solyndra scandal for dummies

I would check for the union label, but whatever is written on it is probably too profane to read

I wonder if Obama employed this strategy the first time he tried to get laid?

Talk about a rebuke to Obama!

"Bow" or "Bow"? - As it turns out, President Obama knows about neither

In Memorium: September 11, 2001

Ten Years Later: September 11, 2001

Who do U.S. military members like better, Obama or Bush?

Agency Fee Payers: It's that time of year again

A bumper sticker that would make Orwell blush

Yeah, more debt. That'll do it!

Technical difficulties repaired?

Representative Wilson, meet Mayor Nutter

Now that's what I call school spirit!

Maxine had more to say... don't cut her off!

Back in the trenches

Jackson-Lee and Pelosi attempt to out-stupid each other

California's statist legislature is close to checkmating state gun owners

Idiotic Dems say: Unemployment benefits create jobs

Time to fit me for an orange jumpsuit?

So Barack, what do you think about raising the debt limit?

Rule number one of interviewing: Never ask a question to which you do not already know the answer

Crowds and unbelievable beauty: Yosemite lives up to its reputation

On to my next vacation

What goes up, must come down: The United States ends its Space Shuttle program. Now what?

Don't forget our Founders' sacrifices

Jeremiah Wright proves who the racist is

The War Between the States was deadlier than previously thought

The needle on Obama's gaffe meter hits a new low

Local Republican who is black demonstrates selective outrage

Sarah Palin wins another U.S. History contest against the smug morons in the media

Kickin' it in San Diego

The Golden State... soon to be sans "Golden"

Eat as I say, not as I do

Is it illegal to be an a**hole?

Victor Davis Hanson seconds my opinion

Representative James Clyburn: Obama is only criticized because of racism

Injured in the line of duty: Teacher Edition

I support free speech... except for those nasty conservatives!

Arnold "Schwarzenkennedy" now truly lives up to his nickname

A more simple and easy-to-understand reason why no Conservative/Republican should ever support Newt Gingrich for President

And I thought I have it bad...