Well Phil the groundhog didn’t see his shadow and as a result we’re supposed to have an early spring. However judging by the weather some of you are having of late and the fact that it was so bright out here on Friday that I needed a cover and sunglasses just to be able to see going back and forth to the dumpster, my personal belief is that its more likely Phil just misplaced his shadow in his den while hibernating.
Then again maybe he did it deliberately just to mess with those Groundhoggian people. I mean seriously folks, can you imagine? You get up in the middle of your long winter’s nap to answer a call of nature and get a drink because it your mouth tastes like some passing gopher used it for a litter box and suddenly BAM!
You get dragged from your burrow, held up in your holey furry under things IN THE FRIGGING COLD and waved around like some holy icon at a crowd of whack jobs who are carrying on and scaring the crap out of you in your half awake stupor. I mean SERIOUSLY wouldn’t you tell them what ever they wanted to hear so they’d put you back in your warm burrow and let you get back to sleep? I bet Phil is thinking ‘I’d like to see them try this crap with a honey badger!’
Friday also brought me quite a surprise, Molly came home with a Post Office Pink slip. No, she didn’t get fired from the laziest job in the world. Post Office pink slips mean there is a package waiting for us in our complexes’ property management office because it wouldn’t fit in our box.
This was a surprise and a mystery to me because I had not ordered anything and wasn’t aware that any of my friends and relatives had shipped me anything either. I knew it couldn’t be work related because all that sort of thing moves by UPS or Fed-X where they still actually come to your door like you pay them to.
I was very surprised when we got the box on Saturday morning as will you be when we get back to this subject in a few minutes, but for now let’s get the ball rolling shall we?
THE ORIGINAL SIN
NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE CAN TOP THIS…
During a trip from California to Indiana, it didn’t help that Impish’s connecting flight from Denver was delayed twice because of mechanical problems. Then, after they were aloft, Impish noticed the lights began flickering. He mentioned this to a flight attendant.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said. Moments later the lights went out. Clearly she had solved the problem by turning off all the lights.
A passenger across the aisle who had been watching leaned over and said, “Whatever you do, please don’t ask about the engines”
They Apparently Live Among Us Even Down Under!
‘Prepare to die’ shirt ‘intimidates’ airline passengers
Man ultimately allowed to wear shirt with ‘Princess Bride’ quote
Published On: Jan 25 2013 09:46:13 AM CST Updated On: Jan 25 2013 10:39:44 AM CST
Let this be a lesson to fans of cult classic movies: If you wish to wear a shirt sporting one of the most famous quotes from a film, not everyone will get it.
On Sunday evening, New Zealand man Wynand Mullins boarded a Qantas flight in Australia wearing a shirt featuring a quote from “The Princess Bride,” according to New Zealand’s Stuff magazine. The shirt had a large nametag that read: “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Before the plane took off, a flight attendant approached Mullins and asked him to take the shirt off “because some of the passengers are quite intimidated by it,” Mullins told Stuff.
Since Mullins didn’t have another shirt with him, he said he would be happy to change if the airline found him something else to wear.
“The thought did cross my mind that it would either be a blanket or the pilot’s jacket,” he told the National Business Review.
But instead of returning with a new shirt, the flight attendant dropped the matter.
A few passengers may have been uncomfortable, but Mullins wasn’t the only one to find the situation a bit extreme.
“I thought it was all a bit silly. The person next to me was laughing, because they knew the movie,” he told Stuff.
Kids Say the Darnedest Things
A Baptist pastor was presenting a children’s sermon. During the sermon, he asked the children if they knew what the resurrection was. Now, asking questions during children’s sermons is crucial, but at the same time, asking children questions in front of a congregation can also be very dangerous.
Having asked the children if they knew the meaning of the resurrection, a little boy raised his hand. The pastor called on him and the little boy said, “I know that if you have a resurrection that lasts more than four hours you are supposed to call the doctor.”
It took over ten minutes for the congregation to settle down enough from their laughter for the worship service to be continued.
Some time shortly after Thanksgiving I think, Impish crowed and posted photos of a wood carving of his blog icon done by his Dad, whom I’ll refer to as “Poppa Dragon”. Well it was a nice enough rendition that I broke a commandment and coveted my neighbor’s goods. It was just that well done
In a nasally New York/New Jersey Jewish American Princess whine that had the producers of Jersey Shore asking if I wanted to be considered for voiceovers, I cried about the inequity of it all and wanted to know where mine was. I did it primarily because I knew Impish would get a laugh out of it.
I never expected to open a box from Poppa Dragon today and find THIS inside:
My very own carving of my favorite subject…ME!
Not only that but I won Second Place, Masters Division in the Florida Winter National Wood Art Expo and Competition!
{From where I sit this proves beyond ANY debate I’m cuter than Impish as I won a prize!}
Personally as I told Poppa Dragon, I think he was robbed on the Judging! Just look at the level of detail and how well he captured my likeness!
Ok, I’m ready for my iPhone close up Mr. DeMille!
As I have told both Poppa Dragon & Impish, I have been doing the blog going on 3 years now and help out in several other groups on line as a Moderator or major contributor and in some cases both. In the 10 years or so I have been doing this stuff this is only the second act of generosity I have experienced. Recently in a book sharing group someone resorted to buying me a eBook because they felt bad that after all the hard and rare books I had located for everyone else nobody could find or had the single remaining book I was looking for in a series as I am know for preferring to wait until I completely collect a series before reading it so I can go start to finish.
While a very nice gesture by someone and muchly appreciated, it cannot even begin to hold a candle to this act of largess. I cannot even begin to imagine the amount to time and patience that went into making less much less the level of skill and craftsmanship. The detail is amazing right down to the pipe having an actual bowl in it filled with a red glowing dottle of pipe tobacco, the hollow gun barrel and the raised buttons on the coat sleeves. Truly an unbelievable example of the woodcarvers art.
I do not know what else to say about this, except that it left me near to speechless, which is something both Molly & Impish will attest is a very difficult thing to achieve.
Thank You once again Poppa Dragon, This will always have a place of honor in my home office.
(I’m not sure which disturbs me more about that picture, that Seri understands Furbish, or that a Furby has a better iPhone than I do!)
Thinking about buying a new computer with that tax refund check? Here’s something else to keep in mind when shopping.
Rescuecom’s 2012 Computer Reliability Report
Lenovo Most Reliable, Acer Least Reliable, Apple Markedly Declined
Rescuecom’s influential annual reliability report rates Lenovo/IBM computers as by far the most reliable.
Of 9 computer manufacturers, Acer placed 9th, followed by Sony at 8th, and Dell at seventh.
HP was rated number six, Asus as fifth and Apple was in fourth place.
Samsung was in third place while Toshiba came in second place.
“Entering 2012, Lenovo/IBM’s rise in reliability will be an important boost for the company. Although Apple’s market share has risen over the last 12 months, its reliability has declined. The comparatively smaller Toshiba and Samsung are illustrating interesting reliability trends worth watching over the coming year,” stated David Milman, CEO of RESCUECOM.
For 2012, Rescuecom now includes all manufacturers with a market share of at least above one percent in this report.
The computer reliability report scores for 2012 are:
1. Lenovo/IBM (281)
2. Toshiba (190)
3. Samsung (156)
4. Apple (151)
5. Asus (126)
6. HP/Compaq (100)
7. Dell (68)
8. Sony (64)
9. Acer (40)
How the report was compiled:
The Rescuecom Computer Reliability Report is a factual, unbiased review of today’s personal computer manufacturers. Rescuecom defines reliability as the physical reliability of the computers plus the after the sale computer support of the manufacturers.
The Rescuecom Computer Repair Share Score is calculated by taking the U.S. Computer Market Share of the manufacturer, dividing it by the percentage of calls Rescuecom receives for service of the manufacturers and multiplying by 100.
By considering the number of service calls as a function of each manufacturer’s market strength, Rescuecom is able to determine and score the reliability of computer manufacturers.
In analyzing the computer reliability scores for 2012, RESCUECOM sees the market making important shifts.
It will be worth watching Samsung to see if they can maintain reliability as their market share continues its ascent. Over the years Lenovo/IBM has performed well on the Rescuecom reliability report, while Dell, HP and Acer have suffered declines.
About RESCUECOM:
RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software.
Sweet! It has to be true- I saw it on the Internet!
Sexual Harassment
Every day, a male employee walks up very close to a female co-worker at the coffee machine.
He stops, inhales quite deeply, and says that her hair smells nice.
After a week of this, the woman can’t stand it anymore.
She takes her issue to a supervisor in Human Resources and asks to file a sexual harassment grievance against the guy.
The supervisor is puzzled and asks, “What’s threatening about a co-worker telling you your hair smells nice?”
“It’s Frank. The midget.”
19 Ways The Government is Watching You
January 10, 2013 | http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/01/3412-19-ways-govt-watches-us/
The following are 19 signs that America is being systematically transformed into a giant surveillance grid….
#1 New Software That Will Store And Analyze Millions Of Our Voices
Did you know that there is software that can positively identify you using your voice in just a matter of seconds?
Law enforcement authorities all over the U.S. are very eager to begin using new Russian software that will enable them to store and analyze millions of voices….
‘Voice Grid Nation’ is a system that uses advanced algorithms to match identities to voices. Brought to the US by Russia’s Speech Technology Center, it claims to be capable of allowing police, federal agencies and other law enforcement personnel to build up a huge database containing up to several million voices.
When authorities intercept a call they’ve deemed ‘hinky’, the recording is entered into the VoiceGrid program, which (probably) buzzes and whirrs and spits out a match. In five seconds, the program can scan through 10,000 voices, and it only needs 3 seconds for speech analysis. All that, combined with 100 simultaneous searches and the storage capacity of 2 million samples, gives SpeechPro, as the company is known in the US, the right to claim a 90% success rate.
#2 Unmanned Aerial Drones Will Be Used Inside The U.S. To Spy On You
Unmanned aerial drones have been used with great success by the U.S. military overseas, and now the U.S. government is promoting their use to local law enforcement authorities all over America.
The following is from a recent GAO report….
“Domestically, state and local law enforcement entities represent the greatest potential users of small UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] in the near term because they can offer a simple and cost effective solution for airborne law enforcement activities”
That report also discussed how there are 146 different models of these drones made by 69 different companies throughout the United States….
“According to an industry trade group, local law enforcement can potentially choose from about 146 different types of small UAS being manufactured by about 69 different companies in the U.S.”
Since our overseas wars are slowing down, somebody has got to keep these drone companies in business.
So the goal is to eventually have thousands of these drones spying on all of us.
In the years ahead, our skies will likely be filled with these things. Many of them are incredibly quiet and can gather information about you from far above. In fact, one could be directly over your home right now and you may never even know it.
In fact, the U.S. government is already using some of these unmanned drones to quietly spy on farmers in Nebraska and Iowa according to a recent article by Kurt Nimmo….
Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is using aerial drones to spy on farmers in Nebraska and Iowa. The surveillance came under scrutiny last week when Nebraska’s congressional delegation sent a joint letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
On Friday, EPA officialdom in “Region 7” responded to the letter.
“Courts, including the Supreme Court, have found similar types of flights to be legal (for example to take aerial photographs of a chemical manufacturing facility) and EPA would use such flights in appropriate instances to protect people and the environment from violations of the Clean Water Act,” the agency said in response to the letter.
#3 High Tech Government Scanners That Can Secretly Scan You From 164 Feet Away
A new scanner that has just been developed can scan your body, your clothes and your luggage from 164 feet away.
According to Gizmodo, these very creepy scanners will soon be used at airports and border crossings all over America….
Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.
And without you knowing it.
The technology is so incredibly effective that, in November 2011, its inventors were subcontracted by In-Q-Tel to work with the US Department of Homeland Security. In-Q-Tel is a company founded “in February 1999 by a group of private citizens at the request of the Director of the CIA and with the support of the U.S. Congress.” According to In-Q-Tel, they are the bridge between the Agency and new technology companies.
Their plan is to install this molecular-level scanning in airports and border crossings all across the United States.
#4 The DNA Of Newborn Babies Born All Over The United States Is Systematically Collected
These days, the invasion of our privacy begins just after birth.
Did you know that the DNA of almost every newborn baby in the United States is systematically collected and stored in databases? Unfortunately, most new parents don’t even realize what medical personnel are doing when this takes place….
The DNA of virtually every newborn in the United States is collected and tested soon after birth. There are some good reasons for this testing, but it also raises serious privacy concerns that parents should know about.
States require hospitals to screen newborns for certain genetic and other disorders. Many states view the testing as so important they do not require medical personnel to get parents’ express permission before carrying it out. To collect the DNA sample, medical personnel prick the newborn’s heel and place a few drops of blood on a card. There is one question that new parents rarely ask: What happens to the blood spots after the testing is done? This is where newborn screening becomes problematic.
#5 Twitter Is Being Used To Monitor You
Hopefully you understand by now that nothing you do on the Internet will ever be private again.
According to a recent article by Susanne Posel, Twitter is being used as a law enforcement tool more than it ever has been before….
Twitter has released a report confirming that the US government leads the world in requesting information on their citizens. The Transparency Report shows the US government has made requests that are infringing on American privacy rights. Twitter states that “we’ve received more government requests in the first half of 2012, as outlined in this initial dataset, than in the entirety of 2011.”
6 Your Cell Phone Is Spying On You
If you want to have no privacy whatsoever, own a cell phone and carry it around with you constantly.
Your cell phone is constantly tracking everywhere that you go and it is constantly making a record of everything that you do with it.
For example, did you know that authorities are using cell phones to record the identities of people that attend street protests?
The following is what one private investigator recently told a stunned audience….
One of the biggest changes is the ability to track your physical location. I’m sorry I came in at the end of the previous talk. I heard them talk about surveying cell phones with a drone, in a wide area — this is something that is done routinely now. I can tell you that everybody that attended an Occupy Wall Street protest, and didn’t turn their cell phone off, or put it — and sometimes even if they did — the identity of that cell phone has been logged, and everybody who was at that demonstration, whether they were arrested, not arrested, whether their photos were ID’d, whether an informant pointed them out, it’s known they were there anyway. This is routine.
At this point, law enforcement authorities are requesting information from cell phone companies about individual Americans over a million times a year as a recent Wired article detailed….
Mobile carriers responded to a staggering 1.3 million law enforcement requests last year for subscriber information, including text messages and phone location data, according to data provided to Congress.
#7 Students Are Increasingly Being Tracked By RFID Microchips
RFID microchips are increasingly becoming a part of our every day lives. In fact, some school districts are now using them to track school attendance. Just check out what is happening in one school district down in Texas….
Northside Independent School District plans to track students next year on two of its campuses using technology implanted in their student identification cards in a trial that could eventually include all 112 of its schools and all of its nearly 100,000 students.
District officials said the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) tags would improve safety by allowing them to locate students — and count them more accurately at the beginning of the school day to help offset cuts in state funding, which is partly based on attendance.
#8 Spy Cams In Hospitals To Monitor Hand washing
Would you want a surveillance camera watching you in the restroom?
Don’t laugh – this is actually happening in some places. The following is from a recent Natural News article….
Here goes the last great American sanctuary from intrusion- bathrooms with spy cams. Going to the bathroom has now been monitored in a hospital in NY where sensors were placed on the doors to identify workers entering and exiting and cameras placed to view sinks to insure proper hand hygiene.
#9 Spyware That Monitors The Behavior Of Government Workers
According to the Washington Post, the federal government is now actually using advanced spyware to closely monitor the behavior of some government employees while they are at work….
When the Food and Drug Administration started spying on a group of agency scientists, it installed monitoring software on their laptop computers to capture their communications.
The software, sold by SpectorSoft of Vero Beach, Fla., could do more than vacuum up the scientists’ e-mails as they complained to lawmakers and others about medical devices they thought were dangerous. It could be programmed to intercept a tweet or Facebook post. It could snap screen shots of their computers. It could even track an employee’s keystrokes, retrieve files from hard drives or search for keywords.
#10 The NSA Warrantless Surveillance Programs
Virtually every single electronic communication in the world (including all phone calls, all faxes, and all emails) is intercepted and recorded by an international surveillance network run by the NSA and several other large international intelligence agencies.
For a long time this was an “open secret” that everyone kind of knew about but that nobody ever did anything about.
Fortunately, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is now fighting back, and they have three former NSA employees on their side….
Three whistleblowers – all former employees of the National Security Agency (NSA) – have come forward to give evidence in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) lawsuit against the government’s illegal mass surveillance program, Jewel v. NSA.
In a motion filed today, the three former intelligence analysts confirm that the NSA has, or is in the process of obtaining, the capability to seize and store most electronic communications passing through its U.S. intercept centers, such as the “secret room” at the AT&T facility in San Francisco first disclosed by retired AT&T technician Mark Klein in early 2006.
“For years, government lawyers have been arguing that our case is too secret for the courts to consider, despite the mounting confirmation of widespread mass illegal surveillance of ordinary people,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “Now we have three former NSA officials confirming the basic facts. Neither the Constitution nor federal law allow the government to collect massive amounts of communications and data of innocent Americans and fish around in it in case it might find something interesting. This kind of power is too easily abused. We’re extremely pleased that more whistleblowers have come forward to help end this massive spying program.”
According to one of the whistleblowers, the NSA “has the capability to do individualized searches, similar to Google, for particular electronic communications in real time through such criteria as target addresses, locations, countries and phone numbers, as well as watch-listed names, keywords, and phrases in email.”
I’ll give you time to digest this half and the remainder next week. Mean time remember Big Brother is watching you!
First Date conversation….
Lady: Do you drink?
Man: Yes
Lady: How much a day?
Man: 3 six packs
Lady: How much for a six pack
Man: about $10.00
Lady: And how long have you been drinking?
Man: 15 years
Lady: So 1 six pack cost $10.00 and you have 3 six packs a day which puts your spending each month at $900. In one year, it would be $10,800 correct?
Man: Correct
Lady: If in 1 year you spend $10,800 not accounting for inflation, the past 15 years puts your spending at $162.000 correct?
Man: Correct
Lady: Do you know that if you hadn’t drank, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 15 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari!
Man: Do you drink?
Lady: No!
Man: Then where’s your fucking Ferrari?
‘nuff said right there!
Lead me not into temptation but deliver…Aww who the hell am I trying to kid? Follow my lead lads and lasses I know a bloody short cut!
A Catholic boy in confession says, “Bless me Father, I have sinned, I masturbated while thinking about my sister.”
“That’s a disgrace,” said the priest. “Especially when you have two gorgeous brothers.”
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
Happy Ending Massage
Wow, is Chicago great or what?
Perhaps the U.S. should pull out of Chicago?
Body count: In the last six months 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago.
221 killed in Iraq AND Chicago has one of the strictest gun laws in the entire US. [Choke on that Liberals!]
President: Barack Hussein Obama
Senator: Dick Durbin
House Representative: Jesse Jackson Jr.
Governor: Pat Quinn
House leader: Mike Madigan
Atty. Gen.: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Mayor: Rahm Emanuel
The leadership in Illinois – all Democrats.
Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago .
Of course, they’re all blaming each other.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
Chicago school system rated one of the worst in the country.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
State pension fund $78 Billion in debt, worst in country.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
Cook County ( Chicago ) sales tax 10.25% highest in country.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois.
And he is going to ‘fix’ Washington politics for us???
George Ryan is no longer Governor, he is in the big house. Of course he was replaced by Rod Blajegovitch who is…that’s right, also in the big house. And Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned a couple of weeks ago. That is because he is fighting being sent to…that’s right, the big house.
The Land of Lincoln, where our governors make our license plates.
But you know what? As long as they keep providing entitlements to the population of Chicago, nothing is going to change, except the state will go broke before the country does.
Two engineers were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up.
A curious woman walks by asks what they were doing.
“Ve’re supposed to find da height of dis flagpole, “said Sven, “but ve don’t haff a ladder.”
The woman took a wrench from her purse, loosened a couple bolts, and laid the pole down on the ground.
Then she took a tape measure from her pocketbook, took a measurement, announced, “Twenty-one feet, six inches,” and walked away.
Ole shook his head and laughed. “Ain’t dat just like a voman! Ve ask fer da height and she gives us da length!”
Sven and Ole have since quit their engineering jobs and are currently serving in the United States Senate.
This is incredible…. YOU WONT BELIEVE THIS ….
See if you can do this accurately.
Read all the Numbers slowly and in Order
Be Careful not to MISS ANY
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30
Scroll down ………………………
It’s so easy to amuse you readers!
NEXT WEEK I’LL SEND YOU THE ABC’s
TRUE DAT!
Bold Italic emphasis is mine & the green text are my editorial comments.
Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm†
Jan 29, 2013 12:00 AM EST
The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so. By David Mamet
† A city in eastern Poland.
Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.
‘In announcing his gun control proposals, President Obama said that he was not restricting Second Amendment rights, but allowing other constitutional rights to flourish.’
For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.”
All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. They are paid to follow orders.
Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities.
As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law.
President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the “needs” of himself and his opponent, alleging that each has more money than he “needs.”
But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining “needs”? And note that the president did not say “I have more money than I need,” but “You and I have more than we need.” Who elected him to speak for another citizen?
It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. “One-size-fits-all,” and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is “slavery.”
The Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians. They were an assortment of businessmen, writers, teachers, planters; men, in short, who knew something of the world, which is to say, of Human Nature. Their struggle to draft a set of rules acceptable to each other was based on the assumption that we human beings, in the mass, are no damned good—that we are biddable, easily confused, and that we may easily be motivated by a Politician, which is to say, a huckster, mounting a soapbox and inflaming our passions.
The Constitution’s drafters did not require a wag to teach them that power corrupts: they had experienced it in the person of King George. The American secession was announced by reference to his abuses of power: “He has obstructed the administration of Justice … he has made Judges dependant on his will alone … He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws … He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass out people and to eat out their substance … imposed taxes upon us without our consent… [He has] fundamentally altered the forms of our government.”
Who threatens American society most: law-abiding citizens or criminals? (Matt Rourke/AP)
This is a chillingly familiar set of grievances; and its recrudescence was foreseen by the Founders. They realized that King George was not an individual case, but the inevitable outcome of unfettered power; that any person or group with the power to tax, to form laws, and to enforce them by arms will default to dictatorship, absent the constant unflagging scrutiny of the governed, and their severe untempered insistence upon compliance with law.
The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual’s greed for power and the electorates’ desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.
The founding fathers also well understood that a well armed populace not only provided for each others protection from invasion but from their government as well. As long as that populace is armed that Government should (in theory) be one “for the people by the people and of the people’ doing the will of the people for the common good of those people. Granted professional politicians (something the founding fathers never envisioned at all) have screwed this up to a degree.
Healthy government, as that based upon our Constitution, is strife. It awakens anxiety, passion, fervor, and, indeed, hatred and chicanery, both in pursuit of private gain and of public good. Those who promise to relieve us of the burden through their personal or ideological excellence, those who claim to hold the Magic Beans, are simply confidence men. Their emergence is inevitable, and our individual opposition to and rejection of them, as they emerge, must be blunt and sure; if they are arrogant, willful, duplicitous, or simply wrong, they must be replaced, else they will consolidate power, and use the treasury to buy votes, and deprive us of our liberties. It was to guard us against this inevitable decay of government that the Constitution was written. Its purpose was and is not to enthrone a Government superior to an imperfect and confused electorate, but to protect us from such a government.
Many are opposed to private ownership of firearms, and their opposition comes under several heads. Their specific objections are answerable retail, but a wholesale response is that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. On a lower level of abstraction, there are more than 2 million instances a year of the armed citizen deterring or stopping armed criminals; a number four times that of all crimes involving firearms.
Of course the liberal lame stream media is loathe to cover this because (aside from their liberal owners having fits if they did) due to such ‘news’ undermining their beloved Democratic platform it might encourage vigilantism, which is to say it might give someone else the confidence to act in the same manner in the same situation and we cannot have THAT happening!)IF that got around MORE people might buy guns and crime levels might drop more. Then guns would be harder to get out of the hands of We the People so they can shove Socialism down our throats while simultaneously empting our wallets and giving our hard earned money legally to the people who were robbing us at gun point in the first damned place!
The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.
No they’re not? Oh really? Then explain for example ‘Fast & Furious’ for me please!
Violence by firearms is most prevalent in big cities with the strictest gun laws. In Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, it is only the criminals who have guns, the law-abiding populace having been disarmed, and so crime runs riot.
Cities of similar size in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere, which leave the citizen the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed in the Constitution, typically are much safer. More legal guns equal less crime. What criminal would be foolish enough to rob a gun store? But the government alleges that the citizen does not need this or that gun, number of guns, or amount of ammunition.
Forsworn is Forewarned Liberals!
You can have all mine right after you shovel your way through the pile of spent brass to get to my dead body and pry them out of my hands.
Fair Warning Has Been Given!
You come for my guns, I’ll be gunning for you.
Good Morning Campers!
Another really good snow sculpture of my wonderful species.
Here’s a picture of our water-cooler in the employee’s break area.
Japanese researchers said they have developed a fabric that can efficiently absorb radioactive cesium, a potential weapon in the battle to clean up areas contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
detect biological and chemical substances.
![image_thumb[2]](https://dragonlaffs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/image52.png "image_thumb[2]")
