Things I Didn't Know

My dad worked outdoors or underground all his life. After he and my mother were married they had a small farm and things went well until the Great Depression. After that he worked on the railroad and as a underground copper miner. I remember Dad told me stories of their farm and farm life, and rarely about mining and what it was like. But those times were before I was born.

I remember him as a contractor who built houses and sold them. He, with help from my older brothers and at times a hired helper, did everything from clearing the land to the final painting. The only exception was the electrical wiring, he always hired someone to do that. After that he owned and ran heavy equipment such as bulldozers, scrapers, and the trucks, etc. that went with heavy equipment contracting.

It was about this time when he owned and operated the heavy equipment that I came to spend many summer evenings with him. After working in the Arizona sun all day, he liked to come home, clean up, and then, after supper, spend the cool of the evening sitting on the front porch and drinking ice water. It was then that we talked the most.

Dad was a self taught and self educated man who loved to read long into the night. He loved science, nature, adventure books. I recall sitting there with him and starting to talk about science. Before too long, it would often be just the two of us and I enjoyed having him to myself and for his answers to a myriad of questions I would ask. Not always a patient man, at these times he would answer my questions and tell me things until what was late at night for a boy.

He told me such things as the distance to the sun (93 million miles), how to fish for catfish (its messy), and what the moon was like. When the moon was full, we would often look at it with what he called the binocks (binoculars). Aside: He had a lot of sayings and names for things that I later learned were unique to our family. But that's another story.

He also told me that he could tell when a change in the weather was coming because it made his rheumatism flare up (reference.) Well I had read about arthritis and knew just about everything so I thought this rheumatism and weather business was his imagination. Dad was not the kind of person whom I dared call silly or imagining things, but I often thought about saying them. Anyway, I remember the long talks on summer nights and talk of science, nature, and adventure. I also recall that when I got a little older there were other things to do at night besides sit and listen to your dad tell you about anything and everything. Especially when I was getting nearly old enough to get a learner's permit to drive and had older brothers and friends with cars.

A decade or more after my father passed away, I was hunting in the mountains with a good friend. As we came back to camp just before dark in his pickup, there was my pickup on a flat tire. It was cold, windy, spitting rain, and miserable. The campsite was in a flat full of ponderosa pine with rocky soil.

My buddy told me to go ahead and change the tire while he had a drink and fixed dinner. The front of the truck was so low that I needed to dig a trench under the axle to place the jack. As I was stomping on the shovel head as hard as I could with my boots, and making slow progress, I hit the back of the shovel too far up on my foot and broke the bone housing the joint of my big toe. I finished changing the tire and sat down to eat with my toe and foot throbbing. I said "Tom, I have to get back to town and see a doctor." He laughed and said, "They will just X-ray your foot, wrap it up in tape, say there is nothing to do but take time to let it heal, and charge you 300 bucks." Well, he was wrong. They X-rayed my foot, wrapped it up, told me to take care of it and it would heal, and charged me about $500.

Eventually my foot got better and I could walk and work and do things again. My wife and I raised two boys, and I loved sitting outside at night talking with them, answering their questions, and telling them that the sun was 93 million miles from earth. History repeats and they discovered girls and cars and no longer had time to sit with dad and talk of science, the stars, and adventures. I miss talking with those boys of ours and the times we had enjoying the moon and stars at night.

During my life I had a few fractures. That big toe, a couple of fingers, and my little toe (twice). A funny thing happens to the broken and mended bones as you get a little older. They seem to calcify and become places for arthritis. Even funnier, when the weather is changing, I often wake up with aches and pains, the worst of which is that darn big toe.

Now I know about rheumatism and how one's bones can ache and tell you when the weather is changing. I often think of my dad, his rheumatism, his vast store of experience and sell-taught knowledge. I often think of him and the many things he could tell me even today. But, that was then and I didn't know.

Black Sunday-Socialized Medicine: America's "Great Leap Forward"

Here is an example of what a nation's Great Leap Forward can cause. Untold suffering, famine, disease, and millions of deaths.

Please don't fall into the trap of thinking it cannot happen here. Socialism always leads to tyranny and tyranny can destroy any nation. Let history be your guide.

The Great Leap Forward (simplified Chinese: 大跃进; traditional Chinese: 大躍進; pinyin: Dàyuèjìn) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social plan used from 1958 to 1961 which ostensibly aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform China from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society through the process of agriculturalization,[citation needed] industrialization, and collectivization. Mao Zedong led the campaign based on the Theory of Productive Forces, and intensified it after being informed of the impending disaster from grain shortages. Chief changes in the lives of rural Chinese included the introduction of a mandatory process of agricultural collectivisation, which was introduced incrementally. Private farming was prohibited, and those engaged in it were labelled as counter revolutionaries and and persecuted. Restrictions on rural people were enforced through public struggle sessions, social pressure, and violence. Food rationing was introduced, in some cases leaving rural Chinese with less than 250g (half a jin) of grain per day. The Great Leap ended in catastrophe, triggering a widespread famine that resulted in up to thirty million deaths. source (Emphasis mine).

A Political Backlash is Already Building

Find a Tea Party and/or some other patriotic organization you can join to roll back this horrible Obamacare.

Lawsuits by some states and other organizations have been promised.

Here is an example of one organization trying to make a start.

REPEAL of Health Care bill just hours after vote‏

Just hours after the House vote in favor of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid government-run healthcare plan, opponents of the measure have rallied on line to fight for the bill's repeal.

A petition drive launched by the Tea Party Express has received thousands of signatures during the overnight hours. And the rate of new signatures is exploding now that many of them are waking up to the news of the House vote.

The petition signature count can be viewed - be sure to hit "Refresh" to see the count grow ever-higher - here Petition

"As Americans wake up to the news that Congress has once again defied the will of the people, and the Constitution, we here in the tea party movement are fighting back. We're going to Kill The Bill one way or the other," said Mark Williams, Chairman of the Tea Party Express.

Please Do What you Can to Help

In a single way we are fortunate. The socialized medicine tax and administrative confiscation of health care starts as soon as the Obamacare becomes law. But, the actual payouts designed to build an unstoppable group of millions of new government dependents does not start until 2013. This gives us a short window of 2010-2012 to roll back this socialism and enact new laws to prevent it taking effect.

This is a great opportunity, but it will exist for a short time, because once the dependency of government healthcare is established it will be too late to stop or reverse it. We know this from our past experience with existing entitlement programs--- Congress will not eliminate them. We must stop socialism and throw it back before 2013 or we never will.

America is in greater peril than any time in its entire history. Please do what you can to help. Your country needs your time, votes, money, and all efforts you can take to save it. Make that pledge to yourself today to help your country in her greatest hour of need.

Finally, please pray to God for deliverance of America from this evil.

Predicted Mexican Drug Cartel Invasion and Corruption of US Officials Accelerating

*****UPDATE*****
US citizens shot dead by Mexican drug gangs
By Adam Thomson in Mexico City

Published: March 14 2010 22:53 | Last updated: March 14 2010 22:53

Three people with links to the US consulate in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez were gunned down at the weekend by “drug cartel hit teams”, according to a US official. Via the DrudgeReport to this source.

*****END UPDATE*****

Background

For some time now there have been warnings about the Border War and its impact on America. A variety of recent news reports show that the problems are rapidly worsening. All are a threat to our national security and the general welfare of all Americans.

For a quick overview of previous warnings posted here please see the following links: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Example: Border Agents Being Corrupted by Drug Cartel

Border agents are being recruited by the Mexican drug cartels as they infiltrate federal law enforcement agencies. And, as usual Homeland Security says they don't have the resources to weed out the double agents. Of course with only 50 more full time examiners they could. This seems a pittance and an excuse from an Agency with untold thousands of employees and billions and billions of dollars in their budget. More proof that the Department of Homeland Security is so hell bent on keeping an open border that it will even hire agents working for the drug cartels.

McALLEN, Texas - Mexican drug cartels are infiltrating federal law enforcement agencies along the Southwest border and those charged with weeding them out say they don't have the money to catch all the corrupt agents, homeland security officials told a U.S. Senate panel Thursday.

James Tomsheck, assistant commissioner with U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Internal Affairs, told a Senate homeland security subcommittee in Washington that only about one in 10 of the new hires for agency jobs are given polygraph tests, and of those, 60 percent are deemed unsuitable for employment.
SNIP
"We have found the tactics used by the drug trafficking organizations in their corruption activities are similar to the processes or tactics used by foreign intelligence services as they attempt to recruit or otherwise compromise our officers and agents," Frost said.

The corruption activities "encompass almost every layer of the DHS border security strategy," including employees stationed away from the border, but with access to sensitive information.

They have used that access to "to vet drug trafficking organization members, track investigative activity, and identify individuals cooperating with the government," Frost said.

Kevin Perkins, the FBI's assistant director for its criminal investigative division, mentioned the case of former Customs officer Margarita Crispin who was arrested in El Paso in 2007 and sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to import more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana.

Even though CBP has increased its internal affairs investigators to 214 in 2010 from five in 2006, its number of polygraph examiners falls short of the demand, Tomsheck said.

To be able to give polygraphs to all new hires, Tomsheck estimated he would need another 50 full-time examiners. source

Example: Mexican Navy Helicopter Penetrates Texas on Unknown Mission

And here is another example of Mexican military missions in the US ignored by our federal government and the US military.

BROWNSVILLE — The Zapata County sheriff Thursday was questioning why a Mexican military helicopter was hovering over homes on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.

It was one of the more jarring incidents of the fourth week of border tensions sparked by drug killings, and rumors of such killings, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said he'd reviewed photos of the chopper flown by armed personnel Tuesday over a residential area known as Falcon Heights-Falcon Village near the binational Falcon Lake, just south of the Starr-Zapata county line. He said the helicopter appeared to have the insignia of the Mexican navy.

“It's always been said that the Mexican military does in fact ... that there have been incursions,” Gonzalez said. “But this is not New Mexico or Arizona. Here we've got a river; there's a boundary line. And then of course having Falcon Lake, Falcon Dam, it's a lot wider. It's not just a trickle of a river, it's an actual dam. You know where the boundary's at.”

The sighting came amid ongoing fighting between the Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, Los Zetas. The mounting death toll and crisis of fear in cities across from the Texas border have drawn global attention, as has a news blackout in affected cities due to the kidnappings of eight Mexican journalists, at least one of whom was killed.

As violence continued Thursday with a highway shootout in Tamaulipas, a Senate subcommittee in Washington heard testimony that drug cartels are trying to infiltrate U.S. agencies along the border, with corruption cases among Homeland Security personnel on the rise. source Note: Also flagged in red on the invaluable Drudge Report.

The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) is Dysfunctional

These incidents and the failures documented in the long of list of links above provide proof that DHS is led by incompetents and is dysfunctional. We cannot afford to let the Mexican drug cartels, or any foreigners, corrupt US law enforcement agencies in charge of our national security. As shown above, this is happening and at an ever faster rate. Our nation is at risk. It is time for new leadership at the Dept. of Homeland Security.

More Affirmations of States Rights Coming; Gun Rights Leading Broader Issues

The federal government has grown beyond anything the Founding Fathers, our parents, or most Americans as of 2008 ever expected. The reach and power of the federal government is way, way beyond what anyone in the past ever wanted or expected. Our Republic is in grave danger.

This type of growth in federal power is prohibited by the US Constitution; specifically in the 10th Amendment of our Bill of Rights.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The majority of the States in the United States are moving to re-affirm their rights and to limit the federal government (Unites States). Following are some excerpts from a recent article on this topic.

HOMELAND REBELLION
Another state to feds: Take your gun regs and stuff 'em

Local governments in massive revolt against rules ordered by Washington

Posted: March 10, 2010
9:24 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Utah has become the third state to adopt a law exempting guns and ammunition made, sold and used in the state from massive federal regulations under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and supporters say about 30 more states have some sort of plan for their own exemptions in the works source.

(Map from WND article cited)


What This Means

Clearly the States are within their Constitutional power to take these actions for gun regulations and a myriad of other areas where the federal government has exceeded its lawful powers. Of course, such States' Rights issues will have to pass through an incredible wall of liberal judges most of whom do not follow the Constitution.

But it is a start, and a good one. Americans supporting rule of law, equal justice under law, and the Constitution should rally in support of our brave and patriotic State Legislatures.

Sean Penn and Rectal Cancer

The Evil of the American Left

Look on the face of evil and ponder on what kind of person would wish such things on his fellow human beings. This is an example of the radical left and Democrat/Obama supporters in America. It's shocking, disgusting, and an example of what decent Americans face as they try to live honest, productive lives in America.

Is having their political opponents die of rectal cancer what the radical leftists mean by bipartisanship?

May God Bless America and deliver us from this kind of evil. Please join me in praying for the millions of people who suffer from the ravages of cancer.

Here is what Sean Penn said about people who question him

LARA LOGAN: Does it make you angry when people talk about, you know, 'Sean Penn, the Hollywood star, the movie star, coming in and trying to do something,' and they're kind of cynical about it?

SEAN PENN: No.

LOGAN: Do you hate that question?

PENN: No. I guess I've been so away from it all, [in] our tent camp in Haiti, that I haven't had an awful lot of time to pay attention to them. You know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah, you know, but I'm not going to spend a lot of energy on it. source.
(Emphasis mine)

There you have it

So much for peace, good will, cooperation, and bipartisanship in America today.

Do you think Penn is evil enough to qualify as Obama's 40th Czar?

Obama Fiddles While the US Falters

China Threatens the US

Sensing weakness, inexperience, and a move away from capitalism, the Chinese may be planning, in their words, to "topple" the United States. They see our inward looking, and destructive domestic policies coupled with inexperienced and shrinking defense budgets as a sign of decline in the United States and an opportunity for China to take over as the world's military and economic leader. And, because of our misguided globalist economic policies, deficit spending, the strength of our unions weakening our economy, and our shrinking manufacturing base; China is expanding using US Dollars.

Here is the way a colonel in the People's Liberation Army sees it. Rest assured, a Chinese PLA colonel could not write the book expressing these things without the approval and encouragement of his superiors. Take this as Chinese military policy which means Chinese national policy.

Here are some excerpts

BEIJING (Reuters) - China should build the world's strongest military and move swiftly to topple the United States as the global "champion," a senior Chinese PLA officer says in a new book reflecting swelling nationalist ambitions.

The call for China to abandon modesty about its global goals and "sprint to become world number one" comes from a People's Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Colonel, Liu Mingfu, who warns that his nation's ascent will alarm Washington, risking war despite Beijing's hopes for a "peaceful rise."

"China's big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power," Liu writes in his newly published Chinese-language book, "The China Dream."

"If China in the 21st century cannot become world number one, cannot become the top power, then inevitably it will become a straggler that is cast aside," writes Liu, a professor at the elite National Defense University, which trains rising officers.

His 303-page book stands out for its boldness even in a recent chorus of strident Chinese voices demanding a hard shove back against Washington over trade, Tibet, human rights, and arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

"As long as China seeks to rise to become world number one ... then even if China is even more capitalist than the U.S., the U.S. will still be determined to contain it," writes Liu.
SNIP
The next marker of how China's leaders are handling these swelling expectations may come later this week, when the government is likely to announce its defense budget for 2010, after a 14.9 percent rise last year on the one in 2008.
SNIP
I'm very pessimistic about the future," writes another PLA officer, Colonel Dai Xu, in another recently published book that claims China is largely surrounded by hostile or wary countries beholden to the United States.

"I believe that China cannot escape the calamity of war, and this calamity may come in the not-too-distant future, at most in 10 to 20 years," writes Dai.

"If the United States can light a fire in China's backyard, we can also light a fire in their backyard," warns Dai. source

What This Means

Although Obama's huge deficits (greater than the sum of his predecessors), his archaic socialist policies, and his international bumbling, are the major factor, he is not alone in weakening America. Presidents Clinton and Bush and their zeal for globalism must also take significant responsibility for our increasing trade imbalances, our open borders, and neglect of our strategic nuclear forces.

Conservatives elected in 2010 and in 2012 must do their utmost to unravel and repeal the myriad socialistic policies and legislation of the Obama Administration and focus more of our national treasure into national defense and economic security for America. We need a strong and patriotic replacement for the misguided globalist policies of the last 2 decades and for the socialist policies of the Obama Administration.