expressions you can use

"I care more about an ant hill in Utah more than I do about _______." When you want to express how much you really care about a certain subject or person or whatever.

"I respect your paranoia." Response to someone when they comes back at you because they think you have divulged info on them on the Internet.

In light of people losing faith...

In light of people losing faith in the struggle between our forces and the forces of evil in Iraq, a friend mentioned the following website where Isaac Asimov wrote about the entire Star Spangled Banner. There have been more than one instance where our country (usually it's armed forces) have face tough situations that looked bleak and it's worth noting that the anthem of our country asks the question that essentially asks, "Oh friend, do you see if we have a country to return to or are we now subjects of the crown or prisoners. It was a violent fight last night, with rockets and all, but our flag was still flying so our boys must have stuck with the fight." Every other time I read (sing) the anthem I tear up some as there is no worse feeling as wondering and hanging on a prayer if putting your life on the line was worth it.

I have seen the war protesters on the street corner outside the CNN Center and though I know they are looking for a fight I keep walking, holding my tongue. It is sad and disturbing that such pitiful beings God has blessed with freedom and luxury. Personally I do know enough about how things got started in Iraq due to the 41st President (the GHW Bush) of our nation not continuing the strategy of the 40th President (Reagan) of our nation and allowing himself to be manipulated by the Saudi muslims into a war for whatever reasons that now they have to sweat over. But unfortunately the sequence of events since our "freeing" of Kuwait have made it so that we had to "reset" the leadership in Iraq to a more "trusted" ally. If the Shah of Iran was a "bad" man, then Saddam was the devil himself. His sons did enough bad deeds to warrant being killed and they, in my opinion, knew more about the terrorist groups than their father. We are giving the Iraqi people an incredible opportunity to become as modern as possible in today's world. I don't think we should abandon them just because Iran and Saudi Arabia don't want them to succeed.

http://www.purewatergazette.net/asimov.htm

Harry Potter, what's the fuss

There is a big fuss being made that JK Rowling might kill off Harry. People are in an uproar that she would end the series with it's main character dying and thus finish off one of the great literary characters in modern times. It would mean she would have to settle on her laurels with the previous books she has written and if she tried to do something more it would be a gamble, as could any of the supporting characters or a new character attract such a following or could that next series be as interesting or more importantly, profitable.

I think what's going to happen is what George Lucas has done with the Star Wars story. Build it around a character who at first is good and then at the end (or in the last four stanzas of the six) he becomes evil and demonstrates that he is very clearly evil. JKR will have "He-who-must-not-be-named" consume and take over or maybe the evil qualities of his soul will overwhelm Harry and make him at first devious and then after much struggle, evil. We could see Harry finally tire of being this savior or forced upon hero and lean and then collapse into being one who's worse than Voldemort. I can see Harry falling into the temptations and power of being the Dark Lord. He will destroy Voldemort, the Dark Lord, but in the process become that which he destroyed.

I see maybe that he demonstrates his evil by killing, or better disfiguring, his best buddy, Ron. I see Hermione being his direct antagonist. She's the only one alive who can get close to him, but not only because she's very powerful in her own right but because Harry's good side prevents him from following through and killing her. His good side will also be torn up by killing his best friend, but it can not overcome the power and allure of his evilness. He will also have to contend with several other characters who he will either destroy or mangle. I see Snape being humbled by the "boy" Potter after Harry has become the Dark Lord.

No, JK Rowling will not kill off Harry, she will do something much worse, make him the Dark Lord and all those who swayed upon seeing his forehead will quiver and shake upon hearing his name.

Yes, then there will have to be another book, as Hermione will certainly get closer to either saving the "good" Harry Potter like Luke did with his father Ankin in the Star Wars movies, or she will get close enough to kill Harry in order to destroy the "evil" Potter.

Violence?

I know a few people who are repulsed by violence. I must admit I don't really care for it either. But recognize that violence is a simple and primitive form of establishing a pecking order or a means to survive the unpleasant intentions of man's most dangerous predator... other men. I watch some activities and recognize that to the uninitiated I may seem to be enjoying the violence. But what they do not understand is that I like the strategy or tactics that are within the violence. I want to understand what's involved with the choke hold by the wrestler, the tackle by a cornerback on the larger tight end, the reason and method of the boxer for giving body blows to his opponent, the maneuver and timing of fire by a platoon or squad in combat, etc. I don't really care for "why's" of violence. Often outside the arena of athletics and combat there are very stupid and selfish reasons for violent acts. Even the Art of War recognizes the more skillful general is the one who can attain victory without a need to engage in combat. But like the small birds that must know how to peck a hawk or raven trying to get closer to their young, man must know how to defend himself whether it's a female who's liable to be raped or a intoxicated bar patron who is likely to be robbed. Violence is the result of a struggle, the ultimate escalation between two parties when one of them realizes that the other is not going to cooperate merely because of the choice of words or the manner of body language. One should always be prepared for all possibilities in life and if the bull is not willing or able to use the horns he has or if the sparrow or finch are not willing or able to use their quickness and light of flight then they should not be surprised when the ultimate fate meets with them and their beloved.

Iran will strike, will US strike back harder

I have had a vision. Today it's July 15, 2006 and close to midnight. But I fear that thousands if not tens of thousands and more will perish when Iran sets off a nuclear bomb. They have asked for the West to wait till late August. Why? Why? It's a stalling tactic. We can only pray that they blow themselves up before getting the device to either Israel or someplace in the West. North Korea has proved that their missiles could not hit the broadside of a barn so thankfully only a few nations can feel threaten by that means of delivery. Which saddens me because I like India and Armenia.

Why the President of the USA insists on calling this a "War on Terror" is beyond me. This is a "War for the Soul of Earth" We are being assaulted and intimidated in order for our souls to be entomb in the sad and belligerent world of Islam. The more I study the cult of Islam the more I am convinced that they do not by any stretch of the imagination worship the same God as me. In fact if you read or are aware of their "holy" book, you will see that they represent Christ, God on Earth himself, as a fat prophet. God help us but we are in a struggle that's been going on for over a thousand years. The West keeps fighting just enough to keep these evil forces at bay, limited in their part of the world. But now they control the fuel that makes our nation run and they hold hostage land we in the West call "holy".

Where is our "Andrew Jackson", our "General William Tecumseh Sherman". With this foe, the West can not afford to be gracious and honorable like General Robert E. Lee. We need to get mean and dirty with these people like Sherman did. The people of the Confederate States of the South were far more refine and civilized to deserve to be fed to such a dog as Sherman. The lost souls who have allied themselves with the cult of Islam deserve no finer reward. We have sacrificed a thousand plus American lives to make Iraq more than it deserves. I do not profess a pull out of Iraq, but rather a clear and unmistakable understanding that the Israelis failed to convey to Hamas and that other terror organization who name escapes me. If we leave and have to return, their countries and all those living in it will perish. We can not live in peace with such hate and failure. God help us. God help the US. God help the West.

Coulter exposes a major tactic of the left

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400054206/104-1703013-7681511?v=glance&n=283155

I tip my hat to Ann Coulter. She has in her book "Godless" illustrated how the left (Democrats, Socialist, Communist, etc.) use those friendly to their cause who obviously have an air of infallibility. These infallible subjects (victims or first person witnesses, etc.) can not be criticized or argued with because they have the superiority of being either a victim or a participant of the event. I don't think she adds former Vice-President Al Gore as he and his allies on the left pursue the idea that we are responsible or play a part in Global Warming. I say hooey or "Bunk" to Mr. Gore. Global Warming is his and others misunderstanding of the receding and ending of the Ice Age. Have you ever heard when the Ice Age ended? Is there a date when scientist agree that the Ice Age is officially over? Sure somewhere around 14,000 years ago the Ice Age reached it's peak and thus stopped it's progress, but that just started the process that we are living within today. We are living and have been for the last several thousand years the gradual end of the Ice Age. The glaciers have been receding before we started recording their existence. Our planet has been changing (evolving?) for several thousand, if not millions, of years.

A powerful Navy is the key to world domination

http://www.jeffhead.com/redseadragon/planbuildup.htm

Where does freedom of speech start and where does it end?

I am noticing a lot of people are claiming a conversation on a phone or a computer is covered by "freedom of speech".

I don't think so.

When you are talking in your home within or on your property, you have freedom to say whatever you want. No one should bring harm or judgment on what you say given you keep your speech private or personal. I argue that when your speech is heard beyond your "space", ie. property, you are no longer free from being listened to. If you make a phone call and use a phone company's equipment and service, they have a right to listen, if they care to. If you are in a mall the mall authorities have a right to listen to your conversation. Since both these "business" pay a fee (tax, license) to the government, the government reserves the right to listen.

There's been two standards attached to "freedom of speech" and I'm not sure if they both apply at the same time. The first thought is that "freedom of speech" means you can say whatever you want. You can make comments about any public figure no matter how false or mean. You can scream and carry on about anything on the street. Now I believe there's an agreement that yelling "Fire!" in a building when there is none is a crime, but everything else is covered by "freedom of speech". This means if you practice your right to speak, other have a right ridicule and slam that which you said. The second thought is that "freedom of speech" means you can speak any where on anything without the government or anyone else listening without your knowledge. Many states, Georgia included, have made law to get around taping conversations, by decreeing that if one of the parties in the conversation is aware of the recording, it's legal.

I think chatting on a phone or computer is not covered by "freedom of speech". The FBI, CIA, NSA and any government agency the President desires, as well as the provider of the communications equipment and service have every right and if the thought of danger to any citizen is in question, is obligated to listen and monitor any and all communications. I have nothing to hide and to the core of my being, have no intention of bringing harm or distress to my country or countryman. Do you?

Why do we care about the origin of man?

What is this infatuation with determining how man became to be? What value is it to those who are forced to memorize and recite the theory of evolution? No one was taking notes or running a video or audio recorder while man wandered the earth before some thousands of years ago when someone decided to write something on a still wet piece of clay. What does it matter to our existence that we know where we came from? Sure it's nice to know this fact when thinking in the short term so we know what kind of family we are part of. The apple does not fall far from the tree. But what if we came from something we are not willing to accept?

If evolution is fact, then is it obvious that we must consider what we will continue to evolve into. Will we grow any extra limbs? Will we go hairless? I know for the last several hundred years men have been shaving the hair off their face, but it's not evolved away. I'm proof by being bald that men who are bald are not evolved away, but if I don't find somebody soon I guess there will be one bald gene die off in this world, so maybe the jury is still out on that.

What about bears? To me the bear (pick any brand) are the most perfect creatures except for two very important factors. One is the opposing thumb and the other is the ability to think with reason and constructively. If these guys just had the brain of humans and worked around the handicap of having claws instead of fingers, man would either be farm animal or hunted for the flavor of his thighs.

The question of where man came from is as important as the question of where did Tom Cruise come from ( if you care see here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000129/bio ). No one can really know and at least not in the current state of existence we will never know. This subject serves no purpose but to muddy the minds of students and further justify having another few questions on some exam. It's not like in math where repetition and doing (seeing) as many equations and problems help prepare one for more complicated problems. Practice, practice and then rehearse and rehearse, face as many possible approaches or variables and equations and when the game (exam) is on you will be more prepared. In the Army it's called training and simulations.

What does knowing whether some observations some "naturalist" from England made on some Pacific island many years ago implied that some animals adapted to their environment over some number of generations. I don't care for either evolution (guess the bears don't either) or for "intelligent" design, though I am sure God appreciates we are not calling in "unintelligent" design (but maybe it should be something like "laughable pitiful" design). If it was truly some "intelligent" design I would think we would have wings like Archangel from the X-Men comics. Maybe we would be like your favorite mutant, then it really would be "intelligent" design. I suspect there is a combination of all the above plus something else in the equation we have no idea about. It's a mystery that we won't solve with the current records and data. Maybe some long dead folks named Adam and Eve know (and are laughing at the fools trying to prove that which is not provable).

Oh, I have wondered about the evolution of the dinosaurs. Those huge and beautiful creatures surely had to be victims of evolution. Or were they?

Get rid of the Minimum Wage!!!

There two things occurring because we have imposed pay requirements on legal employers in the US.

First, there are thousands, dare I say millions of illegal immigrants flowing across the border gladly working for less than the minimum wage. They live at least dozen to a house that an Anglo or African family of four would be comfortable living in. They work hard and as a unit usually as a family with strong Catholic values. They do jobs around residential construction or landscape sites. They do the odd jobs or the manual labor that ordinary folks could do over a period of days, but instead gets done in a matter of hours for just a few dollars of cheap blackmarket labor. There is a subculture existing right under our noses and unless you speak Spanish or drive by the hardware stores, you are unaware of it. Where will this subculture lead us to, I don't know, but you can tell by the way politicians dance around being careful not to upset this future voting block. Even now the President does not dare try to deport these people, but wants to legalize what is a violation of one of the most fundamental laws of the land, the status of citizenship.

Second, there is a million dollar plus industry in Asia, more specifically China, of making cheap and easily manufactured items and shipping them to the US. Those countries, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea, etc, have such cheap labor and low cost-of-living that they can pay pennies for and that a majority of the cost goes toward paying for shipping the products across the ocean. Even Mexico and Central America is getting into the act and what people call "sweat" shops are really cheap labor businesses that pay the employees just enough to feed and clothe themselves and pay rent. Sure it's not an easy living and one where the chances of having a strong middle class exist is not likely, but it's a living and the alternative too many of those people are well too aware of.

If the USA got rid of the minimum wage, manufacturing jobs would return. The shipping companies probably would not like it and I would hope someone would look into who is filling Senator Kennedy pockets to push this unconstitutional item on America. I left my job in Montgomery, AL, after minimum wage was raised and my pay was not. When they raised minimum wage and not my pay, I saw the two look too close for my liking, so I left that low paying tech job for Atlanta and a better paying tech job. Pro Football players do that all the time nowadays. My fear is, when will China realize that they have the USA at their mercy and then decide to raise prices. I guess this is why the American President kisses their ass every chance he gets.

how to tackle in American football

I am pissed at how many high level football players do not know how to tackle. You see defenders attempting to tackle by jumping on the shoulders or grabbing for the torso. It's like they want a piggy back ride or think they are playing two-hand touch. It's like the desiring tackler is trying to take hold at the widest and most flexible part of the ball carrier's body. Not only is the upper body of a football player the most padded, but he has two limbs flailing around, one of which if he can put it between you and him, he will and if he's Jim Brown, he will punch you while holding the ball in the other hand.

How do you take down a tank? Blow the treads. How do cowboys take down a calf? Sure the rope catches the horns, but that doesn't mean the little fellow is going to drop. The cowpokes pull the feet out. When police chase a bad guy they try to take the tires out, right?

The key to tackling is to take the lower body out. Hit at waist high. Don't even touch or think about the upper body, unless you think you can just overwhelm the guy. Immobilize the other guy's wheels. When the defender spreads his arms out to the side and aims his face mask at the waist of the opponent and then when he is close enough, brings his arms around the ball carrier, he is 90% sure of making a tackle. I would advise defenders to always concentrate on the legs. Take them out and the ball carrier will naturally fall. I would ask the tackler to even ignore the head and shoulders of an offensive player. They can only distract and many times deceive you from properly stopping the ball carrier. I would insist on maintaining a low center of gravity and tackle up rather than down. Every guy who has played football knows you tackle through the ball carrier, and I would say not only tackle through the other guy, but also up and then into the ground. But 90% of the time the defender does not have the opportunity to chose his angles, so simply understanding that he must key the stop on the waist and if not drag the ball carrier down, run through him.