Furthermore...

So, I recently read that a prominent member of Senator and Chairperson of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence (the Legislative Branch's highest and most secretive committee) Diane Feinstein's staff stated that the ban on extended magazines for assault-style weapons is "do-able" because once the old, pre-ban magazines are used up, they won't be able to be replaced and will be thrown away.  I can't cite the article, and I can't name the staffer, but if this is true, then Sen. Feinstein is surrounding herself with even dumber people than I would have imagined.

Now, this is the woman that has stood up and said that the NSA's illegal spying on ALL US citizens is just and needed to combat the threat of future terrorist violence against America.  This is the woman that fought tooth-and-nail to keep past weapons bans in place during the Bush administrations.  More distressing, this is the woman (and the sort of people that will replace her when she is gone) that we are trusting our future to, our personal and private information with now, and whom we voted for to protect our rights and freedoms in the past.

As I said earlier, I'm rapidly becoming convinced that the propaganda that is pouring forth from D.C. is so replete with lies and falsehoods that nothing we have been told over the last twenty-odd years can be trusted at all.

Every fact, figure and tiniest bit of evidence that has been delivered up to convince us that the actions of the government are justified are now 100% in doubt... even by their own admissions.  Take this list for example...

From the National Safety Council:

– You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack

– You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

– You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane

– You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack

–You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack

– You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack

– You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack

–You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack

–You are 9 times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack

–You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

–You are 8 times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack

– You are 6 times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack

Does this bring it home, or what?  I've been thinking about this list for the better part of a year... and I am still amazed that it hasn't made a bigger splash than it has.  We all know that flying is the safest means of travel there is... which is 11,000 times more dangerous to me than a terrorist attack... yet my personal freedoms and privacy are thrown away more and more every day to protect me from a terrorist attack?  Even my ability to travel in a timely and convenient manner have been sacrificed to "security" at the airport, the bus depot and the train station.  Even the very police that are employed to protect me are a greater threat to me than a terrorist!  Eight times greater!!!  How can this be, and the country is still silent to the lies that we are still being told on a daily basis?

What is it going to take to fix this?  I am struggling to see a way out of this mess... and I see nothing but more of the same.

A comment, long over due...

Since the President gave his speech stating that the War on Terror can never be won, and in which he defended his foreign policy to date, I have struggled with how best to articulate my disappointment in my government.

On that day in May (the day before my birthday, in fact), the President made perfectly clear that our current system of government no longer works at all.

Obama won the election based on arguments that previous administrations had failed to follow just, ethical or moral choices in determining the course of US foreign policy since 1999, but in that speech at the National Defense University he defended very nearly all that had been done prior to his coming to office in an attempt to defend what he had done in office since 2008.  To put it very plainly... what was good for the goose is just fine for this gander.

Since the Snowden leaks have come to light, the depth of the government's disregard for the sovereignty of the citizens of this nation has never been more clear.  I am more and more convinced... every day, in fact... that Edward Snowden may very well be the greatest individual hero this country has had in the last 100 years.  As much as I love Pope Francis... nothing Pope Francis has done to date comes even close to the impact Snowden has had on the question of individual rights and freedoms for 350 million people across this country, and because of this I think he should have been Time's Person of the Year 2013.

Snowden's gift to America was the debate that he spawned.  Obama ran on the promise of transparency in government... but nothing (and I mean NOTHING) any President has done since Johnson has shown just how invasive our government has become, and how callous it is towards our most fundamental freedoms and rights as Snowden did with those leaks.  Watergate is peanuts in comparison.

I'm curious about what F Ryan thinks on this.  The leaks were particularly damning (in my opinion) to both the last GOP Presidents, and showed (or started) some serious questions about St. Ron Reagan's choices in the realm of domestic surveillance.  We now have two Federal judges that have weighed in on this: one saying he was a hero and the government has acted (and is acting) illegally, while another defends the government's actions as legal and necessary.

What say you, my friend?

Al Gore lied...

10 inches of snow, wind chills down to -20 degrees... until Monday!?!?! Seriously?

They are naming winter storms now... and this one seems aptly named:  Hercules.

Or is it "Jerk-ules"?  Hehe

Somebody call IXII!

On this Holy Night...

I want to wish any and all that may see this the Merriest of Christmas Days, but especially to my family and friends.

Sitting here in my warm and cozy home, listening to the wind blow and the snow fall outside, getting ready to finish the preparations for the Big Morning with all three of my beautiful children home happy and safe... I'm still missing all of you that aren't here.  My parents, my baby sister, my brother, all their kids, my in-laws and all their kids, my cousins and all their kids, my very best friends and all their kids... as much fun as we are looking forward to tonight and tomorrow, it's just a little bit less fun without you all here with us.

I pray that God blesses you all with as much love and joy as He has given us, and that you think of us while you enjoy your family and friends on this happy day, because we will be thinking of all of you!

Merry Christmas!

Want evidence of inflation? How's this...

I live in a pretty small town.  Three gas stations, two small markets and a Walmart, two bars and two doughnut shops.

My son was having such a good week this week, and since the morning was going exceptionally well, I decided to treat him to Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast.  That doesn't happen very often.  So I go in and order a dozen frosting-covered baked delights, and the bill comes to $7.79.  I'm shocked!  I'm thinking to myself that it would have been less than six bucks, but here it is almost eight instead.  However, I pay the girl behind the counter and load up my treats into the car.

As I'm unloading the goodies, I notice a receipt on the floor of the car that has the logo of the same doughnut shop on it, and stoop to pick it up.  It is dated 2-21-13, and is for one dozen doughnuts... total price?

$5.74!

In only ten months, the local price for a dozen raised frosted doughnuts has increased by 34%, or $1.95... with no appreciable improvement in size, quantity or quality of product.

This tells me that the dollars I'm earning at work are rapidly becoming less and less valuable by the week.  That, my friends, is inflation.

It also tells me that I need to clean the car far more often than I do.

This may be the most disturbing article I've read in years...

I'm almost beyond words... to think that a commissioned officer in the United States military would post THIS is repulsive to me.

I've said in the past, and I'll say it again: the tragedies that bring about these sorts of sentiments are indeed tragedies.  Every bit as tragic as the thousands of people that die every year in automobile accidents, or due to on-the-job injuries, or from food-related illness that is easily prevented by moderation in living habits... yet no one is calling for the elimination of cars, power tools, or fast food.

I'm in a bit of a time crunch right now... but this is worth the discussion.  I don't car who reads the blog, it is worth putting out there that this Lt. Col. is 100% WRONG... and not deserving of the rank he holds.

"We have to pass it to see what's in it."

Just in case future generations, our grand kids and great grand kids, log on to our humble site to see what we had to say about the absolute debacle of "Obamacare" (actually titled The Affordable Healthcare Act - if ever a law was misnamed.), I want to assure them of something. The only reason we haven't engaged in a full nuts and bolts strip down of this law post implementation is it is so massive, so utterly coming apart at the seams, so grand in its' failure, that we would have to quit jobs, abandon children, and use bed pans to fully gauge our reaction. Let me boil down what has FINALLY awoken the American people - and typically friendly press - to the realization that this thing is a disaster.

1) The website utterly failed.
All of us - from our little site to conservative talk - have been screaming about the unconstitutionality of mandating health insurance, a government take over of 1/6th of the economy, and another trillion dollars in spending. However, none of that dissuaded the president's admirers, and thus he was reelected. But when they can't "log on", when the site fails, when they are stranded with a little pinwheel icon that never loads, THEN they come unhinged. Limbaugh once said that it wouldn't be a major policy failure that does the president in or costs him popularity, but rather "dissing Beyonce's new album." I think this proves that theory right. 6 people were able to sign up on day one - SIX. A nation accustomed to the speed and versatility of Itunes cannot tolerate such tech incompetence.

2) "If you like your plan, you'll be able to keep your plan."
This will go down as bigger than "Read my lips", "I did not have sex with that woman", and "Mission accomplished." He repeated this phrase, with great emphasis - such as "this we promise", and "period" - at every major stump speech for the last 4 years. Over, and over, and over. In an article found HERE by the daily caller, economists and experts - at the university level - are now saying that at least, AT LEAST 68% of Americans will lose their current private health plans. And for a simple reason: the new "minimum standard", also known as the Essential Benefits floor disqualifies most private insurance as inadequate for not doing things like covering single males for maternity care. Not "leave", actual OBGYN care. This makes these plans illegal to sell now. The president's people will retort that "you're grandfathered in." The problem is that according to the law, if that plan changes in any substantial way, it becomes a "new" plan and loses grandfather status. So what do they declare as "substantial." If your copay goes up $5. Five bucks gets your plan invalidated. But the even bigger problem is the simple economics of healthcare plans - if I can no longer sell it, no longer bring new, healthy young people into that plan's pool, then I can't sustain that pool. I have a fixed group that will age within that plan. Thus I am forced to disband the plan all together before it bankrupts me. This is why people across America are getting notices that they're being kicked off... excuse me, "transitioned" into a new plan.

3.) The heavily subsidized plans offered under the exchange are too often more expensive. I put this under my ATM fee theory. The government can raise taxes to infinity, regulate entire businesses into extinction, and waste billions of tax payer dollars; but if ATM fees are increased from $2 to $3, all hell breaks loose and the people demand action. The same could be said here. The trillions upon trillions this debacle will cost us doesn't seem to register with the average voter (at least not as of 11/6/12). But if their premium goes from $155/mo to $368, they go nuts.

So there you have it. We finally have an uproar. Not over Constitutionality of mandates or universally declaring parts of that mandate void for special groups, or on  nation-ending levels of spending, but rather over pages that won't load and Obama's "read my lips" moments(s) . That's fine though... hell, Al Capone was jailed over tax fraud, so I'll take what I can get.