Something for Parents

For those of us that went through those early years of babies and poop, this link will provide a trip down memory lane. We had four children and used cloth diapers. Remembering what it was to upend a diaper pail into the washer on a hot summer day is still almost enough to make me gag.

The author has quite a following, and sure doesn't need the linkage from me. I'm linking because she is funny, writes well, and all of us can use a laugh. Anyway, she and her husband spent a lot of money on a new washer. It immediately broke down. Her child is in those early months where she sleeps for an hour or two at a time, which means mom sleeps an hour or two at a time. It's a treatment the CIA could use to get information. Meanwhile she is quickly being buried in piles of dirty laundry. Read her epic tale of battling with the company to get her washer repaired, and how she finally resolves it.

Here's the opening paragraph:

Let me just set the stage by saying that the longest stretch of sleep I've had in the last twelve weeks was that one Wednesday night when Marlo forgot who she was for a second and slept for a solid four hours. That's it. Since then it's been two hours here, thirty minutes there, just enough to make you want to walk outside and play hopscotch in the middle of I-80.

A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.
--Hugh Sidey

3-Gun

Our club hosted a 3-Gun match. We have a monthly USPSA match, we only do 3-Gun a couple of times a year. The three guns are rifle, pistol, and shotgun. Scoring is done by USPSA rules. A combination of score and time, penalties for misses and other mistakes, and all of it compared to the other shooters.

A good way to wring out your equipment, burn some powder, and spend a day at the range. The stage pictured here will serve as an example. Here we started with the rifle, shooting an array of targets at 50 and 100 yards, transitioned to pistol for two arrays of targets at 5 to 7 yards, then to the shotgun for four targets engaged with slugs.

Mediocre would be the best way to describe my results. The shooter in the picture came in fourth overall, he has been practicing and steadily improving. It showed in his performance, he had a great day.

IF you want to find out what this sport is like, find your way to a 3 gun match. It doesn't take any fancy gear. It's not the equipment, it's the shooter.

When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.
--Ed Macauley

What if Access to Gasoline Was a Right?

Let's try to pick something else for comparison. It almost wouldn't matter what it was. I'm picking gasoline. It's a commodity. Most of us use it. We purchase it at retail outlets. These are businesses. They exist to make a profit. Almost all the businesses that sell gasoline are now owned by good sized corporations. Market forces and the standards for storage tanks have forced the single station owners out of business.

The stations are clean, well lit, and almost always have gas. They sell it. For a profit. You can't get all you might want, but you can get as much as you can pay for.

Let's say we turn this model on it's head. A Constitutional amendment is passed, stating that gasoline is a right. All of us will be taxed to ensure that everyone has access to that right. To be sure, there are two parts to this. One is the product itself. The other is the cost.

Whatever the tax is, say we pay it by payroll deduction. Now the gas stations are owned by the government. You just pull up and fill up. No money will change hands. It's free! But wait you say, it's not free, I paid a tax, based on income. So, it may not be free for you, you paid for the gas you use, and some of the gas for everyone who makes less than you, including those who make no money at all. But the money is already gone from your pay, consider that a sunk cost, so whatever amount you use, it's free!

Planning a trip? Might as well drive. Any incentive to choose another method of travel is gone. Buy that boat, the gas is free! Poor people that limited their use of gasoline due their financial situation now have a right to gasoline, it's only fair that they should use as much as they want. For them, it truly is free!

The amount used will grow, of course. Cost is the economic check on use. Remove that, and consumption will go up. But the system will not be maintained, there will be no market incentive. The stations, the refineries, the oil fields, the tanker trucks, will just get older, and go unreplaced. Some stations will be closed. Everyone might have a right to gasoline, but there will no longer a method to reliably provide it. A Gas Czar would be needed to head the new government department that will manage this system.

Lines will form, stations will run out. Rationing will start. It will still be free (yes, yes, that tax, that ever increasing tax) but you will need a coupon book. Each citizen would have show need. You would no longer be able to get the gasoline you want for pleasure trips, it would only be fair to everyone that they get enough gasoline to get to work. Mandatory carpooling would follow. If there aren't four in the car, it's un-patriotic.

This is exactly what would happen. It hasn't happened yet because the profit and cost checks and balances of the economic system have not been destroyed. As I write this, I can see that making gasoline a right would be a great way to end private ownershipof cars. Because the end result would be bicycles and government sanctioned buses and trolleys.

So often I hear about corporations like they are evil, profit motivated organizations, out to suck the money out of the pockets of American citizens. They aren't necessarily evil, but the rest of that is true and it's a good thing. Businesses exist to make money. They make a profit for the owners, and deliver dividends to stockholders. They do this by enticing you, the consumer, into spending your money with them. They have to be efficient, price their products competitively, overcome any obstacles in the process, advertise, and make their stores and products attractive to consumers.

Groceries would be another good example. Make food a right, and eliminate cost as a factor when you go to the supermarket and see what happens.

Health care is the topic of the day. However much we wish it wasn't so, market forces apply. Remove them and the system crumbles.

I think it is the disconnect between the consumer(patient) and provider (doctor /hospital /pharmacy /etc.) created by insurance companies and current government programs that is the main cause of the problems the government is trying to fix. More government control will only make this worse.

UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems.
--Pr. Barack Obama

Just One More

I'm going to get away from this topic somehow. But just one more time. This isn't from some Republican enemy, this was on NPR, it's an interview with one of Ted Kennedy's friends. Ed Klein, former Newsweek editor. The show was titled "Reflections on Sen. Kennedy … Lion of the Senate". It was on the Diane Rehm Show. In this audio clip, Ed Klein is reminiscing about Teddy's sense of humor.
Well, okay. Here's a few.

Q: What was Gary Hart's biggest mistake?
A: Not letting Teddy Kennedy drive Donna Rice home.

Did you hear that Kennedy had actually died on August 24th? In keeping with tradition, the family didn't report it until the next day.

When they were selecting music for the funeral, the family wanted something from the 60's, so they went with "Bridge Over Troubled Water".

It a dark, gallows, sort of humor. You find it in Marines, emergency room staff, policemen, and the like. I'm sure Teddy would have laughed as warmly at them as he did all the others.

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
--Charles M. Schulz

An Example of Government Efficiency

Over at Carpe Diem, University of Michigan professor Dr. Mark Perry runs a blog on economic issues.

He posts this gem as an example of the difference between businesses run by private industry and those run by the government.

The conclusion I would draw is that we would be better off having the Coca-Cola Company delivering health care than the organization that runs the Post Office.

The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life’s most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put rum or bourbon in it.
--Lewis Grizzard

More Details on the American Quisling

Click here for the full interview about Ted Kennedy's overture to the Soviet Union

Here's a quote.

FP: Tell us about this document.

Kengor: It was a May 14, 1983 letter from the head of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, to the head of the USSR, the odious Yuri Andropov, with the highest level of classification. Chebrikov relayed to Andropov an offer from Senator Ted Kennedy, presented by Kennedy’s old friend and law-school buddy, John Tunney, a former Democratic senator from California, to reach out to the Soviet leadership at the height of a very hot time in the Cold War. According to Chebrikov, Kennedy was deeply troubled by the deteriorating relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, which he believed was bringing us perilously close to nuclear confrontation. Kennedy, according to Chebrikov, blamed this situation not on the Soviet leadership but on the American president---Ronald Reagan. Not only was the USSR not to blame, but, said Chebrikov, Kennedy was, quite the contrary, “very impressed” with Andropov.

The thrust of the letter is that Reagan had to be stopped, meaning his alleged aggressive defense policies, which then ranged from the Pershing IIs to the MX to SDI, and even his re-election bid, needed to be stopped. It was Ronald Reagan who was the hindrance to peace. That view of Reagan is consistent with things that Kennedy said and wrote at the time, including articles in sources like Rolling Stone (March 1984) and in a speeches like his March 24, 1983 remarks on the Senate floor the day after Reagan’s SDI speech, which he lambasted as “misleading Red-Scare tactics and reckless Star Wars schemes.”

Even more interesting than Kennedy’s diagnosis was the prescription: According to Chebrikov, Kennedy suggested a number of PR moves to help the Soviets in terms of their public image with the American public. He reportedly believed that the Soviet problem was a communication problem, resulting from an inability to counter Reagan’s (not the USSR’s) “propaganda.” If only Americans could get through Reagan’s smokescreen and hear the Soviets’ peaceful intentions.

So, there was a plan, or at least a suggested plan, to hook up Andropov and other senior apparatchiks with the American media, where they could better present their message and make their case. Specifically, the names of Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters are mentioned in the document. Also, Kennedy himself would travel to Moscow to meet with the dictator.

Time was of the essence, since Reagan, as the document privately acknowledged, was flying high en route to easy re-election in 1984.

FP: Did you have the document vetted?

Kengor: Of course. It comes from the Central Committee archives of the former USSR. Once Boris Yeltsin took over Russia in 1991, he immediately began opening the Soviet archives, which led to a rush on the archives by Western researchers. One of them, Tim Sebastian of the London Times and BBC, found the Kennedy document and reported it in the February 2, 1992 edition of the Times, in an article titled, “Teddy, the KGB and the top secret file.”

Google provides more. This was reported better in Europe than it was in the United States. I only remembered it when I heard they were going to bury him in Arlington National Cemetery. I was still on active duty in May of 1983. If I had contacted a KGB officer and offered my services to the U.S.S.R, do you think I'd be out of prison yet?

There is no news, there's the truth of the signal.
Mr. U, speaking in the movie Serenity

Ted Kennedy, American Traitor

Ted Kennedy had a series of affairs, was finally divorced from his first wife, who then spoke out publicly about it, and yet Teddy continued to be reelected. A lot of his womanizing took place in Washington, and he made little attempt to hide any of it.

He drank to excess, drank to the point that it was a joke on late night TV.

He left a party one night with a young staffer, likely quite drunk, drove his car off a bridge, escaped from the car, then ran away. He tried to get someone else to take the blame, he never reported it to the police, the car was found the next morning. The girl lived for hours in the air bubble in the back of the car. She died alone, in the dark. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, but family power and money covered up as much as they could, and even his victim's autopsy is still a sealed record.

You might say this is all personal misbehavior, not necessarily reflecting on the good he did as a powerful Senator. I disagree, I think personal behavior reflects on public life, but okay, I'll set all of that personal stuff aside, because what I am going to say next is so damning that it stands alone.

"There are some important reports found in Soviet archives, after the collapse of the Communist dictatorship, that provide an interesting insight into the character of the senior senator from Massachusetts.

One of the documents, a KGB report to bosses in the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee, revealed that "In 1978, American Sen. Edward Kennedy requested the assistance of the KGB to establish a relationship" between the Soviet apparatus and a firm owned by former Sen. John Tunney (D.-Calif.). KGB recommended that they be permitted to do this because Tunney's firm was already connected with a KGB agent in France named David Karr...

Another KGB report to their bosses revealed that on March 5, 1980, John Tunney met with the KGB in Moscow on behalf of Sen. Kennedy. Tunney expressed Kennedy's opinion that "nonsense about 'the Soviet military threat' and Soviet ambitions for military expansion in the Persian Gulf . . . was being fueled by [President Jimmy] Carter, [National Security Advisor Zbigniew] Brzezinski, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex."

Kennedy offered to speak out against President Carter on Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter he made public speeches opposing President Carter on this issue. This document was found in KGB archives by Vasiliy Mitrokhin, a courageous KGB officer, who copied documents from the files and then defected to the West. He wrote about this document in a February 2002 paper on Afghanistan that he released through the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center.

In May 1983, the KGB again reported to their bosses on a discussion in Moscow with former Sen. John Tunney. Kennedy had instructed Tunney, according to the KGB, to carry a message to Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, expressing Kennedy's concern about the anti-Soviet activities of President Ronald Reagan. The KGB reported "in Kennedy's opinion the opposition to Reagan remains weak. Speeches of the President's opponents are not well-coordinated and not effective enough, and Reagan has the chance to use successful counterpropaganda." Kennedy offered to "undertake some additional steps to counter the militaristic, policy of Reagan and his campaign of psychological pressure on the American population." Kennedy asked for a meeting with Andropov for the purpose of "arming himself with the Soviet leader's explanations of arms control policy so he can use them later for more convincing speeches in the U.S." He also offered to help get Soviet views on the major U.S. networks and suggested inviting "Elton Rule, ABC chairman of the board, or observers Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters to Moscow."

This document was first discovered in the Soviet archives by London Times reporter Tim Sebastian and a report on it was published in that newspaper in February 1992."

So, Ted Kennedy went, on his own and by back door channels, to the Soviet Union. At a time when Pr. Ronald Reagan was working to bring about the collapse of the communist regime, Sen. Ted Kennedy was reaching out to the enemy. He was offering to help undermine the President and the United States. He apparently used existing relationships with KGB agents to try to accomplish this.

Ted Kennedy was a traitor. He should have, at a minimum, died in prison serving a life sentence. He should have joined Benedict Arnold and Vidkun Quisling on the list of people whose names are synonymous with abandoning their country and making their personal gain and self aggrandizement more important than their honor.

Sometime in the coming days, he will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The media will cover it, with homage footage of the earlier funerals of his brothers. Ted Kennedy will sent off with loving eulogies about his lifetime of service.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.
--Marcus Tullius Cicero

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Update
Geek with a .45 wrote and asked me for a source. This is always important. Here is a link which references a book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism by Dr. Paul Kengor. Dr. Kengor was interviewed about his book by Front Page magazine in 2006 and speaks of his effort to get this story to the public and the refusal of mainstream newspapers to publish the documented facts. That interview includes his references and states the known information in plain terms.
______________________________________________
Update 2
I edited the post to shorten it.

The Munchkin Wrangler

There are bloggers out there that deserve to be recognized. Marko, the Munchkin Wrangler, is one of them. I am making a belated addition to my blogroll and inviting any of my readers who have not heard of Marko to go and visit.

His latest offering, a vote for gun control is a vote for thunderdome is a clear eyed look at what gun control really means. What he has to say explains what has happened to Britain since they banned firearms, and what it means to live in places like Chicago and Washington, D.C. today.

His "Monday Search Terms" snark is worth the price of admission by itself, a weekly feature that always makes me smile.

One other essay he wrote some time ago, that many of you have seen in an email, has been widely and falsely attributed to a military officer. It is entitled why the gun is civilization. It is one of the finest things you will read this year, and I will take a snippet to close this post.

The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.
--The Munchkin Wrangler, on his blog, 3-23-2007

Trying to break it down

If you went to school before 1970, you probably remember films like this. They had many topics, some social, some scientific, and some that explained the economic and political system. This video is about money, what it is, how it represents value and serves as a medium of exchange.

The one thing that this video didn't mention is that if the government prints more dollars, lots and lots of more dollars, say like a couple of trillion of them, without any value to back them up, the value of all dollars, including the existing ones, will go down. That's called inflation, boys and girls, and we are going to see a whole lot of it in the coming months and years.

It helps destroy the economy even further because the value of money saved continuously erodes. Any attempt at running a business or being self reliant fails as it is impossible to function without economic stability. This must not have been as much of a problem in 1952.

Let's take a look back before the last several inflationary cycles, where something less than $2000.00 bought you a new Ford, and things like scales were still manufactured in America.

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
--John Maynard Keynes

Kime

Kime. It loosely translates from the Japanese as "focus". Ki is the word for energy. The "energy of looking" might be another English phrase for it. I learned this word last night, working on a particular technique that I have been struggling with. The concept jumped out at me.
It applies as well to shooting. We call it sight picture. In handgun shooting, the mantra is "front sight, front sight, front sight...", and when you have that focus, you make your hits. If after every shot, you regain that sight picture before you shoot again, each shot will join the others in the 10 ring.

You hear a variation of it in every sport where the coaches tell the players, "Keep your eye on the ball!"

I think it applies to many things. Seeing clearly what is being done to the United States economy, what the outcome of a 10+ trillion dollar deficit will be, what the cost of our government's policies are and will be, is not an easy task. It requires energy and vision.

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
--Bruce Lee

To The Beach

Hurricane Bill was already past our coast, but the waves were still up. At the State Park the lifeguards were being cautious to paranoid, although I could see why. They did not want to have to make any rescues in that surf if it could be avoided. Late in the afternoon, just past low tide, we did go in. The side currents were strong and the waves had a lot of power. We never went out over waist deep and the waves were breaking over our heads.

I took several pictures from the edge of the surf. It is hard to capture the energy, but I like the way this one caught the curl as the wave broke on the beach.Lots of beautiful scenery and clouds. Time to read, watch the waves, take a long walk, and nap under an old umbrella.

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.
--Robert Henri

Cooking and Pioneering

Pioneering, in Scouting parlance, is building things with rope and wood. Knots and lashings, along with various sizes of trees branches, used to create something useful or fun.

One of the most useful things I know of is something we called a Chippewa kitchen. There are couple of designs. The one we always used looked like this.
It should be made stable, and of a height that the upper platform is about the same height as your countertops at home. The point where the four corner poles meet should be about nine or ten feet in the air. You make that lashing first, then stand the quadrapod up and spread out the legs. The side support lashings and the tabletop can then be added. After the lashings are complete, the level tabletop should be covered with two to three inches of clay mud and allowed to dry and harden overnight.

Now you have a platform that you can stand at, three to four feet square. Room to set your pots and pans, a space to build a cooking fire, and a central point to hang a pot over over the fire if necessary. Keep the fire controlled, using a shovel to move coals from a larger fire in a pit or fire ring. The cook and helpers are no longer squatting on the ground, they are standing and cooking at a comfortable working level.

Struggling with smoke, trying to control the size of the cooking fire while keeping it fed, burning the food or losing it to a pot that tips over, all things of the past. The Chippewa kitchen is home woods made civilization. It is also a perfect platform to set out your dutch ovens on, the hard level clay holding the ovens and charcoal, allowing you to treat them like pots on the stove.

I made one of these for a camp when my oldest son was in college. We used it two months in a row, camping both times in the same location. At the end of the second camp, I enlisted help, loaded it on a trailer, and took it home. I set it up on the side of the house, did minor repairs, and used it when we grilled out.

It lasted for about two years before the wood began to rot and I finally had to retire it. During that time, some of my son's friends came into town to go camping. They had never been to our house before, and were working off instructions he had emailed to them. When they arrived, I answered the door. Making small talk, I asked if they had any trouble finding the house.

They laughed, and one of them said, "Oh no, once we saw that camp kitchen sitting in the yard, we knew we had the right place."

A dutch oven in long term storage is bad for the soul.
-— Blaine Nay

Back to the Woods, with a Cast Iron Pot

They are called Dutch ovens. I had planned to make a post out of explaining how they work, how we used them, and what you could do with them, but I found that website, and I know I couldn't do any better. I would note that in the list of people he credits at the bottom of his site is his sister, who learned to cook in Dutch ovens through the Boy Scouts.

So go and take a look. A Dutch oven isn't a backpacking item. It's for cooking when you're set up somewhere and you only have to unload it from the trailer. You can make anything you would make on the stove or in your home oven. We use them whenever we camp near the vehicles. It became competitive. Pizza, chili, stews, chicken and pastry, rolls, bread, baked chicken and potatoes, and then desserts. Cake, pie, cobbler, baked apples. In an iron pot with hot coals above and below.

We had one Asst. Scoutmaster that would stack them. The coals on the top of one served to heat the bottom of the next one. Stacks of three or four, two main dishes, breads, and a dessert. He prided himself on his skills and rightly so.

The Scouts picked up on what we were doing, and some years more than others, would use the ovens on campouts. If a Patrol of Scouts can do it, so can you. Lodge makes the heavy ovens, every outdoor supply center and website stocks them. Don't settle
for hot dogs and canned beans. Buy or borrow a Dutch oven and make everyone you're feeding think you really know what you're doing.

Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.
--Craig Claiborne

Music to Remember

This was composed by John Williams. It is titled Hymn to the Fallen. Another piece of music to help me remember who we are, and what price has been paid for us to be free men.
“

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
--Laurence Binyon, 1914

ObamaCare Is All About Rationing

It's not even my title, it's from the Wall Street Journal. Here's the opening lines:

Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive.

All of this is going to be done to the taxpayers in the name of "fairness."

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
--Winston Churchill

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

From Pr. Reagan's funeral, held in the National Cathedral.

We are a republic, that's why this song is so titled. Pretty much a Christian song, too, from what I'm picking out of the lyrics. Another song that I think reminds us of who we were.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
--Julia Ward Howe, 1863

Canadian Health Care System "not sustainable"

Sometimes they just write themselves.

At a meeting in Saskatoon the incoming President of the Canadian Medical Association says that they they need to look at options because the system they have is not sustainable. They want to bring back private options, get back to some sort of payment for service rather than lump sum payments to hospitals, and try to make the system focus on patients.

We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.
--Dr. Anne Doig speaking on 8/16/09 about the Canadian health care system

A Message to Congress

To Pr. Obama, Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the current Congress:

We are not paid shills of the insurance companies. We are not being manipulated to oppose your plans. I despise the way health insurance works in this country. I know that they are making money by denying coverage whenever the rules allow. I know millions of people cannot afford coverage, and so go without needed care.

I get the problem, okay? It just does not follow that creating another giant federal government program and taking the health care industry into the public sector is any sort of solution.

And it won't be "free". It cannot be "free", nothing is. Everyone will be taxed, and taxed heavily, to pay for it.

And it will be rationed. As time goes on, and there is no longer any incentive to perform, because they will be no competition, just like the Post Office as Pr. Obama recently pointed out, we will stand in line and hope we get seen by someone competent who still has access to the diagnostic tools we need.

Also, I know while we are busy protesting this debacle, you are busily running forward with the rest of your legislation, not the least of which is cap'n'trade, another method of taxing whatever remains of U.S. industry into oblivion.

You already have GM, the banks, and you want the rest. A worsening economy only serves your plans to nationalize as much as possible.

Here's the main thing. I think you all know exactly what you are doing. I don't think you are just misguided liberals that don't know better. I think the reason you are hurrying is that you want to run all this through before we, the American people, fully wake up and have a chance to elect some different Congressmen in 2010.

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand - its elements are hunger, envy, and death.--Heinrich Heine

___________________________________________
Update
Apparently my fellow blogger Borepatch is better connected, and in the comments he mentioned that he had gotten his check from the insurance companies. Ok, Aetna, Kaiser, Blue Cross, Humana, here I am shilling for you like a cheap used car salesman, where's that big check? Anybody?

American Thinker

Herbert Meyer, writing in the American Thinker, has some thoughts on the Obama Revolution, where it leads and what we can do to win our country back at the ballot box.

Our country's future now lies within our own hands -- yours, mine, all of us who comprise what the Washington insiders sneeringly call the grass roots.
--Herbert Meyer

Disruptors

Here's footage of Nancy Pelosi, speaking of how she appreciates those who speak out on the issues, how she is a fan of "disruptors". But that was in 2006. Now those who disrupt are un-American.

There's nothing more articulate, more eloquent, to a member of Congress, than the voice of his or her own constituents.
--Nancy Pelosi

GOOOH

Get Out Of Our House is the name. Here's a quote from their mission statement:

GOOOH stands for 'Get Out of Our House' and is pronounced like the word 'go'. It is a NON-PARTISAN plan to evict the 435 career politicians in the U.S. House of Representatives and replace them with everyday Americans just like you.

If you are tired of career politicians, GOOOH is for you. If you believe money has corrupted Washington, GOOOH is for you. If you believe politicians have too much power, GOOOH is for you. If you are weary of the death grip the two parties have on our government, and are ready to return control of our government to the people, then GOOOH is for you.

GOOOH is NOT just another political party. It is a system that will allow you and your neighbors to choose, among yourselves, the person who can best represent your district.

GOOOH is an evolving system and your input is requested. The questions are changing based on the feedback of members just like you. Participate in the forums, take the survey, and send us your thoughts. This is YOUR system. We will perfect it with your input.

Do I think they have a chance of success? No. Do I think they should try? Yes. It is better than standing by and watching the country we love be dismantled.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
--Abraham Lincoln

Rosemary Kennedy

I try to pick my own posts. I was going to write one about the Presidential Medal of Freedom being dragged thought the mud of Chappaquiddick Inlet before being presented to Edward Kennedy. But I stopped by Borepatch's place and I am still sitting here stunned. I'm sorry Borepatch, I either post this or I just take down the site. I had never heard this story.

Does this woman look retarded?

This is Rosemary Kennedy before she had her brain mutilated at the age of 23 because her father ordered it done. She was not retarded, not slow, not anything but a little too independent to suit her father. She wasn't retarded until she was lobotomized.

Here's the story in it's entirety, with a tip of the hat to FatBoy for the effort. Ever hear that story? No, and you won't in the mainstream press. As far as I'm concerned, that makes them complicit in the crime and cover-up.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver's obituary in the New York Times would lead you to think Rosemary had always been mildly retarded. But Rosemary kept a diary, she traveled, she went to school, and then she had her brain destroyed and spent the rest of her life staring at the walls in an institution.

When they put her on the table and ran the rods into her brain, the doctor had her recite the Lord's Prayer. When her words were reduced to incoherent mumbling, he decided there was enough damage and stopped.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary, men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
--Joseph Conrad

From the UK, a comment about Socialized Health Care

Crusader Rabbit sends us some information about what to expect under the new health care system. Every horror story with a link. Then at the end he changes topics and mentions one incident related to the disarming of Britain.

Because no matter what they tell us, they can't make a socialist system work. The final outcome will always be the same. Ever rising taxes to pay for a broken system that can't deliver even modest care. A system that will not cover the elected officials that are forcing it on us because they have a full coverage system we are already paying for.

We've got to do it the American way. The American way is not single-payer, government-controlled anything. That's a European way of doing something; that's frankly a socialist way of doing something. That's why when you hear Democrats in particular talk about single-mandated health care, universal health care, what they're talking about is socialized medicine. --Rudy Guliani

More on the Big Lie

The Obama machine planted a fake doctor at a town hall meeting.

This woman is introduced as, and pretends to be, a primary care doctor. She is not.

Here's some background. Is the corrupt machine we face so broken that they couldn't find a real doctor willing to support them? If they will lie about this, how far will they go to force nationalized health care socialism their will communism on America?

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual.
--Thomas Jefferson

_________________________________________________
UPDATE
It was pointed out by a reader that I provided no proof that Ms. Mayer is not a doctor. So, a quote from this article in the Houston Chronicle.

Mayer identified herself as a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee's district. However, her name does not appear in the database maintained by the Texas Medical Board, which licenses all doctors in Texas.

In an e-mail to the Chronicle on Thursday morning, Mayer confirmed she is not a licensed physician.

"I have been advised to refrain from making any further statements," she said.

In the initial story about the event, the Chronicle reported that she was a doctor based on her claim at the meeting.

Today, Jackson Lee denied knowing Mayer.

A Moment of Truth

Pr. Obama came out and gave us the best reason yet to oppose government run health care. In an effort to compare public/private run businesses in similar markets, CNN captured the following quote, "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine," Obama said, referring to private courier services that compete with the U.S. Postal Service. "It's the Post Office that's always having problems."

I'll accept that as reason enough not to create another government run system.

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
--Milton Friedman

The Big Lie

This is what was done to the sign in front of Rep. David Scott's office. He claims this was done by right wing opponents of Pr. Obama out of "race hatred".

I think it a lie. Part of the big lie that is being foisted off on all of us. I think that either Rep. Scott did and/or had this done by someone on his staff, or someone on the left did it. Either way it was done to try to make race an issue in what is a heated debate about the federal government taking over health care. It's meant to be a part of the narrative we're supposed to believe. The one Nancy Pelosi laid out last week when she said that there were protesters with swastikas at the town hall meetings.

The truth is that the protesters at these meetings are staying on topic, trying to get their elected representatives to actually represent them. No one is concerned with the race of Pr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or any of the other socialists. What we are concerned about is that are passing more and more legislation and spending more and more of the money they don't have in a blatant attempt to destroy what remains of the economy of this country.

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
--Adolf Hitler

Fanfare for the Common Man

Aaron Copeland wrote this for me, and all the other common men of America.

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'
--Aaron Copland

We need a new descriptive name

People opposed to abortion didn’t like the term “anti-abortion”, so they became “pro-life”. People in favor of abortion didn’t the term “pro-abortion”, so they became “pro-choice”.

Nancy Pelosi called everyone that is opposed to the proposed health care legislation un-American. I don’t like the term "un-American", but I haven’t come up with a new name yet.

"Pro-freedom" comes to mind.

An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.
--Justice Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court 1937-1971

Bill Whittle

I discovered Bill Whittle some years ago, he had a website called Eject, Eject, Eject. He wrote on topics like honor, patriotism, freedom, war and strength. He didn't write like I do, a few paragraphs every day or so. Sometimes he didn't post for weeks. But I would check his site every couple of days, because when he did write it would being a thing of beauty. Soaring, epic writing that made you stand a little taller, made you remember who you were, and what this country had the potential to be.
Those essays are not online anymore, but they were published in a book called Silent America that is still available. I bought a copy, and loaned it out after I had read it twice.

Bill is now doing video essays on PJTV, his latest being a clear eyed explanation of why the left felt it necessary to destroy Sarah Palin and the means they used to accomplish it. Nothing I have to say today is as important as the conclusions he draws near the end of that video.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
--John F. Kennedy

Pr. Obama tells the Democratic Congress to Shut Up

So President Obama wants the people responsible for creating this mess to stop talking. That would be Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, and the rest of the people in Congress. They make the budget. They are working on a new budget now, see the previous post for an example of their decision making.

According to the Constitution and the laws it is the responsibility of Congress to create and approve a budget. It doesn't even involve the President because it is not a bill. Appropriation bills to cover those costs come later, and they are sent to the President for approval. For the Cliff Notes version, see Wikipedia's explanation.

The November election of 2006 gave the Democrats control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. This included then Senator Barack Obama who was sworn in as a Senator from Illinois in January 2005.

“The days of the do-nothing Congress are over,” declared Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, in line to become majority leader, adding that Americans spoke “clearly and decisively in favor of Democrats leading this country in a new direction.”

So the Democrats have had budgetary control since 2007 when the new member were sworn in. Now here we are in mid 2009, two and a half years later, who exactly is Pr. Obama blaming for the mess he is talking about? Congress, including himself?

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-–Winston Churchill

Priorities

So, the Congress voted to kill the F-22 program. The New York Times applauded that decision calling the F-22 an example of a "glitzy self-indulgent toy" Then, Congress turned around and added money to the Air Force budget to buy corporate jets, more than half a billion dollars to buy 8 of them. Where is the outrage on the part of the New York Times now? What sort of self absorbed, self aggrandizing people think they can justify these two decisions? Beyond the purchase price, what about fuel costs? Aircrews? Maintenance? We elected them to see to the interests of the country, and this is an example of what they choose to spend our money on? No money for fighters, but plenty enough to spend on luxury travel for themselves.

You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!
--Henry Brooks Adams

Canoeing

First, of course, is Canoeing merit badge. Wooden paddles a foot too long and old Grumman aluminum canoes. Struggling with confusing strokes, learning to turn, to paddle a straight line alone without switching sides. Learning to capsize and then right a canoe in the middle of a lake. The names of the parts and the various types of canoes. Safety.Everyone tends to over muscle a canoe at first, fighting it, wearing themselves out. Coming in at the end of a day backsore and tired. The basics elude them. To those who persevere there is a gift. The day comes when the mechanics of the J stroke become second nature. The canoe goes where you intend and you can relax, using your energy without exertion. It becomes a joy.

Of all the outdoor skills I gained from Scouting, canoeing is the thing that I appreciate most. Canoeing can take you further from the beaten path and show you more of the natural world than any other means of transportation, and do it with a fluid grace. A canoe sits lightly in the water and is much at home running a set of rapids as it is gliding across a still lake in the morning mist.

I have taken many river trips, she and I have taken a canoe filled with our camping to a barrier island, I have camped with friends on platforms in black water cypress swamps. I have seen deer coming to drink in the early morning, watched an osprey take a fish out in front of my canoe, swam in a deserted cove on a hot September afternoon. These things, and many more, I owe to some unknown Scout that taught me canoeing in the late summer of 1972.

I have an old canoe now, the bottom scarred by rocks, heavy and broad with a keel riveted down the centerline. It has personality and is part of my history. I would not like a new one any better. Here I am, ten or so years ago, getting ready to launch on the lower Roanoke River. It is a good life, and canoeing has been a part of it.

Anyone who says they like portaging is either a liar or crazy.
--Bill Mason

Today I Stand With Breda and Texas Fred

Breda hits it out of the park. The Republican Party isn't leading this. They can't even keep up. We are individual Americans, driven by the actions of government out of control, to act as best we can to prevent the biggest mistake yet by our current government. No one is paying me, no one has contacted me in any way. I'm just a guy with a blog.

And I know that the current administration is already keeping lists.

There are problems with the current health care delivery system. Agreeing on that does not mean I think the current Democrat plans are the right solution.

Branding me a dissident for disagreeing with proposed legislation being considered by Congress and then putting me on a secret White House dissidents list is beyond any response that can be justified. I am not a dissident. I am a patriot. I love this country. I am an honorably discharged veteran. I am a taxpaying voter. I believe in the Boy Scout Law and Oath, the Oath of Enlistment, the Bill of Rights, The Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence.

The sad truth is, all those things I just mentioned are the real reason I'm on that list.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
--Thomas Jefferson

________________________
Update
And Texas Fred, too.

Rights and Obligations

If the Democrats were correct about this, and you have a right to health care, who is obligated to provide it?

Not who is obligated to pay for it. It can be paid for by extracting the money from the taxpayers, deciding for all of us that we have no right to the fruits of our labor. It can be taken from us by threat of force.

The question I am asking is who is obligated to provide it? If it's a right, someone must provide it. What if there's no doctor in your town? How does the government make sure your right is fulfilled? Do they draft a doctor and force him to work there under penalty of prison? Who sets his hours, or how many patients he has to see before he drops to his cot for a few hours?

This will make the doctors, nurses, technicians, and therapists the first slaves of Obama's America. That's only the beginning, though. Prescription drug companies and pharmacists will be next. A big part of health care are those prescriptions. If I have a right to health care, I must have a right to the drugs that treat my conditions. If those companies were nationalized and the employees pressed into service, our right to those drugs could be protected.

Hospitals? Better start building soon. We could use stimulus money, in fact we'll have to, it's a right of the people.

Soon enough, we can test children and the ones that are smart enough and have an aptitude can be channeled toward national service in health care so the people can have their right. Better test them early, the really bright ones might figure it out and go Galt.

This is what they are selling when they say we have a right to health care. They are saying that we have the right to steal the mental ability, skills, and labor of all the personnel that will be pressed into service to ensure we get our right to health care. This has been tried before. Here is a 1991 report about the state of health care in the Soviet Union, the first country to guarantee health care as a right.

Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.
--Ayn Rand

Why so Serious?

Does anyone remember this?

Or this?

Or this?

Because the LA Weekly has wrapped itself around the axle over this: Seems like a trend in political satire to me. I don't see how one of these posters is more unacceptable than the others. But this one is my favorite:

It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message.
--The Joker, in the movie The Dark Knight

Another Crisis

Now this just bums me out.

Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.
--Aristotle

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

Just because you can see a symptom of a problem doesn't mean that whatever you think of next is the solution. There are many sorts of logical fallacies. When I look at the problems the nation faces, I can see the same symptoms as Democrats see, and not come to the same conclusions. I can even do this without being misguided or evil.

The economy and the nation's banks. I can see that there is a recession. It does not necessarily follow that government intervention using taxpayer money is the solution.

The domestic auto industry. Sales are down and two of the manufacturers have declared bankruptcy. It does not necessarily follow that government intervention and a takeover using taxpayer money is the solution.

Health care costs are high, and there are many people that don't have coverage. It does not necessarily follow that government intervention and a takeover using taxpayer money is the solution.

Some people believe that there are global effects to human use of carbon based fuels. I disagree, and think the science supports my point of view. Even if I am wrong, it does not necessarily follow that government intervention using taxpayer money is the solution.

All of those links take you to the White House website and the details of the President's plans to fix everything by government intervention and spending taxpayer money. There are many more issues, right down to promising to rebuild New Orleans. Sure, let's spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that was built below sea level two centuries ago. Then in a few years when some hurricane comes along and floods it, we can do it again.

Why is it that every problem we face gets the knee jerk reaction of involving the federal government and spending taxpayer money? If you thought penicillin was the solution to every medical problem, a new starter was the solution to every car problem, and a new monitor would fix every computer problem, others would rightly think you deluded. This is how I feel about the federal government deciding that more government spending and control is the solution to every issue the country faces.

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.
--Milton Friedman

Government Health Care

Some people are suggesting we create a system just like Canada. There's a 10 second ad at the beginning. It's a 2 minute news clip from ABC.

After you consider that, there's this article in the Wall Street Journal. The American plan will be a lot like the British and the Canadian plan. High costs to the taxpayers, long waits, rationed care. Consider what happens to the development of new therapies for disease when there is no longer a profit motive for the companies involved. Why would a hospital ever buy an new MRI machine without a way to make money on it? Pr. Obama promised hope. That's what will be left.

This isn't about providing health care, anyway. It's about consolidating control. With computerized medical records, taking over the health care system will lock in the federal government as the arbiter for who gets care, how much, and who gets told that they just need to accept their diagnosis and go to hospice. It will justify more taxes on certain foods, just like they did to cigarettes. In the end it will be one more way for the government to look into our lives.

Here's what Ronald Reagan had to say about socialized medicine in 1961:
48 years ago, and he nails it. It's socialism that that's being forced on us and we would do best see it clearly.

One last question. Do you think Pr. Obama, along with all the members of Congress, and their families are going to get this new level of service they are proposing for us? I promise you that they will continue to be offered the finest of care at our expense.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
--H.L. Mencken