One simmering summer day a friend of mine decided we should go see what all the ‘wonder’ was about at the local “Water Wonderland”. I had never been to this mystical oasis and decided it might be fun. Upon entering the park it didn’t seem to look as enticing as the commercials led me to believe through my entire childhood. But, I figured as long as they had water I would enjoy it.
Continue reading “Water Wonderland”Great Equalizer
Remember the story of David and Goliath? Goliath had pure size and brute strength and was defeated by a pebble which was hurled by a sling. In those days that was quite the accomplishment, but in modern times this kind of thing occurs a lot more. The fact that it occurs a lot more is really mucking up the gene pool. Think about it. If genes are normally passed on under the “survival of the fittest” rule, then the gene pool should improve over time. There are also the problems of the nurture method being affected by the new ease with which someone can kill someone else.
Let’s say there is a healthy, upstanding individual with a good education and enough money to survive comfortably. Now, we can introduce this individual to an all too common situation in which someone needs drug money and comes to rob their home. The crackhead individual is brandishing the great equalizer in the form of a 9mm. In the days of yore the crackhead would get beat down by the upstanding individual in the ensuing struggle. But with his new weapon he can easily eliminate any trouble that he might have had. Now instead of the upstanding individual passing on his genes and teaching others to be like him. The crackhead will go out and get high with a trashy, promiscuous woman and knock her up, thus completing the new twisted circle of life. The genes and nurture, (or lack thereof) that a person will receive from the crackhead and the trashy lady will, in most cases, produce a person of lower caliber (Pun Intended).
I am in no way for gun control, but rather believe that since they exist in the first place as many upstanding people as possible should have the great equalizer. Gun laws are one of the most stupid thing ever devised by man. Clearly such laws only prevent law-biding citizens from owning guns and give criminals peace of mind when committing crimes.
Don’t Trust Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich is seen by many people as the guy who made that “Contract with America” right before things got nice for a while. He is thought to be a great conservative representative. Just as was the case with George W. Bush you should not fall for the act. Let’s shed a little light on Mr. Gingrich and why he should not be trusted.
Recently, Gingrich has supported Dede Scozzafava as a Republican candidate for congress only because she was Republican. Dede’s views do not resemble anything conservative and Gingrich stated that in supporting her he was simply being loyal to the party so the votes don’t get split and the Democrats win. The question for Gingrich is: If the Republican supports everything the Democrats want, what is the difference between a Democrat winning on a split vote and this Republican winning? The only reason I could come up with for Newt Gingrich not wanting someone who possesses his professed ‘conservative’ beliefs is that he does not actually hold such views. Rather than be guided by principles he prefers to play political games and try for power. Personally I would rather go down in flames while still holding onto my principles than to compromise on what I believed to appease other people.
Newt Gingrich voted to form the Department of Education in 1979. Education used to be under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, but in 1979, with Newt’s and Jimmy Carter’s seal of approval, the government expanded with new individual departments. The new Department of Education had more power over school curricula and hiring, taking some power away from state and local authorities. The department has been a huge hole for politicians to dump money into without ever seeing improvements in student performance. In fact, almost all important numbers, such as graduation rates, have either declined or remained stagnant since the formation of the Department of Education in 1979. There is no authorization in the U.S. Constitution for federal involvement in education. Supporting this department is a violation of the oath Gingrich took to uphold the Constitution. The infamous American Communist William Z. Foster, in his 1932 book “Toward Soviet America” said,
“Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are…[a] National Department of Education…the studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic, and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society.”
This hardly seems like a conservative position for Gingrich to take, especially the part about how the communists called for the formation of the department as part of the way to overtake America.
In 1980 Gingrich voted to give most favored nation status to Communist China; you know the one that kills people in rice paddies. We now get all of our crap from China and they own more of U.S. debt than anyone else.
Gingrich also supported the US signing an agreement to get in on the whole, “General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization” (GATT/WTO). This took the power given to congress by the people in the Constitution, “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations”, and gave it away to the international body “The World Trade Organization”. The Constitution does not allow congress to give away the duties and powers specifically granted to it, to an unelected foreign body.
But the big glaring reason to not trust him, is that his own wife could not trust him. Once any politician has an affair, you really see how good their word is. If a promise is made to the person that they love and they break it in the most offensive way, surely they will not care about an oath they took in behalf of strangers. Gingrich had an affair while going after Bill Clinton for having an affair. Technically, he went after Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice, but he did tout family values and character as important, which makes him an untrustworthy hypocrite.
All of these and more add up to make me not trust Newt Gingrich when he says,
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
Fruit of Kaboom Mania
We have all heard by now, about the attempt on Christmas day to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to the US. There has been a lot of hullabaloo around the fact that he was already known to be a terrorist and even his own father had pointed him out as an extremist. It was another sign of government competence when the US state department revoked the would-be bombers visa well after the incident occurred. We have the extremely long period of time for any acknowledgment of the incident by the leadership of the US. There is also the story of how he got on the plane in the first place, which involves the bizarre tale of a man in a suit speaking with a manager to overlook the lack of a passport. What most people might have heard about in the aftermath of this incident is the fact that TSA screenings have ratcheted up and people are calling for the use of the dreaded strip search machines on everyone.
What I have not heard pointed out at this juncture and what seems painfully obvious to me is the fact that changing the laws in the US to make screening more R-rated and strict would have very little impact on the situation that has prompted the discussion. The flight was from Amsterdam to Detroit. To have an effect on this type of situation foreign laws would need to change. It might be a good idea to actually require passports since we have them and they are a standard to be followed already. We could even try using our terror watch lists. The ineptitude of people all along the chain in this situation does not give me any confidence in anyone. Either they are completely worthless at doing their job or someone did something on purpose.
Since people couldn’t check a passenger to see if he was a terrorist, which he plainly and clearly was known to be, now citizens of the United States of America will lose even more of their already thin right to privacy. The logic in this situation just doesn’t work out.
Picture Pages
No one that I know personally has known what I was talking about when I mention ‘Picture Pages’. This is the old show that Bill Cosby did that involved some pretty sweet sound effects when he would draw things.
Please tell me someone else remembers this show and that I am not alone.
Is Anyone Else Sick of the Lying?
Why do we keep electing the people that completely disregard everything they said while in the process of trying to get elected? Can anyone just do what they say they are going to do? What reasons do they have for going back on their word?
A while ago I was confronted with one of the stupidest statements I have ever heard. someone said to me that Abraham Lincoln was, “The lyin’est president we ever done had.” My reply was, “Honest Abe, really, why do you say so?” At which point I was told that he told the country that he would not seek to end slavery if elected president. Apparently the person telling me this at the time is completely unaware of a little thing called history. It must be hard to find information on a small occurrence called the Civil War. Lincoln did not force the southern states to secede starting with South Carolina. He only responded to it. He did not break any campaign promise, but rather reacted to a national crisis and came out on the other side with slavery ended.
This national crisis model has been tried again and again since that time and while I believe honest Abe’s intentions, I am unsure of others. For example, George W. Bush said:
He came up with an excuse to go nation build in Iraq because of a crisis. I still need answers to a few questions. What connection did Saddam Hussein have to Al Qaida? WMDs? What was the picture that Colin Powell showed to the UN that was supposed to be WMDs?
The Obama administration is either lazy or they just don’t care about the myriad promises that have been completely disregarded. Here is a video of one broken promise (repeated several times):
Check out the chuckle that all these politicians have when asked about something promised on the campaign trail:
So it’s funny to lie to the people who elect you now. What a hootin’ hollerin’ good time.
Misattributed to Washington
One thing that really drives me up the wall quicker than other things is when people use false quotes and continue to pass them on. I will begin acquiring as many of these as I can and dispelling them here. My major problem with false quotes is that I very much enjoy the truth and obviously if it is a false quote it is a lie. I may hear a quote and be inclined to use it myself. A person propagating such quotes often makes a fool of themselves. Many times if one wishes to be responsible and check the verity of a quote and its source they will run into multiple examples of people misusing the quote and think they have verified it but really have just seen multiple versions of the lie. Quotes have been given a strange place in our culture and at times can seem to have been canonized by some users of them even if false. Most misquoted people are either founding fathers of the United States or are Albert Einstein.
The first quote I will do, has been attributed to George Washington and in fact he did not say this:
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”
However, the fact that he did not say this does not mean it was not said. In fact, it appears that it is very much an actual historical statement from the 1796-97 Treaty with Tripoli (current Libya). Some of the Muslims in the area had concerns about a new crusade being launched, and the treaty informs them to not worry about holy war, since the government of the United States is not founded on any particular religion.
Many Christians might get upset that this was actually said and if they do then they are idiots. If the United States was founded on the Christian religion then why do we not have state run confessionals or baptisms? Jesus, the founder of Christianity, said that the first great commandment was to love God and the second was to love thy neighbor. These most important laws were somehow excluded from the constitution and are not required. Strange thing to exclude when basing the government on the Christian religion. We also have another problem when trying to base the government on the Christian religion; which flavor among all the different versions is it based on? Many Christians argue bitterly over their view of what is true Christianity. I am happy to keep that kind of contention out of the body that creates and enforces laws that I will abide by. Although contention finds its way in anyway.
Christians can take solace in the fact that this line from the treaty does not mean that the founders hated Christianity or religion in general. In fact I have documented, and will document in the future, statements quite to the contrary by founders that show the necessity for religious beliefs, morals, faith and the providence of God in maintaining a free society. But with regard to government, it is always best to not jump in with certain religions.
The End of the Decade Crusade
Well troopers, it is the last day that we can possibly recruit anyone to the cause for my aforementioned Decade Crusade. Unless any of us live another 90 years we will never get the chance to write a date without the unnecessary “0” before the year. If you have participated in the Decade Crusade leave a comment below and tell anyone else who has signed on to the cause to come to this site and leave a comment.
Continue reading “The End of the Decade Crusade”
20 Best Albums of the Decade
This decade has been much more fruitful than I thought when it comes to good music. Not all of it was too incredibly popular, but does that matter? It may take you a while to get through the list but I guarantee it will be worth it.
Continue reading “20 Best Albums of the Decade”
Midland Texas Christmas
I really miss quite a few things about Christmas in Midland Texas: