The thing that won't die, in the nightmare that won't end.
A quite realistic replacement for the notorious government “black helicopters” of conspiracy theory fame are UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), or as they’re more popularly called, Drones, that seem to be much in the spotlight lately. Being much less expensive to purchase or to operate than manned helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft, both the military and the CIA have been using an assortment of these remotely controlled flying machines to very aggressively prosecute the war on terror in the mid-east.
On the home front we now have reconnaissance drones patrolling a section of the Canadian border under the control of those ever so popular Homeland Security folks, more of them playing around on the southern border, and even some of our smaller police departments have taken to using smaller versions for assorted surveillance flights. Then there are quite a number of privately owned “mini-drones” in existence, used for everything from commercial power line inspections to simple hobby flying enjoyment.
We have drone aircraft, drone helicopters, drone gliders, and a couple of things that I haven’t figured out quite how to classify cluttering the skies of the world today. These aircraft come in all sizes as well, from the “really big” on down to some very specialized reconnaissance units about the size of an insect. (Humm… don’t swat that strange metallic looking “bug” on your wall, you might find yourself charged with the destruction of government property!) Their flight characteristics are just about as unusual. While some can fly for only a few minutes with a range measured in yards, a solar powered craft under development NASA and the DoD can stay aloft for nearly five years, flying at 100,000 feet! Military drones are generally quite stealthy, and some are acknowledged to operate well in excess of 20,000 feet while traveling a couple of thousand miles, at 500+ miles per hour, and carrying thousands of pounds of death and destruction!
Originally these were simple camera equipped radio control model airplanes intended to be used in real-time short range battlefield reconnaissance operations. Oh how they’ve grown! UAV’s have been developed into quite successful tactical and even strategic reconaissance platforms equipped with any number of nearly science fiction spy devices! Devices ranging from optical cameras to infra-red sensors, or if your mission requirements prefer, a wide assortment of electronic equipment that can include ground penetrating radar. Rest assured, they can see and probably identify you and what you’re doing, even if you have no idea they’re anywhere nearby. Currently, operational drones are remotely controlled by a human operator, much like the model planes that preceded them. They are however semi-automatic in that the operator tells the machine which direction to turn, when to start taking pictures or launch a missile in Pakistan, and even when to come home, leaving the machine to do everything else. That “Practically everything else” is controlled by on-board computers, assorted flight data sensors, and up-to-date GPS technology.
In the interest of protecting our soldiers from harm, drones are being armed, in some cases quite heavily with everything from “smart” iron bombs to long range “fire and forget” target seeking guided missiles. (If you can put a weapon on an airplane, you can put it on a drone.) These weapons can find, and hit, a target designated from miles away by a laser beam or radar. They can track a target, day or night, from the heat it radiates. They can be guided remotely by built in television. Or they can seek out and hit a specific GPS position. (Remember not long back, when the census folks came by and recorded the GPS position of your front door?) Mr. Obama’s eye-in-the-sky can quite easily find you nowadays. And, if it can find you…
Additionally as one pundit comments, they can quickly determine if you’re properly recycling your trash according to whatever current government standards demand, or perhaps if you’re speeding a bit on the highway… well, they can also determine if the old roof on your house is leaking more heat than whatever the EPA has determined is proper energy usage in fighting global warming. Get used to living in a government controlled and operated fishbowl folks, there’s very little you can do, either indoors or out, that can’t be observed, and reported to the “proper authorities”, by these government controlled aerial spy-eyes.
Nor is it just airborne drones that concern me. The Army and law enforcement agencies are developing an entire stable of ground bound robotic vehicles as well. This includes everything from full grown tanks with big guns, to cargo trucks that don’t need a driver (scratch yet another American job), to robot cops and security guards. Some move on treads, some roll on wheels, and some even walk on two legs! And the majority of these are, unfortunately, armed! Dunno about anyone else, but the thought of a machine-gun toting robot suddenly telling me to halt and produce my papers is quite frightening! Slightly behind the deployment curve, the Navy is also working on drones, predominantly small warships and even robot attack submarines!
Another frightening aspect of these things is that they are slowly becoming completely autonomous, where in accordance with pre-set generalized instructions, the machine “thinks” for itself in following those instructions, without a human operator in the loop. But still, it’s a machine that can only do what it’s told. We are also familiar with the ills that can befall a computer, and what results might occur… The Navy X-47B currently under test is a fully automated aircraft carrier based strike drone that only needs to be told where to go and who to kill… unless it decides to just kill everything in the target area. After all, who’s the bad guy, the Arab looking dude sneaking up on you with an RPG… or perhaps it’s that evil conservative guy down the street, who objects to the Obamacare program?
So here we have the scenario of an almost undetectable killing machine, armed with terribly precise weapons, flying over our heads and looking over our shoulders. I certainly hope there’s no hiccup in the master computer, or that another Hitler or Stalin hasn’t somehow gained control… and it’s already been demonstrated that computer hackers can access the system, feeding wrong targets, positions, and even control information to the on-board computer. I have no issues with the limited use of military drones during wartime. I can also quickly understand and approve of some civilian use as well. I do, strenuously, object to the use of drones of any sort being used by the government to “spy” on American citizens for any reason. If the government or the police want to know what I’m up to today, they can darn well come and ask me in person. They most definitely do not “need these new tools” to control my life. Even more so, I object to the very idea of armed, autonomous, robots running around looking for somebody to kill, no matter what the motive!
Nearly all of us have seen the opening scenes of the movie “Terminator”, where robot fighting machines battle humans for control of the Earth. The movie is futuristic science fiction of course… but that future may be getting much closer than you think.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Executive Order
Mr. Obama’s recent signing of an amended version of Slick Willie Clinton’s EO (Executive Order) 12919 (titled “National Defense Resources Preparedness”), has a good many conservatives up in arms, with more than a few going so far as to claim that this is nothing less than a coup aimed at US citizens. Left wing apologists on the other hand state there’s nothing to worry about, 12919 is merely updating the existing National Defense Preparedness Act, and that everything is more or less “normal”. I rather suspect the truth lies somewhere in between.
In this country an “executive order” is a directive issued by the head of the executive branch at some level of government. The term is most commonly applied to orders issued by the President in his role as chief executive of the federal government. Executive orders may also be issued by a state governor or a city’s mayor. In other countries they’re often known as decrees or orders-in-council. U.S. Presidents have been issuing executive orders since 1789, usually to help agencies of the executive branch manage the operation of the federal government, and they do have the full force of law, since they are usually issued in accordance with Acts of Congress which give the President some degree of discretionary power. Harmless enough, right?
According to Article 1 of the United States Constitution, only Congress shall make federal law. However, since the "War and Emergency Powers Act" was passed in 1933, every president has usurped lawmaking powers via “Executive Orders”. In some cases (notably FDR) the justifications cited by the President when issuing an Executive Order have come under considerable criticism for exceeding Executive authority, and challenges to the validity of an order have sometimes resulted in legal proceedings and the order declared unconstitutional. While there is no provision in the Constitution that specifically permits executive orders, there is a vague mention of "executive power" given in Article II, and the declaration that the President "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". Most Executive Orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties. But wars have (and are) being fought on executive order, including the Kosovo Air War during Clinton’s second term, without the required congressional declaration of war. However, the extent to which the president may exercise military power independently of Congress remains continues to be an unresolved constitutional issue.
Critics have accused various presidents of abusing executive orders, using them to make laws without Congressional approval, and of moving existing laws away from their original intent. It’s also quite common for presidents to issue executive orders that allow federal agencies to enact administrative regulations in order to circumvent the legislative process, often pointing to EO 12148 which includes authorization to put ALL executive orders into effect in times of increased international tension, economic crisis, and/or financial crisis. Further, EO 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over production, distribution, energy sources, wages, salaries, credit, and the flow of money. Now, Mr. Obama signs on to EO 12919, which hands the office of the President the power of absolute rule. The Drudge Report calls it “Martial Law”, the Huffington Post says it places the US on a “war footing”, and others call it a “coup against US citizens”. But while no one really agrees on what it means, a lot of knowledgeable folks seem to think it’s bad. So what’s in this document?
This EO simply authorizes the different Cabinet departments to take command of their respective parts of the economy during a national emergency, which is an “emergency” that the president declares, not congress. We all know that in a true national emergency or war the government is going to do whatever it takes to stay in power, regardless of Constitutional niceties, and this order merely "legalizes" that process. It’s no longer open for debate, and it's not a conspiracy theory, it's the Obama administration’s official policy. It does not necessarily mean that at 0600 hours tomorrow morning FEMA thugs will come marching up the lane to seize your farm. It does not mean that at noon on next Tuesday the FBI will start marching us off to the camps. It does not mean that the federal reserve is about to grab your bank account, nor does it mean that local law enforcement officers will immediately be ordered to seize the contents of your pantry. And it does not mean that UN troops will start patrolling Main St. What it does mean is that any or all of this can happen, merely on a presidential whim, without the benefit of Congressional approval, and despite our rights under the Constitution! Additionally, in my view 12919 fits all too conveniently into Mr. Obama’s announced plan to change America… at any rate it certainly would redistribute the wealth in one fell swoop! You might also want to think about how the officially sanctioned killing of American citizens without benefit of a trial, the Patriot Act’s stripping us of our rights, the unprecedented powers of the Department of Homeland Security, and the fact that we’ve been told by government officials that the Constitution, and Congress, are now irrelevant, all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Now my question is… why would this order even be considered necessary by the government if the powers-that-be did not see it as a viable means of retaining their control of the nation? (Keep in mind that they also control the armed forces and law enforcement.) This piece of paper states that the President alone has the authority to take over all resources in the nation (labor, food, land, industry, etc.) in the name of “national defense" -- a vague phrase that could be twisted to mean almost anything. Mr. Obama now has the authority (technically) to decide what he wants to do, and then (legally) order the army carry it out. The triggering excuse could be something as simple as a fabricated intelligence report threatening an attack with weapons of mass destruction. But wait, it gets even better! Mr. Obama and President Bush have both declared that we are under a state of National Emergency (which has never been rescinded), and thus the enabling conditions of this order have already been met. Technically EO 12919 is already in effect!
You might also notice that nothing in the order talks about protecting the rights of the American people, but rather it's all about protecting the government. The government needs stockpiles of weapons, food and resources, but John Q. Citizen doesn’t… or at least that seems to be the philosophy of our current government which sees itself as being all powerful. With Executive Orders the state, in a manner surprisingly similar to the Soviet Union, is supreme. The federal government, thanks to the activities of the political left in America, now has the right to do whatever they want to do, at a bureaucrat's whim, a federal department's press release, or due to a politician’s failing polls. Your property, your desires, your children, your job, your rights as an American citizen, your very life… now belong to the government.
Does any of this sound familiar? Well… Heil Hitler ya’all.
In this country an “executive order” is a directive issued by the head of the executive branch at some level of government. The term is most commonly applied to orders issued by the President in his role as chief executive of the federal government. Executive orders may also be issued by a state governor or a city’s mayor. In other countries they’re often known as decrees or orders-in-council. U.S. Presidents have been issuing executive orders since 1789, usually to help agencies of the executive branch manage the operation of the federal government, and they do have the full force of law, since they are usually issued in accordance with Acts of Congress which give the President some degree of discretionary power. Harmless enough, right?
According to Article 1 of the United States Constitution, only Congress shall make federal law. However, since the "War and Emergency Powers Act" was passed in 1933, every president has usurped lawmaking powers via “Executive Orders”. In some cases (notably FDR) the justifications cited by the President when issuing an Executive Order have come under considerable criticism for exceeding Executive authority, and challenges to the validity of an order have sometimes resulted in legal proceedings and the order declared unconstitutional. While there is no provision in the Constitution that specifically permits executive orders, there is a vague mention of "executive power" given in Article II, and the declaration that the President "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". Most Executive Orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties. But wars have (and are) being fought on executive order, including the Kosovo Air War during Clinton’s second term, without the required congressional declaration of war. However, the extent to which the president may exercise military power independently of Congress remains continues to be an unresolved constitutional issue.
Critics have accused various presidents of abusing executive orders, using them to make laws without Congressional approval, and of moving existing laws away from their original intent. It’s also quite common for presidents to issue executive orders that allow federal agencies to enact administrative regulations in order to circumvent the legislative process, often pointing to EO 12148 which includes authorization to put ALL executive orders into effect in times of increased international tension, economic crisis, and/or financial crisis. Further, EO 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over production, distribution, energy sources, wages, salaries, credit, and the flow of money. Now, Mr. Obama signs on to EO 12919, which hands the office of the President the power of absolute rule. The Drudge Report calls it “Martial Law”, the Huffington Post says it places the US on a “war footing”, and others call it a “coup against US citizens”. But while no one really agrees on what it means, a lot of knowledgeable folks seem to think it’s bad. So what’s in this document?
This EO simply authorizes the different Cabinet departments to take command of their respective parts of the economy during a national emergency, which is an “emergency” that the president declares, not congress. We all know that in a true national emergency or war the government is going to do whatever it takes to stay in power, regardless of Constitutional niceties, and this order merely "legalizes" that process. It’s no longer open for debate, and it's not a conspiracy theory, it's the Obama administration’s official policy. It does not necessarily mean that at 0600 hours tomorrow morning FEMA thugs will come marching up the lane to seize your farm. It does not mean that at noon on next Tuesday the FBI will start marching us off to the camps. It does not mean that the federal reserve is about to grab your bank account, nor does it mean that local law enforcement officers will immediately be ordered to seize the contents of your pantry. And it does not mean that UN troops will start patrolling Main St. What it does mean is that any or all of this can happen, merely on a presidential whim, without the benefit of Congressional approval, and despite our rights under the Constitution! Additionally, in my view 12919 fits all too conveniently into Mr. Obama’s announced plan to change America… at any rate it certainly would redistribute the wealth in one fell swoop! You might also want to think about how the officially sanctioned killing of American citizens without benefit of a trial, the Patriot Act’s stripping us of our rights, the unprecedented powers of the Department of Homeland Security, and the fact that we’ve been told by government officials that the Constitution, and Congress, are now irrelevant, all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Now my question is… why would this order even be considered necessary by the government if the powers-that-be did not see it as a viable means of retaining their control of the nation? (Keep in mind that they also control the armed forces and law enforcement.) This piece of paper states that the President alone has the authority to take over all resources in the nation (labor, food, land, industry, etc.) in the name of “national defense" -- a vague phrase that could be twisted to mean almost anything. Mr. Obama now has the authority (technically) to decide what he wants to do, and then (legally) order the army carry it out. The triggering excuse could be something as simple as a fabricated intelligence report threatening an attack with weapons of mass destruction. But wait, it gets even better! Mr. Obama and President Bush have both declared that we are under a state of National Emergency (which has never been rescinded), and thus the enabling conditions of this order have already been met. Technically EO 12919 is already in effect!
You might also notice that nothing in the order talks about protecting the rights of the American people, but rather it's all about protecting the government. The government needs stockpiles of weapons, food and resources, but John Q. Citizen doesn’t… or at least that seems to be the philosophy of our current government which sees itself as being all powerful. With Executive Orders the state, in a manner surprisingly similar to the Soviet Union, is supreme. The federal government, thanks to the activities of the political left in America, now has the right to do whatever they want to do, at a bureaucrat's whim, a federal department's press release, or due to a politician’s failing polls. Your property, your desires, your children, your job, your rights as an American citizen, your very life… now belong to the government.
Does any of this sound familiar? Well… Heil Hitler ya’all.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Ron Paul
Once again Texas Congressional Representative Dr. Ron Paul is running for president, once again the mainstream media infers that he’s a fringe candidate, and once again the “Ron Paul Revolution” is putting on a pretty impressive showing for being a grass roots operation. Oh Yeah… once again the establishment GOP is trying very hard to ignore him.
One internet pundit, in describing the GOP candidates explains it this way, “Here is the choice, those with integrity… -- a theocrat who wishes to impose his historical religious fantasy on the States, and… -- a cranky old dude who has some good ideas, but has a loose connection with reality. Then there are those with no integrity… -- a stuffed shirt magic underwear bozo who thinks a corporate kleptocracy is good for all, and -- a time proven personal, and professional, liar with massive ethics violations who says "trust me." Well, personally I rather think these descriptions might be just a little bit on the extreme side, but that’s what the man said…
At any rate, considering the Democratic Party’s presidential offering, I have absolutely no choice but to vote for one of the Republicans in the race, and I’m personally not real impressed with the choices the GOP has made available. What I see are three slick professional politicians, and one “cranky old dude who has some good ideas”. Humm… I’m somewhat of a cranky old dude myself, and I like to think I’ve got some good ideas as well (although a lot of people will argue that point), so…
I have a Ron Paul for President campaign brochure in front of me that says he wants to dump the Federal Reserve, along with phasing out the IRS and Income tax. Personally I think that’s one of the better ideas to come along in many a year. He wants to do away with the FED, for without the Fed creating fiat “money” out of wistful thinking and hot air, who knows, maybe we can get federal spending under control, and reduce the national debt as well! (Gee… with that the banks that are “to big to fail” might have to break-up into a lot of little banks, and the high dollar folks in the financial industry might have to go out and find an honest job for a change!) Nobody has ever gotten the overly complex IRS tax code straightened out, so, if we just dump the whole thing, the IRS can no longer be making up the rules as they go about fleecing us. He wants to balance the budget, abolish corporate subsidies, and return spending to 2006 levels, all quite admirable ideas. Another campaign promise he makes that I particularly like is to repeal the Patriot Act, and to return power to the states. The Patriot Act did after all, effectively dump our Constitution in the waste basket, eliminate the rule of law, and make our unelected federal bureaucracy the supreme power in the land. In the past Rep. Paul also voted to put a lid on “gun control” and to limit the power of the executive branch… (the presidency), which means strict limits on the war powers act and the infamous “executive orders”. But dumping the IRS has one potential drawback. Without all those tax dollars coming in every year, what are congressmen going to spend to buy their loyal following and get reelected? Many of his ideas aren’t going to set well with the really big businessmen in this country either, which probably means a lot of irate phone calls to their tame congressmen, which would make the Senator from Boeing, or the Representative from General Mills quite unhappy with the oval office. Returning power to the states obviously reduces the power of the federal bureaucracy, which also won’t set well in Sodom-on-the-Potomac. And of course Congressional business as usual again threatens to be the brick wall facing any meaningful reform, so how does he plan to get all these ideas past the great hot air generator on the hill? I dunno, but I’ll certainly wish him well!
The other problem facing Rep. Paul is the Democratic Party. You know who they are of course, those wonderful folks who voted for Mr. Obama because while we live in the greatest, most wonderful country in the world, they want to "CHANGE" all that. They also believe that the government would do a better job of spending the money I earn than I can. Well, they also think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits, while business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. Business only needs to break even and give the rest of the profits to the government for redistribution… as the Democrats see fit…
Rep. Paul would also have the problem of liberal left wing judges who rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some nut who would never get his agenda past the voters. Humm… In defending their usurpation of federal power, would the Supreme Court declare Mr. Paul’s candidacy “invalid” and kick him out of the running? But then the courts didn’t seem to have much of a problem with the highly questionable Mr. Obama…
At any rate it’s all pretty much a moot point despite Mr. Paul’s quite creditable showing in the primaries. It seems that his Libertarian background is the dragging anchor that will keep him out of office. So… I guess we’re stuck with making our choice from among three slick mainstream politicians. Which leaves me wondering, where-oh-where is Ronnie Regan when we really need him!?
One internet pundit, in describing the GOP candidates explains it this way, “Here is the choice, those with integrity… -- a theocrat who wishes to impose his historical religious fantasy on the States, and… -- a cranky old dude who has some good ideas, but has a loose connection with reality. Then there are those with no integrity… -- a stuffed shirt magic underwear bozo who thinks a corporate kleptocracy is good for all, and -- a time proven personal, and professional, liar with massive ethics violations who says "trust me." Well, personally I rather think these descriptions might be just a little bit on the extreme side, but that’s what the man said…
At any rate, considering the Democratic Party’s presidential offering, I have absolutely no choice but to vote for one of the Republicans in the race, and I’m personally not real impressed with the choices the GOP has made available. What I see are three slick professional politicians, and one “cranky old dude who has some good ideas”. Humm… I’m somewhat of a cranky old dude myself, and I like to think I’ve got some good ideas as well (although a lot of people will argue that point), so…
I have a Ron Paul for President campaign brochure in front of me that says he wants to dump the Federal Reserve, along with phasing out the IRS and Income tax. Personally I think that’s one of the better ideas to come along in many a year. He wants to do away with the FED, for without the Fed creating fiat “money” out of wistful thinking and hot air, who knows, maybe we can get federal spending under control, and reduce the national debt as well! (Gee… with that the banks that are “to big to fail” might have to break-up into a lot of little banks, and the high dollar folks in the financial industry might have to go out and find an honest job for a change!) Nobody has ever gotten the overly complex IRS tax code straightened out, so, if we just dump the whole thing, the IRS can no longer be making up the rules as they go about fleecing us. He wants to balance the budget, abolish corporate subsidies, and return spending to 2006 levels, all quite admirable ideas. Another campaign promise he makes that I particularly like is to repeal the Patriot Act, and to return power to the states. The Patriot Act did after all, effectively dump our Constitution in the waste basket, eliminate the rule of law, and make our unelected federal bureaucracy the supreme power in the land. In the past Rep. Paul also voted to put a lid on “gun control” and to limit the power of the executive branch… (the presidency), which means strict limits on the war powers act and the infamous “executive orders”. But dumping the IRS has one potential drawback. Without all those tax dollars coming in every year, what are congressmen going to spend to buy their loyal following and get reelected? Many of his ideas aren’t going to set well with the really big businessmen in this country either, which probably means a lot of irate phone calls to their tame congressmen, which would make the Senator from Boeing, or the Representative from General Mills quite unhappy with the oval office. Returning power to the states obviously reduces the power of the federal bureaucracy, which also won’t set well in Sodom-on-the-Potomac. And of course Congressional business as usual again threatens to be the brick wall facing any meaningful reform, so how does he plan to get all these ideas past the great hot air generator on the hill? I dunno, but I’ll certainly wish him well!
The other problem facing Rep. Paul is the Democratic Party. You know who they are of course, those wonderful folks who voted for Mr. Obama because while we live in the greatest, most wonderful country in the world, they want to "CHANGE" all that. They also believe that the government would do a better job of spending the money I earn than I can. Well, they also think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits, while business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. Business only needs to break even and give the rest of the profits to the government for redistribution… as the Democrats see fit…
Rep. Paul would also have the problem of liberal left wing judges who rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some nut who would never get his agenda past the voters. Humm… In defending their usurpation of federal power, would the Supreme Court declare Mr. Paul’s candidacy “invalid” and kick him out of the running? But then the courts didn’t seem to have much of a problem with the highly questionable Mr. Obama…
At any rate it’s all pretty much a moot point despite Mr. Paul’s quite creditable showing in the primaries. It seems that his Libertarian background is the dragging anchor that will keep him out of office. So… I guess we’re stuck with making our choice from among three slick mainstream politicians. Which leaves me wondering, where-oh-where is Ronnie Regan when we really need him!?
Saturday, February 11, 2012
The Moon?
Earth is the Cradle of Mankind,
But one cannot stay in the cradle forever.
But one cannot stay in the cradle forever.
If you’ve been following the GOP political campaign circus of late, you could hardly avoid Newt Gingrich’s proposal to build an American Lunar Colony. And you could hardly miss the ridicule being heaped on him from left and right alike. But, before we question his sanity, we might want to remember that prior to Mr. Obama’s decision to scrap the NASA program, it was official (and quite popular) US policy to “return to the moon” by 2020, as the next step in the route to Mars. So, if Newt’s got the wrong idea, so do a lot of other folks. Understand that I’m not particularly endorsing his presidential campaign, but he has brought up a point that’s dear to my heart, and one that I wish all the candidates would address.
The big opposition view in our society’s current thinking about space flight is apparently “why waste the money”, or in words of one syllable “we can’t afford it”. The political right looks at the burgeoning national debt and gets hysterical whenever someone mentions spending even more money. The left on the other hand is quite comfortable with spending a few trillion more dollars, but they want the money dumped into ObamaCare and/or a vastly expanded welfare system under the guise of “redistributing the wealth”. But there are some of us on the middle ground that see a different sort of alternative. Just how much money are we talking about when we say “Lunar Colony”? One guesstimate predicts somewhere around the high side of $130 billion, spread out over the next eight to ten years. Well, let’s consider that the price of an F-35 jet fighter is about $156 million, while the B-2 bomber costs an average of $737 million per copy. Nuclear submarines cost us anywhere from 5 to 13 billion dollars, each, while a nuclear carrier has a sticker price of about 22 billion dollars to build, and in well in excess of $168 million a year to operate! The 2009 defense budget was $680 billion dollars, and quite a bit more in suplimental “wartime” spending. HEW on the other hand has an annual budget of around $700 billion. You can figure that the US annual budget is almost $3 trillion dollars, and NASA’s current $17 billion cut of that is quite a bit less than the cost of building just one nuclear carrier. That’s not very much in comparison with the rest of the budget. Sure, it’s going to be expensive, but with those numbers spaceflight isn’t unaffordable, and we would be creating hundreds of thousands of high paying American jobs as well. Remember the Apollo lunar landing program? When a shortsighted Congress cut the funding, high-tech unemployment skyrocketed, and we soon had PhD’s pumping gas at the corner service station.
Part of the manned spaceflight bad press comes from so many highly specialized space scientists claiming that we can do the science far cheaper with robotic craft. I’m quite sure we could… if the darn things worked properly… all the time! How many space missions have you heard of lately that failed, due to any number of “minor” glitches? How many times have panicky remotely controlled software fixes saved a mission, or at least a part of it? In general the highly successful mission of the Opportunity Mars Rover is an aberration, abit a happy one. There’s a reason that aerospace engineers (and the flight dynamics people) call Mars the “planet of death”, and any mechanical or electronic equipment can fail, usually at the worst possible time! If those expensive lost missions had been manned, how many of them could have been saved by a flight engineer with a toolbox and a few spare parts? Remember the Mars mission that crashed because a computer programmer forgot there’s a big difference between miles and kilometers? Could a human pilot or navigator have spotted the problem and saved the mission? Quite probably. The Viking Mars landers of the late ‘70’s conducted tests to detect signs of life. One experiment came up positive, but the results of the other two failed to reveal any organic material in the soil, leaving many to believe that the positive results were caused by non-biological chemical reactions from soil conditions. That argument rages on today, and could have been readily settled at the time by a on-scene scientist or two. Certainly, in some cases a robotic system is indicated for several reasons, as the various multi-year photographic flights to the outer planets show… but a robot can only do what it’s previously been told to do… and when something breaks, will the computer programers have always anticipated every possible failure? No, there’s lots of argument for manned spaceflight, and I rather think that space exploration of the future will be manned, and have a lot of robotic assistance.
Throughout history, humanity has been blessed (or cursed, depending on your viewpoint) with people who are never quite satisfied with a humdrum life. They are driven to find something newer or better, or just to see what’s on the other side of the mountain. These are the explorers, the “long hunters” and mountain men, the colonists, the pioneers, who will happly risk everything in search of their personal El Dorado. Thousands of years ago explorers began spreading humanity across the face of the Earth. More of them came to the new world a few hundred years ago and preformed a near miracle of nation building. Certainly there are those in each generation that are quite happy in their nice warm, safe, totally boreing little niche in their all to familiar world, and they are quite welcome to stay home if that’s their desire. But in America our ancestors were a bit more adventurous than most, and being a somewhat cranky and disruptive sort, were dissatisfied with their stifiling old world society, it’s rules, regulations, taxes, and overcrowding. They picked up their marbles, left their homeland, and went on to build a new country that became the showpiece of Earth. Those sort of people are still with us, and, being fresh out of new lands for them to explore, the population pressure is again building, and we’ve got to find a relief valve, a means for them to go pioneering, lest they disrupt that nice safe world prefered by the stay-at-home types.
Another problem facing humanity is the fact that we’re running out of accessable resources. For the most part we’re now mining low grade materials to feed our industrial demands, and even those materials are getting scarce. (Globally we use about 3 billion tons of iron and steel each year, and little of that is recycled.) We’re running out of energy sources as well. What’s going to happen when the oil finally runs out? The enviro’s object to our burning coal, they won’t let us develop nuclear fission, and their alternate “green energy” programs have been a total flop so far. Yet the sun each second puts out about forty million times as much energy as we need on Earth, which leaves the possibility of building efficient space based solar power systems to solve our energy problems… until the sun burns out in a few billion years.
It would be nice if we could develop a new supply of natural resources… before we’re reduced to living in an updated version of the stone age! The moon, and the near Earth asteroids, contain a plentiful supply of just about everything we need here on Earth, and to live and work in space itself. Professor John S. Lewis, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona states that an asteroid only two kilometers in diameter, and assuming typical meteorite composition, would be worth (at todays prices) around 300,000 trillion dollars! That’s about the gross GLOBAL product for a very long time into the future! In one dramatic estimate, Professor Lewis highlights that main belt asteroid 3554 Amun as potentially having $20 trillion in gold beneath its surface, along with another $8 trillion in iron and nickel, $6 trillion in cobalt and $6 trillion in platinum! Humm… anyone for a gold rush in space?
Due to its proximity to Earth, the Moon is often discussed as the primary target for space colonization, an idea with its good and bad points. To start off, it’s fairly easy to get there, at least in comparison to a trip to Mars or Venus. Then, once on the moon we can, in reasonable safety, learn the tricks to living and working in space, which is going to prove a necessity to the future of the human race. Additionally, the moon has only one sixth Earth gravity, which makes it much easier and cheaper to launch deep space missions (including a trip to Mars) than it is from Earth’s surface. The main drawback to utilizing moon resources is that some of the materials we need are lacking… but we can get those materials from the near Earth asteroids, which are even easier to reach from Earth orbit than the moon is! Many people say it can’t be done, yet the Department of Defense had quite viable plans to build a permanent lunar base… in 1958. That’s ten years before Apollo flew. The science was done decades ago, now it’s simply a problem of engineering, and of course finding the will to make the effort.
We couldn’t, even if we wanted to, specify the political systems, religious beliefs, or social mores our descendants will live under. But in the question of space colonization, we have in our hands should we decide to use it, the power to leave them a shining future in which they can choose their own way.
The big opposition view in our society’s current thinking about space flight is apparently “why waste the money”, or in words of one syllable “we can’t afford it”. The political right looks at the burgeoning national debt and gets hysterical whenever someone mentions spending even more money. The left on the other hand is quite comfortable with spending a few trillion more dollars, but they want the money dumped into ObamaCare and/or a vastly expanded welfare system under the guise of “redistributing the wealth”. But there are some of us on the middle ground that see a different sort of alternative. Just how much money are we talking about when we say “Lunar Colony”? One guesstimate predicts somewhere around the high side of $130 billion, spread out over the next eight to ten years. Well, let’s consider that the price of an F-35 jet fighter is about $156 million, while the B-2 bomber costs an average of $737 million per copy. Nuclear submarines cost us anywhere from 5 to 13 billion dollars, each, while a nuclear carrier has a sticker price of about 22 billion dollars to build, and in well in excess of $168 million a year to operate! The 2009 defense budget was $680 billion dollars, and quite a bit more in suplimental “wartime” spending. HEW on the other hand has an annual budget of around $700 billion. You can figure that the US annual budget is almost $3 trillion dollars, and NASA’s current $17 billion cut of that is quite a bit less than the cost of building just one nuclear carrier. That’s not very much in comparison with the rest of the budget. Sure, it’s going to be expensive, but with those numbers spaceflight isn’t unaffordable, and we would be creating hundreds of thousands of high paying American jobs as well. Remember the Apollo lunar landing program? When a shortsighted Congress cut the funding, high-tech unemployment skyrocketed, and we soon had PhD’s pumping gas at the corner service station.
Part of the manned spaceflight bad press comes from so many highly specialized space scientists claiming that we can do the science far cheaper with robotic craft. I’m quite sure we could… if the darn things worked properly… all the time! How many space missions have you heard of lately that failed, due to any number of “minor” glitches? How many times have panicky remotely controlled software fixes saved a mission, or at least a part of it? In general the highly successful mission of the Opportunity Mars Rover is an aberration, abit a happy one. There’s a reason that aerospace engineers (and the flight dynamics people) call Mars the “planet of death”, and any mechanical or electronic equipment can fail, usually at the worst possible time! If those expensive lost missions had been manned, how many of them could have been saved by a flight engineer with a toolbox and a few spare parts? Remember the Mars mission that crashed because a computer programmer forgot there’s a big difference between miles and kilometers? Could a human pilot or navigator have spotted the problem and saved the mission? Quite probably. The Viking Mars landers of the late ‘70’s conducted tests to detect signs of life. One experiment came up positive, but the results of the other two failed to reveal any organic material in the soil, leaving many to believe that the positive results were caused by non-biological chemical reactions from soil conditions. That argument rages on today, and could have been readily settled at the time by a on-scene scientist or two. Certainly, in some cases a robotic system is indicated for several reasons, as the various multi-year photographic flights to the outer planets show… but a robot can only do what it’s previously been told to do… and when something breaks, will the computer programers have always anticipated every possible failure? No, there’s lots of argument for manned spaceflight, and I rather think that space exploration of the future will be manned, and have a lot of robotic assistance.
Throughout history, humanity has been blessed (or cursed, depending on your viewpoint) with people who are never quite satisfied with a humdrum life. They are driven to find something newer or better, or just to see what’s on the other side of the mountain. These are the explorers, the “long hunters” and mountain men, the colonists, the pioneers, who will happly risk everything in search of their personal El Dorado. Thousands of years ago explorers began spreading humanity across the face of the Earth. More of them came to the new world a few hundred years ago and preformed a near miracle of nation building. Certainly there are those in each generation that are quite happy in their nice warm, safe, totally boreing little niche in their all to familiar world, and they are quite welcome to stay home if that’s their desire. But in America our ancestors were a bit more adventurous than most, and being a somewhat cranky and disruptive sort, were dissatisfied with their stifiling old world society, it’s rules, regulations, taxes, and overcrowding. They picked up their marbles, left their homeland, and went on to build a new country that became the showpiece of Earth. Those sort of people are still with us, and, being fresh out of new lands for them to explore, the population pressure is again building, and we’ve got to find a relief valve, a means for them to go pioneering, lest they disrupt that nice safe world prefered by the stay-at-home types.
Another problem facing humanity is the fact that we’re running out of accessable resources. For the most part we’re now mining low grade materials to feed our industrial demands, and even those materials are getting scarce. (Globally we use about 3 billion tons of iron and steel each year, and little of that is recycled.) We’re running out of energy sources as well. What’s going to happen when the oil finally runs out? The enviro’s object to our burning coal, they won’t let us develop nuclear fission, and their alternate “green energy” programs have been a total flop so far. Yet the sun each second puts out about forty million times as much energy as we need on Earth, which leaves the possibility of building efficient space based solar power systems to solve our energy problems… until the sun burns out in a few billion years.
It would be nice if we could develop a new supply of natural resources… before we’re reduced to living in an updated version of the stone age! The moon, and the near Earth asteroids, contain a plentiful supply of just about everything we need here on Earth, and to live and work in space itself. Professor John S. Lewis, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona states that an asteroid only two kilometers in diameter, and assuming typical meteorite composition, would be worth (at todays prices) around 300,000 trillion dollars! That’s about the gross GLOBAL product for a very long time into the future! In one dramatic estimate, Professor Lewis highlights that main belt asteroid 3554 Amun as potentially having $20 trillion in gold beneath its surface, along with another $8 trillion in iron and nickel, $6 trillion in cobalt and $6 trillion in platinum! Humm… anyone for a gold rush in space?
Due to its proximity to Earth, the Moon is often discussed as the primary target for space colonization, an idea with its good and bad points. To start off, it’s fairly easy to get there, at least in comparison to a trip to Mars or Venus. Then, once on the moon we can, in reasonable safety, learn the tricks to living and working in space, which is going to prove a necessity to the future of the human race. Additionally, the moon has only one sixth Earth gravity, which makes it much easier and cheaper to launch deep space missions (including a trip to Mars) than it is from Earth’s surface. The main drawback to utilizing moon resources is that some of the materials we need are lacking… but we can get those materials from the near Earth asteroids, which are even easier to reach from Earth orbit than the moon is! Many people say it can’t be done, yet the Department of Defense had quite viable plans to build a permanent lunar base… in 1958. That’s ten years before Apollo flew. The science was done decades ago, now it’s simply a problem of engineering, and of course finding the will to make the effort.
We couldn’t, even if we wanted to, specify the political systems, religious beliefs, or social mores our descendants will live under. But in the question of space colonization, we have in our hands should we decide to use it, the power to leave them a shining future in which they can choose their own way.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
A GI's Christmas
The holiday season is upon us, and despite my best efforts I’m still a long ways from being prepared. I guess that’s about normal, as over the last sixty plus years I have yet to be ready for Christmas! Even so, I can’t help but remember the days long ago when I served in the US military and had little to look forward to except a lonely Christmas Eve in some strange and far away places. Actually, “strange” is hardly the proper term for some of them… I’ve stood alert hangar duty on Christmas day a couple of times, I was once unfortunate enough to be subjected to a pretty respectable rocket and mortar barrage on Christmas Eve, and like most GI’s, I’ve often had nothing to do other that sit around the NCO club soaking up a few bottles of suds. (If you catch me at the right time I might even tell you about a certain Easter Sunday I spent hiding in the bushes while the bad guys sat around almost within touching distance, enjoying their Nuc-nam and rice!) No, holidays, particularly Christmas, are not an easy time to be a serviceman stationed in a strange and often hostile land, a long ways away from home and family. “Care Packages” were particularly valued, especially if they contained a batch of Mom’s home made cookies, and probably the best gift of all was a long rambling letter from the folks at home. Christmas carols came over AFN (the Armed Forces radio Network), and Santa Claus kept his distance for fear of being shot down (if he did show up, it was probably in an armored personnel carrier)! Then too, the strains of “Silent Night” hardly sound proper when punctuated by the roar of aircraft engines as fighter-bombers take off to drop hate and discontent on other peoples heads. And “Joy to the World” hardly fits when the artillery guys down the road are shooting off a few salvos of Christmas greetings from Uncle Sam.
Still, despite my maudlin reminiscing, the military went to a lot of effort to make the holidays bearable for young soldiers. Generally, in somewhat peaceable area, the barracks rats (the young bachelors) would take the duty on Christmas so that the married guys could be home with their wives and kids. In a combat zone like Vietnam it didn’t matter, Christmas was just another workday, as the much vaunted “Christmas Truce” was little more than a propaganda ploy by Charlie. ‘Course in our case the married guys returned the pulling duty favor a few days latter when we had a big party coming up. It’s interesting to note however, that in both World Wars the troops (in Europe at least, and across the hatreds of war) would declare their own impromptu Christmas Eve cease fire, and in the unexpected silence of the night would sing the old familiar carols to each other. The same happened during our civil war, when groups of opposing soldiers would meet in the middle of “no mans land”, and sit around for a couple of hours singing the old tunes and discussing their plight, all the while smoking Confederate tobacco and drinking Union coffee, until some rather indignant officers put an end to that!
In my day, for the most part nobody got stuck with KP on Christmas, as that was traditionally handled by the senior officers and NCOs. The chow wasn’t all that bad, particularly considering that the mess hall was cooking for hundreds (or even thousands) of soldiers. No, we got a real live properly cooked meal (although probably not up to Mama’s standards), and it certainly beat out ‘C” rations, ‘K’ rations, or MRE’s! If you were up on the firing line, dinner was probably served from insulated containers and might still be lukewarm when you got it, but at least it was the traditional Christmas dinner and not the inevitable hardtack and salt pork of Civil War days. A proper salute is due the cooks and bakers; as they put a lot of extra effort into those holiday meals! Where I was at, it was another tradition that the Commander, accompanied by the First Sergeant, would make a round of the maintenance area on Christmas Eve with a bottle of whisky, sharing a tot of cheer, and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.
While we may have felt sorry for ourselves during my soldiering days, we had things infinitely better than some in that long line of American soldiers stretching out through our nations history. Consider the tired and hungry American soldiers at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, or remember the words of George Washington’s letter to Congress while at Valley Forge in 1778… "To see the men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie upon, without shoes...without a house or hut to cover them until those could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which, in my opinion, can scarcely be paralleled." I doubt that Christmas was very enjoyable for the men of the Army of the Potomac at Falmouth in 1862 either, or we might consider the plight of the soldiers and marines at Frozen Chosin in 1950. The Cold War may be over, and our troops may be coming home from Iraq, but many others still stand in harms way in Afghanistan this Christmas, risking sudden death or painful wounds. American soldiers still watch, far from home and family, over the shaky truce in Korea, and to keep the antagonists separated in Kosovo. They still stand guard in this dangerous world,at lonely outposts, from the frozen artic to blistering deserts to the silent depths of a cold dark sea.
So while you enjoy this holiday season, home and hearth, the company of your family, and I would hope a scrumptious Christmas dinner, take a moment to remember those millions of young Americans, past, present, and future, who gave up their Christmas so that you might have yours.
From the Fogarty household to yours, A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
Still, despite my maudlin reminiscing, the military went to a lot of effort to make the holidays bearable for young soldiers. Generally, in somewhat peaceable area, the barracks rats (the young bachelors) would take the duty on Christmas so that the married guys could be home with their wives and kids. In a combat zone like Vietnam it didn’t matter, Christmas was just another workday, as the much vaunted “Christmas Truce” was little more than a propaganda ploy by Charlie. ‘Course in our case the married guys returned the pulling duty favor a few days latter when we had a big party coming up. It’s interesting to note however, that in both World Wars the troops (in Europe at least, and across the hatreds of war) would declare their own impromptu Christmas Eve cease fire, and in the unexpected silence of the night would sing the old familiar carols to each other. The same happened during our civil war, when groups of opposing soldiers would meet in the middle of “no mans land”, and sit around for a couple of hours singing the old tunes and discussing their plight, all the while smoking Confederate tobacco and drinking Union coffee, until some rather indignant officers put an end to that!
In my day, for the most part nobody got stuck with KP on Christmas, as that was traditionally handled by the senior officers and NCOs. The chow wasn’t all that bad, particularly considering that the mess hall was cooking for hundreds (or even thousands) of soldiers. No, we got a real live properly cooked meal (although probably not up to Mama’s standards), and it certainly beat out ‘C” rations, ‘K’ rations, or MRE’s! If you were up on the firing line, dinner was probably served from insulated containers and might still be lukewarm when you got it, but at least it was the traditional Christmas dinner and not the inevitable hardtack and salt pork of Civil War days. A proper salute is due the cooks and bakers; as they put a lot of extra effort into those holiday meals! Where I was at, it was another tradition that the Commander, accompanied by the First Sergeant, would make a round of the maintenance area on Christmas Eve with a bottle of whisky, sharing a tot of cheer, and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.
While we may have felt sorry for ourselves during my soldiering days, we had things infinitely better than some in that long line of American soldiers stretching out through our nations history. Consider the tired and hungry American soldiers at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, or remember the words of George Washington’s letter to Congress while at Valley Forge in 1778… "To see the men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie upon, without shoes...without a house or hut to cover them until those could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which, in my opinion, can scarcely be paralleled." I doubt that Christmas was very enjoyable for the men of the Army of the Potomac at Falmouth in 1862 either, or we might consider the plight of the soldiers and marines at Frozen Chosin in 1950. The Cold War may be over, and our troops may be coming home from Iraq, but many others still stand in harms way in Afghanistan this Christmas, risking sudden death or painful wounds. American soldiers still watch, far from home and family, over the shaky truce in Korea, and to keep the antagonists separated in Kosovo. They still stand guard in this dangerous world,at lonely outposts, from the frozen artic to blistering deserts to the silent depths of a cold dark sea.
So while you enjoy this holiday season, home and hearth, the company of your family, and I would hope a scrumptious Christmas dinner, take a moment to remember those millions of young Americans, past, present, and future, who gave up their Christmas so that you might have yours.
From the Fogarty household to yours, A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Vets
With my well known propensity to get quite upset when I feel that that America’s military veterans are being mistreated or just plain forgotten in the rush of “politics as usual” in Washington, you’ll generally find me involved in our local veterans organizations, and taking part in various Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies. As the high point of Veterans Day a few weeks ago, I attended the assembly at Grangeville High School where Pat Sullivan’s history class did their usual fantastic job of honoring our local veterans, reminding everyone that freedom is not free, and that which many Americans take so lightly was paid for with the blood of a veteran. I make no secret of being very proud of my status as an American veteran, and with that I’m sometimes asked to define “veteran”… so at the risk of tooting my own horn, I’ll try to answer that question.
Quite often a veteran is described as someone who, at some point in his life, wrote a blank check to the American people, payable “up to and including my life if necessary” (a lot of those checks have been cashed through the years). Simplified, and according to the dictionary, “A veteran is defined by federal law, moral code and military service as "Any, Any, Any"... A military veteran is Any person who served for Any length of time in Any military service branch. A war veteran is any GI ordered to foreign soil or waters to participate in direct or support activity against an enemy. (Any GI sent in harm's way.) A combat veteran is any GI who experiences any level of hostility for any duration resulting from offensive, defensive or friendly fire military action involving a real or perceived enemy in any foreign theater.” In short, a veteran is one of those folks who fought the nations wars, so that you wouldn’t have to. Well over a million American servicemen have died in the wars and conflicts this nation has faced since the first colonial soldiers took up arms in 1775 to fight for our independence. They’ve died on American soil and on foreign soil, they’ve died at sea, and they’ve died in the air. Every one of them gave his life for this country, for our people, and our distinctly American culture. They gave their lives so that generations of Americans yet unborn could live in a free nation.
So, what else can veterans do, or rather, after the war, how do veterans live up to the American Legion’s motto of “Still Serving America”?
Well, nothing quite as spectacular as fighting a blood and guts war, but veterans in general are people who take citizenship, civic responsibility, and patriotism very seriously. Consider how many veterans gravitate to public service jobs as firemen, policemen, and Emergency Medical Technicians. Many more serve with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol, or perhaps they merely volunteer many hours of their time with a variety of community service organizations. They’ll be found sponsoring children and youth activities such as Little League and Legion Baseball teams, the Boys State education program (the Ladies Auxiliary sponsors the Girl’s State program), High School Oratorical Contests, Scouting sponsorship, Jr. Shooting Programs, and they donate thousands of dollars annually to assorted scholarship funds. Veterans serve thousands of hours each year in the Veterans Administration Voluntary Service Program, helping other veterans who are patients in VA medical facilities, along with other Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation programs. We commonly do Flag etiquette education, Flag Retirement, and Color Guard Details. Veteran’s organizations work closely with the Family Support Groups of deployed soldiers, ship thousands of “CARE” packages to those deployed troops, and support programs to provide free telephone calling cards to soldiers overseas. Veterans continue their service to America in hundreds of ways, by still serving in their communities. Being realists, they can usually be counted on to be well informed on the issues, and they vote with our countries best interests in mind, rather than blindly following some half-baked political or economic theories.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer,
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
If you value your liberty, thank a veteran… you’ll find him around someplace, wherever a helping hand is needed.
Quite often a veteran is described as someone who, at some point in his life, wrote a blank check to the American people, payable “up to and including my life if necessary” (a lot of those checks have been cashed through the years). Simplified, and according to the dictionary, “A veteran is defined by federal law, moral code and military service as "Any, Any, Any"... A military veteran is Any person who served for Any length of time in Any military service branch. A war veteran is any GI ordered to foreign soil or waters to participate in direct or support activity against an enemy. (Any GI sent in harm's way.) A combat veteran is any GI who experiences any level of hostility for any duration resulting from offensive, defensive or friendly fire military action involving a real or perceived enemy in any foreign theater.” In short, a veteran is one of those folks who fought the nations wars, so that you wouldn’t have to. Well over a million American servicemen have died in the wars and conflicts this nation has faced since the first colonial soldiers took up arms in 1775 to fight for our independence. They’ve died on American soil and on foreign soil, they’ve died at sea, and they’ve died in the air. Every one of them gave his life for this country, for our people, and our distinctly American culture. They gave their lives so that generations of Americans yet unborn could live in a free nation.
So, what else can veterans do, or rather, after the war, how do veterans live up to the American Legion’s motto of “Still Serving America”?
Well, nothing quite as spectacular as fighting a blood and guts war, but veterans in general are people who take citizenship, civic responsibility, and patriotism very seriously. Consider how many veterans gravitate to public service jobs as firemen, policemen, and Emergency Medical Technicians. Many more serve with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol, or perhaps they merely volunteer many hours of their time with a variety of community service organizations. They’ll be found sponsoring children and youth activities such as Little League and Legion Baseball teams, the Boys State education program (the Ladies Auxiliary sponsors the Girl’s State program), High School Oratorical Contests, Scouting sponsorship, Jr. Shooting Programs, and they donate thousands of dollars annually to assorted scholarship funds. Veterans serve thousands of hours each year in the Veterans Administration Voluntary Service Program, helping other veterans who are patients in VA medical facilities, along with other Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation programs. We commonly do Flag etiquette education, Flag Retirement, and Color Guard Details. Veteran’s organizations work closely with the Family Support Groups of deployed soldiers, ship thousands of “CARE” packages to those deployed troops, and support programs to provide free telephone calling cards to soldiers overseas. Veterans continue their service to America in hundreds of ways, by still serving in their communities. Being realists, they can usually be counted on to be well informed on the issues, and they vote with our countries best interests in mind, rather than blindly following some half-baked political or economic theories.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer,
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
If you value your liberty, thank a veteran… you’ll find him around someplace, wherever a helping hand is needed.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Land Exchange
The proposed Upper Lochsa land exchange seems to be the “hot button” subject here in Idaho County at the moment, so… I’ll weigh in on the subject, along with nearly everyone else who lives around here, and a lot of folks that don’t. For starters, and at the risk of getting everybody mad at me, I’ll say that I can sympathize with our County Commissioners on this bucket of worms, as they’re caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place! It looks like whatever they do will be the wrong thing in the eyes of the community, and that’s a bad place for any politician to find himself.
The problem started when WPT (Western Pacific Timber) purchased nearly 40,000 acres of privately owned land on the Lochsa River drainage. The land has been logged in the past, replanted, and is currently growing quite nicely. WPT’s plan was to “trade” these 40,000 acres to the forest service who would love to get their hands on it (probably so that they can take it out of production, decommission the roads and trails, and in general ban public access in the interest of environmentalism). The proposal was to trade for other (timbered) forest lands scattered across northern Idaho. Past that point, WPT’s plans get rather murky.
As required by their own regulations, the Forest Circus… Service, asked for public comment on the proposal, which is what brought the County Commissioners into the discussion. Knowing that they can only make suggestions, their response to the Forest Service quite clearly states that they much prefer “Option A”, which is “take no action”, or in other words “fugid aboudit”. However, being realists, they also recognize that the federal government is going to do whatever they (and the environuts) darn well please, no matter what the local folks wish, or who gets hurt.
But now things start getting sticky. Along with all the usual problems they face, the Commissioners understand that their primary job is to take care of the County as a whole, which means to keep us economically afloat, working, and out of bankruptcy court, unlike what some eastern communities are presently facing. Economically however, the county faces a disaster, in that the Craig/Wyden and SRS funds (handed us as a result of the feds cutting off our timber supply), are about to end, and that could very nearly put us completely out of business! That loss is about 10 million dollars a year into the county coffers, and will no longer be available to an annual budget of roughly 13 million dollars. Adding to that problem, if we loose 40 or so thousand acres of private land and the taxes (about 12% of our property taxes I understand) that go with it, we’re in the position of “now what?” Remember the assorted public services that the majority of our voters demand the county provide? Well, they have to be paid for somehow, so with a major budget shortfall, which ones do you want eliminated? How many school teachers do you want to lay-off? I suppose we could just ignore our roads, but what happens when they go completely to potholes? Our justice system will take a hit I’m sure, and I pity the sheriffs department, trying to “protect and serve” without the wherewithal to do so. Indigent health care, mandated by state law, is going to get hurt, and I suppose parts of energy assistance as well. Just about everything the county does is going to be cut back of necessity! Sure we can buffer the impact somewhat, by increasing local taxes, but where do we draw the line on that?
Anyway, as an alternative, the county commissioners suggested that the entire land swap take place within Idaho County, and thus leaving our local tax base relatively unscathed. Part of that process includes suggesting to WPT and the Forest Service that assorted forest lands within the county could be traded without doing quite as much damage as the original proposal. Most of the county suggested lands were in two fairly large plots, one behind Harpster and the other up near Glenwood. That put everything back into the forest service’s decision making process. The Forest Service, and the Nez Perce tribe, joined forces in looking at the county proposal (which has not yet and may never be accepted) and changed the entire county proposal around, deciding that the majority of those exchangeable lands should be in the vicinity of Grangeville and Riggins. And that brought on a scream of agony from the commissioners… and a whole lot of the county’s citizens!
So now we have the “Stop the Swap” movement on the scene, vehemently protesting the whole idea! Much of this protest objects to the “privatization” (read that as posting “No Trespassing” signs) of prime recreational lands that at present are accessible to hunters, snowmobilers, 4 wheelers, berry pickers, and whomever. Unfortunately, the protests are directed primarily at the county commissioners, instead of where our objections might do some good, which is the US Forest Service… and of course the US Congress! After all, Congress has the exclusive power to manage and dispose of public lands and property (Article IV, Section 3 of the constitution states: "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States;"). With that, federal land management agencies have no actual authority over public lands, they have only the authority which Congress has specifically delegated to them. (‘course I don’t recommend that you run off into the woods, and totally ignore whatever regulation you happen to be upset about.)
Part of the “Stop the Swap” anger being directed at the commissioners is based on the precept that constitutionally the County Commissioners are the final authority over everything that happens within the county. While this is quite true, it, and everything else having to do with state or local rights, haven’t been enforceable since General Lee surrendered to the big government people at Appomattox Courthouse! You know who big government is, the bureaucrats who happily ignore the Constitution… and a Congress that lets ‘em get away with it. So, how about a way to handle things right at the top…
According to the census bureau, there are about 16 thousand people presently living in Idaho County. There are also a lot of folks in other areas objecting to the swap… If only half of us wrote a lot of letters and made a flood of phone calls to our congressmen, vehemently objecting to this entire land exchange, and trying very hard to calmly (and intelligently) state our case, I wonder if perhaps we’d finally get some attention from those in Washington that actually make the decisions. Remind them of their constitutional duties, tell them that you’re quite upset with this whole exchange deal… and… you might want to mention that there is an election coming up, and that you are a voter.
The problem started when WPT (Western Pacific Timber) purchased nearly 40,000 acres of privately owned land on the Lochsa River drainage. The land has been logged in the past, replanted, and is currently growing quite nicely. WPT’s plan was to “trade” these 40,000 acres to the forest service who would love to get their hands on it (probably so that they can take it out of production, decommission the roads and trails, and in general ban public access in the interest of environmentalism). The proposal was to trade for other (timbered) forest lands scattered across northern Idaho. Past that point, WPT’s plans get rather murky.
As required by their own regulations, the Forest Circus… Service, asked for public comment on the proposal, which is what brought the County Commissioners into the discussion. Knowing that they can only make suggestions, their response to the Forest Service quite clearly states that they much prefer “Option A”, which is “take no action”, or in other words “fugid aboudit”. However, being realists, they also recognize that the federal government is going to do whatever they (and the environuts) darn well please, no matter what the local folks wish, or who gets hurt.
But now things start getting sticky. Along with all the usual problems they face, the Commissioners understand that their primary job is to take care of the County as a whole, which means to keep us economically afloat, working, and out of bankruptcy court, unlike what some eastern communities are presently facing. Economically however, the county faces a disaster, in that the Craig/Wyden and SRS funds (handed us as a result of the feds cutting off our timber supply), are about to end, and that could very nearly put us completely out of business! That loss is about 10 million dollars a year into the county coffers, and will no longer be available to an annual budget of roughly 13 million dollars. Adding to that problem, if we loose 40 or so thousand acres of private land and the taxes (about 12% of our property taxes I understand) that go with it, we’re in the position of “now what?” Remember the assorted public services that the majority of our voters demand the county provide? Well, they have to be paid for somehow, so with a major budget shortfall, which ones do you want eliminated? How many school teachers do you want to lay-off? I suppose we could just ignore our roads, but what happens when they go completely to potholes? Our justice system will take a hit I’m sure, and I pity the sheriffs department, trying to “protect and serve” without the wherewithal to do so. Indigent health care, mandated by state law, is going to get hurt, and I suppose parts of energy assistance as well. Just about everything the county does is going to be cut back of necessity! Sure we can buffer the impact somewhat, by increasing local taxes, but where do we draw the line on that?
Anyway, as an alternative, the county commissioners suggested that the entire land swap take place within Idaho County, and thus leaving our local tax base relatively unscathed. Part of that process includes suggesting to WPT and the Forest Service that assorted forest lands within the county could be traded without doing quite as much damage as the original proposal. Most of the county suggested lands were in two fairly large plots, one behind Harpster and the other up near Glenwood. That put everything back into the forest service’s decision making process. The Forest Service, and the Nez Perce tribe, joined forces in looking at the county proposal (which has not yet and may never be accepted) and changed the entire county proposal around, deciding that the majority of those exchangeable lands should be in the vicinity of Grangeville and Riggins. And that brought on a scream of agony from the commissioners… and a whole lot of the county’s citizens!
So now we have the “Stop the Swap” movement on the scene, vehemently protesting the whole idea! Much of this protest objects to the “privatization” (read that as posting “No Trespassing” signs) of prime recreational lands that at present are accessible to hunters, snowmobilers, 4 wheelers, berry pickers, and whomever. Unfortunately, the protests are directed primarily at the county commissioners, instead of where our objections might do some good, which is the US Forest Service… and of course the US Congress! After all, Congress has the exclusive power to manage and dispose of public lands and property (Article IV, Section 3 of the constitution states: "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States;"). With that, federal land management agencies have no actual authority over public lands, they have only the authority which Congress has specifically delegated to them. (‘course I don’t recommend that you run off into the woods, and totally ignore whatever regulation you happen to be upset about.)
Part of the “Stop the Swap” anger being directed at the commissioners is based on the precept that constitutionally the County Commissioners are the final authority over everything that happens within the county. While this is quite true, it, and everything else having to do with state or local rights, haven’t been enforceable since General Lee surrendered to the big government people at Appomattox Courthouse! You know who big government is, the bureaucrats who happily ignore the Constitution… and a Congress that lets ‘em get away with it. So, how about a way to handle things right at the top…
According to the census bureau, there are about 16 thousand people presently living in Idaho County. There are also a lot of folks in other areas objecting to the swap… If only half of us wrote a lot of letters and made a flood of phone calls to our congressmen, vehemently objecting to this entire land exchange, and trying very hard to calmly (and intelligently) state our case, I wonder if perhaps we’d finally get some attention from those in Washington that actually make the decisions. Remind them of their constitutional duties, tell them that you’re quite upset with this whole exchange deal… and… you might want to mention that there is an election coming up, and that you are a voter.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Al-Walaqi killing
A nation of sheep breeds a government of wolves.
-Author Unknown-
As could be expected, the recent killing of Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, and three of his associates has brought about a flood of protest on this side of the pond. The political left, libertarians, and of course the ACLU, are all weeping, wailing, and protesting that al-Awlaki, who just happened to be an American citizen born in New Mexico of Yemeni parents, was “executed” by the US government without benefit of legal “due process”. The Associated Press reported that in a serious blow to al-Qaida, U.S. forces killed two American citizens who played key roles in inspiring several attacks against U.S. targets, cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and Samir Khan, who edited the Jihadi Internet magazine, were killed in the course of a U.S. airstrike on their convoy in Yemen. Al-Awlaki apparently was targeted in the killing, but Khan was a fortunate case of “collateral damage”. Presidential candidate Ron Paul joined the civil liberties parade in protest, saying; "No one likes these kind of people, but I also like the rule of law and I like our Constitution, that you don't just target people, assassinate them, someone who has not been charged and you have no proof of anything."
Well, Okay, I can understand the concern. We are after all, a nation under law, law that considers people to be innocent until proven guilty. With that, it often seems that nearly every week we see headlines about some person or other that was convicted of crimes involving murder and the death penalty, and incarcerated for often very long periods of time before they were suddenly proven innocent and finally released. So we can readily see that even the law does make mistakes. But Al-Awlaki is an entirely different situation. While he was born in the U.S., his family moved back to Yemen where his father was a government official when he was seven years old, which hardly makes him an American in any but name! Secondly, he received a radical Islamic education which imbued him with a deep hatred of everything non-Islamic. Finally, any American citizen who knowingly and willingly attacks the United States is guilty of high treason, which is punishable by death. In this case, Al-Awlaki most certainly did, repeatedly, urge Islamic jihad against American citizens (which included both the Ft. Hood shooting and the somewhat less than brilliant “Underwear bomber”). Ergo Sum, sentence carried out by means of a missile launched from a U.S. drone.
There is another aspect of this incident that does concern me greatly however, in that now our government can order the death of American citizens without benefit of a trial… or even proof that a crime has been committed! Remember not long back when the news came out that the government was spying on Americans? Apparently there is a secret panel with the authority to authorize internal spying by government agencies, in a witch hunt for supposed evildoers. This panel can authorize spying on anyone in the country from a bonafide terrorist, to a suspected drug dealer, to, I imagine, a political opponent! (Sort of a “Watergate done legally” I think.) Done by direction of the president, such spying is in direct violation of our constitutional rights. You might also remember that we were solemnly promised such spying would be limited to catching bad guys, and only used in very few cases at that. Shortly thereafter we found out that numerous federal agencies including the FBI, were spying on us wholesale! Now, Reuters News Agency reports that “American militants” like al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions. There is no public record of the operations or decisions, nor is there any law authorizing the panel, or anything laying out the ground rules by which it operates. The role of the president in the process is kept rather vague, probably in the interest of plausible deniability.
Two legal theories have been advanced concerning the legalities; that the actions were permitted by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the 9-11 attack, and they are permitted under international law if a country is defending itself. But US District Judge John Bates wrote "Can (the president) order the assassination of a US citizen without first affording him any form of judicial process whatsoever, based on the mere assertion that he is a dangerous member of a terrorist organization?" With the Patriot act, government has the power to declare just about any dissenter a potential terrorist. And “anyone” could cover a lot of territory from tax protests, to members of an opposing political party, to actual members of Al-Qaeda! Anyone who disagrees with the fed’s could be labeled a potential terrorist and placed on the hit list! I’m certainly no legal expert or Constitutional scholar, but I have yet to see anywhere in the Constitution where this is allowed, something that Congress can’t seem to understand!
A short lesson from history here… Martin Niemoller was a German pastor and avowed anti-Communist who supported Hitler's rise to power. Later, with Hitler’s insistence on the supremacy of state over religion he became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was confined in concentration camps until 1945. His crime was "not being enthusiastic enough about the Nazi movement." He issued a public statement shortly the war that's quite well-known and often quoted.
“First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Certainly, Anwar Al-Awlaki, or Achmed the dead terrorist for that matter, should have been blown away, a long time ago, so I’ll offer my congratulations to the shooter for a good hit. But I am also very much afraid that this incident is setting a really bad precedent, as we’re granting the executive branch of our government the power to kill any U.S. citizen deemed a threat by our politicians, and that includes you, me, or the guy down the street… and that with no judicial oversight, or any of the rights guaranteed us by our Constitution. If we allow such gross misuse of power to continue, we are driving yet another nail in the coffin of our constitutional republic.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Spendocrats
“Suppose you were an idiot, and then suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself.”
-Mark Twain
The “Spendocrats” are at it again. If it wasn’t so pathetic, the recent “debt deal” between Capitol Hill and the White House (with its aftermath) would be rather funny, or at least according to my somewhat twisted sense of humor. The debt problem arises from the Congressional habit of spending more taxpayer money than the IRS collects each year, and that dates back to FDR’s “New Deal” socialism of the 1930’s. Granted that social welfare programs aren’t the only cause (I expect “cold war” expenses had a lot to do with the national debt as well), but I do believe that the long term federal effort to make the American populace dependant on government largess has just about destroyed this nations economy. In case you’ve been hiding out in the woods for the last seventy or so years, in 1929 the socially approved crap game of the American stock market crashed, it led the United States (with the rest of the world soon following), into the “Great Depression” of the 1930’s. That of course pushed the American public into massive unemployment, bank failures, personal and corporate bankruptcies, the loss of many people’s life savings, and a whole lot of social and political unrest. Enter the do-gooder socialists with a spending program to “end the depression”, a program that nearly eliminated the national treasury with huge “make work” spending programs.
That spending gave us Social Security, the TVA, Hoover Dam, and the Golden Gate Bridge well enough, but contrary to popular belief it did nothing to end the depression, and in fact extended the misery for several additional years. It also gave us a bureaucracy and a welfare state that has been expanding at a logarithmic rate ever since. Under several democratic presidents since then, Congress has been happily handing out tax dollars and borrowed money to state and local governments along with their welfare bureaucracy, in a mad attempt to curry political favor and to “buy” votes ever since. Currently, to keep up that spending spree and pay the interest on those borrowed funds, the US Government as authorized by Congress consumes approximately 20% of our gross national product every year! Now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, our national debt exceeds our ability to pay it off, and the interest alone puts a severe strain on our nation’s finances. This in turn led to the fight in Congress, and the threats of defaulting on our debts unless Congress raised our debt limit.
The congressional battle as I understand it, was essentially a disagreement about raising the debt ceiling which the Democrats preferred so that they could continue borrowing more money and spending our future. The Republicans on the other hand opposed raising the ceiling, and instead preferred to attack the problem by curtailing government spending (I doubt that would have actually happened), which in turn would have made a lot of potential voters who are presently feeding at the government trough quite unhappy. Everything focuses on the debt burden which must be reduced, so that if our taxes are not to be increased yet again, then government spending must go down, and the compromise reached does neither, it merely ignores the problem for another year or two. Now of course, the DNC spin doctors are blaming the Republicans, George Bush, the Tea Party, corporate America, and all those greedy rich people who don’t particularly wish to redistribute the rewards of working hard all their lives.
I receiver the following in an e-mail not long back, and will paraphrase a bit…
Remember the old story about the ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER? Wherein the ant works
hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter, while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed, and the grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The moral of the story is; be responsible for yourself.
Now we have the modern upgraded version of the story…
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing “We shall overcome”. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake while he damns the ants.
President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, the Tea Party, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid claim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
(My apologies to the original author of this tale.)
The House of Representatives contains 435 members, while the Senate adds another 100 people to the fumbling committee running the show. Thus we have 535 “Spendocrats” who are solely responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in. They and only they determine the revenue rate, they and only they determine the spending. When things, good or bad, happen to the United States, it is because “they” want it to happen that way.
You might want to remember this story as you prepare to vote in 2012.
That spending gave us Social Security, the TVA, Hoover Dam, and the Golden Gate Bridge well enough, but contrary to popular belief it did nothing to end the depression, and in fact extended the misery for several additional years. It also gave us a bureaucracy and a welfare state that has been expanding at a logarithmic rate ever since. Under several democratic presidents since then, Congress has been happily handing out tax dollars and borrowed money to state and local governments along with their welfare bureaucracy, in a mad attempt to curry political favor and to “buy” votes ever since. Currently, to keep up that spending spree and pay the interest on those borrowed funds, the US Government as authorized by Congress consumes approximately 20% of our gross national product every year! Now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, our national debt exceeds our ability to pay it off, and the interest alone puts a severe strain on our nation’s finances. This in turn led to the fight in Congress, and the threats of defaulting on our debts unless Congress raised our debt limit.
The congressional battle as I understand it, was essentially a disagreement about raising the debt ceiling which the Democrats preferred so that they could continue borrowing more money and spending our future. The Republicans on the other hand opposed raising the ceiling, and instead preferred to attack the problem by curtailing government spending (I doubt that would have actually happened), which in turn would have made a lot of potential voters who are presently feeding at the government trough quite unhappy. Everything focuses on the debt burden which must be reduced, so that if our taxes are not to be increased yet again, then government spending must go down, and the compromise reached does neither, it merely ignores the problem for another year or two. Now of course, the DNC spin doctors are blaming the Republicans, George Bush, the Tea Party, corporate America, and all those greedy rich people who don’t particularly wish to redistribute the rewards of working hard all their lives.
I receiver the following in an e-mail not long back, and will paraphrase a bit…
Remember the old story about the ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER? Wherein the ant works
hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter, while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed, and the grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The moral of the story is; be responsible for yourself.
Now we have the modern upgraded version of the story…
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing “We shall overcome”. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake while he damns the ants.
President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, the Tea Party, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid claim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
(My apologies to the original author of this tale.)
The House of Representatives contains 435 members, while the Senate adds another 100 people to the fumbling committee running the show. Thus we have 535 “Spendocrats” who are solely responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in. They and only they determine the revenue rate, they and only they determine the spending. When things, good or bad, happen to the United States, it is because “they” want it to happen that way.
You might want to remember this story as you prepare to vote in 2012.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Osama bin Laden
They who can give up liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
The public reaction to the long overdue death of Osama bin Laden continues to amaze me. Many of us of course cheered the demise of the person responsible for the violent deaths of thousands of Americans, and for our ongoing wars. And naturally there were a good many people who were pretty well “ho-hum” about the whole thing. From the loony left we still hear a good deal of weeping and wailing that our killing of the “Great Sheik” will anger Muslims world-wide and cause them to attack us. I guess that is correct in part, as I understand that radical Muslims are still quite upset over loosing their fearless leader, but consider, with or without Osama, when did they not attack non-Muslims (or anyone else that disagrees with ‘em) at every chance? Then to, there are those folks who immediately suspect yet another government conspiracy, that Osama is well and fine, and probably living the life of Riley in Iran. With only slightly less fanfare we also have those who are constantly arguing the case against the CIA’s use of unconventional interrogation to find out where this nutcase was hiding.
At any rate, if bin Laden isn’t dead, I’m sure that he’ll appear on worldwide TV one of these days, and like Mark Twain once did, announce that “the reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated”. But for now, even Al-Qaeda has publicly admitted that he’s gone and they have appointed his successor. The proof of his death will probably be when the UN complains about fish in the Arabian Sea suffering from food poisoning! Personally, no I don’t think he should have been buried at sea… his mangy carcass should have been slathered with lard, sewn into a pig skin, and hung on public display in New York City’s Times Square, Muslim idealism and sensitivity be dammed! But still, the good thing about the sea burial is that there’s no body and no martyr for the radicals to declare a holy shrine or whatever they do when their leader runs off to paradise. But barring a body to display, I would like to see the famed pictures that Mr. O has decided to keep secret.
Just goes to show ‘ya though, attitudes do change! In 1941 the Empire of Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor killing 2,400 people (mostly military personnel), and sinking a bunch of ships. Once the shock had died down a bit, the American people reared back on their hind legs, bared their fangs, and in four years had extracted a most terrible revenge on the Japanese Empire. Sixty years later the 9/11 attack killed almost 3,000 people (nearly all unarmed civilians), knocked down the pride of New York City, and brought about a completely different response. In a fit of panic, the American people blamed themselves for the death and destruction, doing the “sackcloth and ashes” thing while weeping piteously, and allowed Congress to pass the ill named “Patriot Act” which stripped us of many freedoms guaranteed us by our Constitution, as well as creating the Department of Homeland Security which effectively makes us a police state! Keeping the armed forces in the game (despite having military veterans declared “potential terrorists”), we have the US Northern Command tasked with all sorts of specialized jobs in direct support of the DHS. Additionally we have the Transportation Safety Administration (those “hero’s” who draw a fat government paycheck for groping children and strip searching elderly ladies at the airport) cluttering up the scene and costing us billions of dollars every year. Huh… if all this had happened to the Americans of 1941, the government would have two major fights on their hands, one overseas against our attackers, and the other with the highly irate American people who were demanding their freedom back! Well, I for one have a hard time believing that modern day Americans are so terrified of another Islamic attack that they literally give up their freedom and beg the government to “protect” them from a few wild-eyed radical nuts. The folks I grew up with were quite capable of handling a few terrorists all by themselves! We really don’t need the DHS though, a few million pistol packing Americans with a bad case of mad would, I’m sure, convince the terrorists that it would be much safer to stay home and blow each other up! And on that note, heaven help the miserable soul that tries to terrorize my wife! He will, in short order, find himself flayed alive and hung out to dry! (She tends to get a bit difficult when someone disturbs her peace and quiet.)
Certainly we live in interesting times, but you can bet your bippy we're not going to make things any less interesting by apologizing to the world for every perceived wrong, and running about in a completely mindless pursuit of “Safety and Security at any cost”. I also find it strange that the home of a people who once challenged (and beat) the worlds premier colonial power in a war over individual liberty and freedom is so rapidly giving up that liberty today in a mad search for security, while at the same time the young people of the Middle East are rising up in protest, and demanding their freedom from totalitarian rule!
Other that a possible spasmodic attack or two, Al Qaeda's day is done and gone. Mr. O apparently figures that the war is more or less over, and wants to bring nearly 30,000 troops home, while Leon Panetta, our new defense secretary tells us that al-Qaeda is defeated. Yet Congress, in its infinite wisdom, extends the insidious Patriot Act for another four years and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says "Even as we mark this milestone, we should not forget that the battle to stop al Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Laden", both inferring that only government can save us from continued attack by Islamic fundamentalism. Well Ms. Clinton, I notice that the Islamic world has not risen up in yet more anger and rage at the US, but rather they are angry and raging well enough, rebelling against the very same totalitarian fundamentalism that created bin Laden, and from which he drew his strength!
As for Osama himself, I can only hope that the last thing he saw in this world was an irate US Navy SEAL, and the last thing that went through his mind was an American 9mm bullet. I would also have liked to see the look on his face when he found out that paradise ran out of nubile virgins a few hundred suicide bombers ago!
At any rate, if bin Laden isn’t dead, I’m sure that he’ll appear on worldwide TV one of these days, and like Mark Twain once did, announce that “the reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated”. But for now, even Al-Qaeda has publicly admitted that he’s gone and they have appointed his successor. The proof of his death will probably be when the UN complains about fish in the Arabian Sea suffering from food poisoning! Personally, no I don’t think he should have been buried at sea… his mangy carcass should have been slathered with lard, sewn into a pig skin, and hung on public display in New York City’s Times Square, Muslim idealism and sensitivity be dammed! But still, the good thing about the sea burial is that there’s no body and no martyr for the radicals to declare a holy shrine or whatever they do when their leader runs off to paradise. But barring a body to display, I would like to see the famed pictures that Mr. O has decided to keep secret.
Just goes to show ‘ya though, attitudes do change! In 1941 the Empire of Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor killing 2,400 people (mostly military personnel), and sinking a bunch of ships. Once the shock had died down a bit, the American people reared back on their hind legs, bared their fangs, and in four years had extracted a most terrible revenge on the Japanese Empire. Sixty years later the 9/11 attack killed almost 3,000 people (nearly all unarmed civilians), knocked down the pride of New York City, and brought about a completely different response. In a fit of panic, the American people blamed themselves for the death and destruction, doing the “sackcloth and ashes” thing while weeping piteously, and allowed Congress to pass the ill named “Patriot Act” which stripped us of many freedoms guaranteed us by our Constitution, as well as creating the Department of Homeland Security which effectively makes us a police state! Keeping the armed forces in the game (despite having military veterans declared “potential terrorists”), we have the US Northern Command tasked with all sorts of specialized jobs in direct support of the DHS. Additionally we have the Transportation Safety Administration (those “hero’s” who draw a fat government paycheck for groping children and strip searching elderly ladies at the airport) cluttering up the scene and costing us billions of dollars every year. Huh… if all this had happened to the Americans of 1941, the government would have two major fights on their hands, one overseas against our attackers, and the other with the highly irate American people who were demanding their freedom back! Well, I for one have a hard time believing that modern day Americans are so terrified of another Islamic attack that they literally give up their freedom and beg the government to “protect” them from a few wild-eyed radical nuts. The folks I grew up with were quite capable of handling a few terrorists all by themselves! We really don’t need the DHS though, a few million pistol packing Americans with a bad case of mad would, I’m sure, convince the terrorists that it would be much safer to stay home and blow each other up! And on that note, heaven help the miserable soul that tries to terrorize my wife! He will, in short order, find himself flayed alive and hung out to dry! (She tends to get a bit difficult when someone disturbs her peace and quiet.)
Certainly we live in interesting times, but you can bet your bippy we're not going to make things any less interesting by apologizing to the world for every perceived wrong, and running about in a completely mindless pursuit of “Safety and Security at any cost”. I also find it strange that the home of a people who once challenged (and beat) the worlds premier colonial power in a war over individual liberty and freedom is so rapidly giving up that liberty today in a mad search for security, while at the same time the young people of the Middle East are rising up in protest, and demanding their freedom from totalitarian rule!
Other that a possible spasmodic attack or two, Al Qaeda's day is done and gone. Mr. O apparently figures that the war is more or less over, and wants to bring nearly 30,000 troops home, while Leon Panetta, our new defense secretary tells us that al-Qaeda is defeated. Yet Congress, in its infinite wisdom, extends the insidious Patriot Act for another four years and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says "Even as we mark this milestone, we should not forget that the battle to stop al Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Laden", both inferring that only government can save us from continued attack by Islamic fundamentalism. Well Ms. Clinton, I notice that the Islamic world has not risen up in yet more anger and rage at the US, but rather they are angry and raging well enough, rebelling against the very same totalitarian fundamentalism that created bin Laden, and from which he drew his strength!
As for Osama himself, I can only hope that the last thing he saw in this world was an irate US Navy SEAL, and the last thing that went through his mind was an American 9mm bullet. I would also have liked to see the look on his face when he found out that paradise ran out of nubile virgins a few hundred suicide bombers ago!
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