Troofers need to get a grip

Geraldo and the Judge both need to be gone, removed from any position other than chuckles on Fox. I know, some people like the other stuff they do, but pushing 911 troofer crap hurts what is obviously a conservative television station. Let the nut jobs that call Alex whats-his-face have the troffer stuff, let the left own it.

No, I am not linking any of it, goodsearch it if you need to find the actual insanity. Two planes hit Tower 1 and 2, all the resulting damage was caused by those initial INTENTIONAL terrorist acts. There was no 'controlled demolition' of any of the buildings, none. The deaths were caused by Islamic Terrorists, not the United States or any other government.

What Government causes

An article in the Daily Local today points out exactly what reliance on government causes. Lower income folk who rely on government may have lost touch with the true help that is available in most communities. The title of the article proves my point, or, led me to my point: "I didn't know that people like that existed." Had this woman belonged to a church (or any house of worship) she would have known that people like us exist, those of us that give freely because it is right, not because the government takes.

The people she refers to are the members of an organization I am proud to be a very small part of, Good Works. I was asked to help out through my church and accepted, not much thought, I have some semblance of mechanical/structural ability (no finish work though!) and was able to assist in making a home safe for a new-born.

Back to the point. The government isn't going to seal your windows with the love that Good Works will, the government will give you the money to pay some company that was created to take the money, no connection to the community, no connection to people. Good Works remains connected because the labor is free; the workers work for the love of humanity and the realization that coming to know a higher power, any higher power, through the observation of works AND faith creates a better life for those who are helped.

Name that Party

I love it when we get the chance to play 'name that party'. When the political party of the criminal in question is not mentioned in the first paragraph, one must wonder why...Now, this wasn't a serious offense, or was it? It seems to me that the best way to avoid a DUI is to run into a bar and grab a beer, that way, any smell of beer on your breath is simply ignored...it pays to be a politician I guess.

Paragraph 12 of the story finally gets around to telling us that the driver is a Democrat, and, that he was in his 'state' car. The last paragraph mentions that this is the second crash of this type (rear ending another vehicle) for this guy...

Addendum to Airport Security

So I have taken some abuse for my stance on the new manner in which passengers are screened at American Airports. It has been interesting, to say the least. So, with out further ado, point number one is a comparison to an old post of mine regarding seat-belts. Yup, I was against the government forcing me to wear a seat-belt...but...I now wear one. From a libertarian point of view, mandating that I keep myself safe seems over the top, however, I now realize that if I am injured due to not wearing my seat-belt it affects more than just me. Those injuries can affect my immediate family, my extended family, and even my co-workers. If I become unable to work due to the injuries (that might have been avoided with the use of the seat-belt) tax-payers are affected as well. There, I made the jump, and I admit, I was wrong to assume that I was the only one affected by my choice regarding the seat-belt (I will also fight hard to put helmets back on those that ride motor-cycles when I am an elected official).

Now that we have determined that there are rights of others involved in the seat-belt arena can we please also admit that there are others involved in the airline safety issue?

Really, this is a simple yes or no question: Do people have the right to carry explosives on to commercial airplanes? If your answer is no, then you have to help solve the problem of ensuring it never happens. This can be accomplished in many ways, and maybe the 'naked' screening is not the way, the pat downs might be too much? Maybe?

Nope, not too much, not until we profile in the manner of El Al, with incredibly well trained screeners. This is going to slow things down even more though...which is going to create the hue and cry for faster service, which is what the full body scanner is all about.

Remember folks, if we took our time in the first place, we could do it the way El Al does, but we want to be there yesterday, hence the need for speed in travel.

So, until we all learn to slow down, until we accept the well trained but slow process that is profiling (and not based on race, so chill), either accept the speedy scanner or the pat-down.

Or walk.

Airport Security

I think I may have touched on this in the past, but it is time to do it again. There is a famous Ben Frankilin idea that those who give up liberty for security deserve neither. I agree with this, if we allow the police to stop us on the street for no reason, we have given up liberty for security (stop and frisk). That only pertains to walking along the street though, once we enter a car, a bus, a train, or a plane, we have surrendered some of our liberties for the convenience those conveyances provide. This is fine with me and should be fine with the rest of us as well.

We have no right, either express or implied in any of our founding documents to travel from one place to another in any way other than our own two feet. I do, however, have the right to feel safe as I walk from here to there; I have the right to expect the people on planes are not carrying on any item that could be used to kill me on the ground with that plane. I have the right to expect that the other guy in the other car is not drunk (implied consent).

I wish those who travel by plane would either stop whining or flying.

Review

Went to Amada for lunch, nice place, good food. We had 1:30 reservations and they were ready for us in the main dining room but that was way too loud, we asked to sit in the bar area and were accommodated, albeit grudgingly. Slow service to start, then, wonderful throughout. We went with La Mesa De Jose which is a selection of menu items picked by the chef. I was expecting some 'special' items but was extremely happy with the menu items. The quantity matched the quality and we all left full.

I'd go back...

Apolo Anton Ohno

I don't usually (okay, never have) recommended a public appearance by a celebrity on my silly little attempt at a blog, but Ohno is pretty cool and I am looking for local post worthy stuff. So, head on over to the Chester County Book Company and check it out...

Me, I will be at Amada for lunch and most likely won't make it back in time to get a book signed.

I just don't get it

But really I do, it's about being part of a group, then, needing to build that group to be the biggest and the best. Human nature, a religion you could say.

It seems that atheists are gearing up for the Christmas season, they just can't seem to understand why religious folk celebrate things. The whole article I link is chock full of low hanging fruit for those of us who argue that atheism is a religion, and one that is becoming more militant (atheist extremists?) each year. For instance:

"The godless groups say they are mounting this surge because they are aware that they have a large, untapped army of potential troops"

They need to grow that army too, they are losing ground, or, well, maybe not. It seems that atheism is a growing trend...but people who choose to leave an organized religion might not want to join your organized anti-religion either, did these people ever think of that? My favorite is the 'free-thinkers'...free to think the same things we do, and don't tell us how to think, we all think your religion sucks, we all think...oh, the hypocrisy...it burns. Now, I am going to try again to add a quote and I hope that this insane formatting allows me to continue to type.

That is one reason for the multiple campaigns: the groups are competing with one another to gain market share, said Mark Silk, founding director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, which is also at Trinity College.

“There’s a competitive environment for ‘no religion,’ and they’re grabbing for all the constituents they can get,” Mr. Silk said.

There, that worked...one must go past where one wants the quote if one is to ever type in normal mode again. Of course I am in compose mode, maybe if I was in Edit HTML it would...oh, sorry, back to the issue at hand.

They are spending gobs of money to attract people to their cause, using cherry picked quotes from the Bible and Koran to show how horrible religion is...hmm, what would one say if I picked a few quotes from avowed atheists...let's try:

Joey Stalin, that fun loving Atheist..."One death is a shame, a million deaths is a statistic." "Death solves all problems, no man, no problem."

There are more out there, we all know there are. Atheists are just as nutty as religious people, admit it and move on. Mocking the beliefs of one's fellow man is just freaking wrong on so many levels, and the worst part of it all is that most of the militant atheists think of themselves as 'inclusive' or 'progressive'. Listen to them, read what they write, and understand that they are tying to save your soul just as much as that nutty preacher on the street corner, they are just selling a different form of paradise, one that has an ending.

Just a note

So now a personal link to the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame. Way back when I spent some time swimming at the West Chester University pool, getting pointers from a man named John Hay. I didn't know of his accomplishments at that time, nor did I really understand his deep connections to the community when I again received swimming pointers from him during the inaugural season of the West Chester Water Rats (now the WCAY Marlins). This article in the Daily Local is full of those facts that follow a life such as his, much better than I ever could. I can't go to the induction ceremony as he enters the Hall this weekend, I didn't even know till last night he was to be honored, and to be honest, I have not been in touch with Mr. Hay for many, many years. That is my point.

While chatting with my son's swim coach, Mr. Hay came up and I learned that he was coaching at WCU. I thought to myself that it would be nice to drop in to say hello, he was kind enough to email notes regarding my editorial offerings in the DLN...but life intervened and less than a month after learning where he was, he passed.

Life does that, punches you in the gut when you don't do those things you should do.

Open Space

What a great catch phrase, huh? We all love open space right? and we all will pay more in taxes to preserve...oh, what? No more taxes? Hmmm, then what is a township to do? East Bradford is going to spend money on lawyers to write up easements for the land that East Bradford owns so that the land is 'never' developed. This seems to be, at least in the article in the Daily Local to be in response to Westtown Township realizing that open space costs money to maintain and has put some on the auction block.

I have an idea...dedicate the open space to the local youth athletic organizations. I read in previous Daily Local articles how soccer clubs in Westtown balked at paying fees to the township...This ultimately led to kids not playing as much soccer as they could have. How about doing it like West Bradford does with most of the youth athletic fields?

In West Bradford, fields are either 'dedicated' to the local youth athletic organization (WBYA, linked to the side), or, actually leased for a nominal fee. WBYA is then responsible for all maintenance costs and scheduling on those fields. The residents of the township are able to utilize the space when there are no games or practices, which is the preponderance of the time. This keeps plenty of green space that will not be developed and keeps the costs down to the residents of the township!

Back to the original article, you'll notice I placed quotes around the word never...this is because no lawyer has ever met a contract drawn up by another lawyer that couldn't be broken. Easements are great, sure, for a while. Dedicating the land to local organizations (and yes, I am partial to the youth, but how about birders? hunters? Historical Societies?) seems to me to be a better way to do it.

A change

So I don't know really where to go with this...if I am going to be active, I need a theme, something to keep me interested. I could stay national and international but I am seriously considering bringing this blog all the way down to the local level. Discussing door to door politics in my very community and the surrounding area. It wouldn't be that hard, really, and as far as I know there are no blogs that do this for our area.

Issues of a grand scale will always be of interest too, as they affect how we live and vote.

If I were to wait for an answer in my comments section I would never make the change, so I am making an executive decision. I am going to start wide and bring it in slowly so as not to freak out friends and neighbors.

Wow, so I headed over to the Daily Local News to look for something to write about and found a little blog area. I wonder if I should do that instead.

Then, I think to myself that maybe I am a little ADD 'cause I can't figure out how exactly to go about this; I also won't fail if I don't start, right? Back to the lackofnews.

The Avon Grove Charter School has been saddled with a burden of many thousand dollars following Gov. Ed Rendell's veto of House Bill 101.

The bill, which according to school chief Kevin Brady was unanimously approved by the state Senate and by all but 14 members of the state House, would have exempted charter schools and their foundations from real estate taxes.

There we go, and my font changed, sorry about that, still learning the new blog-spot stuff, I'll soon go back to writing in MS Word. I wonder why Mr. Rendell vetoed that bill, on his way out. The people wanted it, the politicians wanted it, and still he vetoed it. Let's look a little deeper, shall we?

And here it is: Charters that own their own buildings already are property tax-exempt

It is the 'foundations' that lobbied for the change, for the tax break, and maybe, just maybe, some of those foundations could use that break, but the law did not require the tax break to be passed along to a charter school that rented a building that the charter foundation owned. It seems that "fast" Eddie Rendell noticed a scam when he saw it! Good for him, and good for us.

Interesting look at the world

For fun, and because I needed something to point to when I get the crap from a lib-prog-demo-soc-com What are they? The following are the top 10 countries by GDP per capita. (GDP divided by population, using the PPP method, which takes into account the Purchasing Power Parity).

The year is 2003.

Luxembourg---Constitutional Monarchy

Bermuda---Parliamentary

United States---Constitution based Federal Republic-Democracy

Norway---Constitutional Monarchy

Liechtenstein---Constitutional Monarchy

Channel Islands---Parliamentary

Switzerland---Federal Republic

Denmark---Constitutional Monarchy

Ireland---Republic-Parliamentary Democracy

Iceland---Constitutional Monarchy

The Bottom ten are as follows, from worst up:

Sierra Leone---Constitutional Democracy

Malawi---Multi-party Democracy

Tanzania---Republic

Burundi---Republic

Congo Dem. Rep.---Republic

Guinea-Bissau---Republic

Ethiopia---Federal Republic

Congo-Rep.---Republic

Madagascar---Republic

Yemen---Republic

Okay, I got the GDP numbers here and the types of government here, where one can also check that I did not make up the definitions I am about to discuss.

First and foremost, the one glaring omission between the two lists is the word CONSTITUTION! A document that holds governments accountable to the people. Governments do indeed lead to economic wealth, the more free the government, the more wealth...Look at the top ten, see France? Venezuela? Spain? Greece? Nope, those are progressive countries, with governments that tax and tax and tax to support a welfare state. Yup, there are some of those in the top ten as well, but most of the top are freedom loving places....

So that was fun, we inferred that not having a constitution allows a government to over regulate, or to become so corrupt as to kill any economic growth.

Big jump really, I should have picked a few countries and compared, like the two Communist countries that fall at 118 for China but Cuba is not on the list...hmmm, no reported numbers perhaps?

My point is that progressive policies that lead to socialism or communism has been tried, it fails, every time.

Oh, France sits at 22, Greece at 41, and the socialist paradise that is Venezuela comes in at 124, lower than China!

Ahhhhh

I have to come back, too much going on. Had a conversation with a young Democrat today who claimed that the parents of Marco Rubio were illegal aliens in order to justify giving amnesty to the 12 million here right now. Fact is, his parents were asylum seekers allowed to enter the country under an order from President Eisenhower. The Nikki Haley slur regarding her parentage was ignored...why is it that when in a debate, Democrats go after race, lineage, and perceived intelligence, all while calling those they disagree with racist?

The tea party nut in Delaware lost, maybe now a right/moderate can run rather than a left-leaning republican. Sure, it will be 6 years, but it is only 6 years.

Here in PA we did the normal swap for Governor, and we have an actual Republican Senator again, it's been quite some time, well, since Santorum was run out of town by a right leaning Democrat...at least on some social issues.

The Fed is killing the economy, why did President Bush appoint a left leaning chair? oh, that's right, President Bush was a spender, trying to be loved by everyone, and it has hurt us all.