Uncle Ted talks about the Second Amendment...

The right to bear arms and defend one's self is near and dear to my heart. This clip illustrates exactly why Ted Nugent is one of my heroes! It's a couple of years old, but it's new to me so I thought I'd share it. There is nothing more I could possibly add to it.

Be still my beating heart...

Every once in a great while you run across a politician who tells it like it is. In this case, Mayor David Pennington of Dalton, GA not only spoke the truth when he stated that the only reason to install red light cameras is to generate revenue, but he actually backed it up with action by removing his city's cameras! (Note: This is a video link and you'll have to sit through a commercial before the actual content plays. It's worth the wait.)

Not only does Pennington state what the rest of society already knew, but he also educates us (well, this citizen at least) when he states that the government gets to keep less than 50% of the take, so it's not even the most effective way to generate revenue. Now, I happen to think that 50 cents on the dollar is pretty lucrative when all you have to do is sit back and collect a check from a vendor who's doing all of the work for you. But that just makes what he's done that much more admirable.

It's refreshing to see a politician who not only frowns on the state's infringement of rights, but actually does something to reverse it. But his greatest coup? Even after voluntarily giving up the revenue from the cameras, he managed to actually reduce property taxes by 20% by... wait for it... reducing government spending! What a concept! I think I have my first political man crush. I'd like to think that Pennington's example will prompt others to follow suit (cough Adrian Fenty and Cathy Lanier cough), but I somehow doubt that will happen.

Thank you on this Veteran's Day...

To those who serve in the armed forces, and to the families and loved ones who support them, thank you to all of you for the sacrifices that you make on behalf of the rest of us.

Helpful, but then not so much...

So, I have been meaning to sit down and write about this for several weeks, but events have prevented me from doing so. If you read through this blog, you'll notice that I have a tendency to point out incidents of abuse of power by government, and by the police. Well, in the interest of fairness, I wanted to relate a personal story where the Frederick County (MD) Sheriff's Office provided outstanding service to my family.

This story will not contain names, as it's a personal story and I wish to protect the privacy of all involved.

Without going into a long litany of details, my wife and I have a neighbor who has, over the past couple of years, become verbally abusive towards my wife. It escalated to a point last month where we contacted the Frederick County Sheriff's Office for advice on what we could do to protect her. The deputy that we spoke with was extremely helpful, sympathetic, and offered great advice on avenues that we could pursue. This led to our seeking a peace order (Maryland's version of a restraining order). The deputy was patient, answered all of our questions, and encouraged us to not be afraid to defend ourselves if needed... something that I NEVER would have expected from a government agent. So, in short, I want to thank the Frederick County Sheriff's Office for their assistance during a very stressful time for my family.

Then, this happened, and brought me back to reality...

My brother called me over the weekend and relayed the following story. He still lives in the Buffalo, NY area, where I am originally from. He was driving home from bowling on Friday night, and was passing through the town of Amherst, NY, where he was stopped by the town police. The officer asked him if he knew why he was being pulled over, to which my brother replied "No, officer, I don't." The officer informed him that he had a tail light out and then, according to my brother, almost before those words were even out of his mouth the officer asked "Have you been drinking tonight?", as though drinking somehow causes tail lights to malfunction. So my brother advises the officer that he is on his way home from bowling and that he had three beers over the course of about four hours. So, of course, the officer asks him to step out of the car. He submits to a field sobriety test, which he knows he passed, but the officer advises him that he'll need to take a breathalyzer test. Now, everyone knows that if you refuse a breathalyzer, you're automatically guilty. My brother, knowing he's not impaired, agrees. It's at this point that the officer states that he doesn't have his breathalyzer with him and that he'll have to take my brother in to the station to administer it. Now, at this point, I would have lost my cool, but my brother played along. He got in the cruiser, went with the officer, and complied the whole way. They get to the station, he takes the breathalyzer, and he passes. The officer advises him that he's free to go.

Here's where the story gets good. And by good, I mean absurd.

My brother asks "Are you going to take me back to my car?"

Officer: "Your car's been impounded."

Brother: "What?"

Officer: "Your car's been impounded. You need to pay $185 to get it out of impound."

Brother: "Are you kidding? Why was it impounded?"

Officer: "It's standard procedure when someone is taken into custody."

Brother: "Custody? I don't remember being arrested. No one read me my rights. I came here as a favor to you because you didn't have the proper equipment to administer a breathalyzer in the field. And it was all unnecessary anyway."

Officer: "Well, you did fail the field sobriety test."

Brother: "Really? Obviously not, because I passed the breathalyzer. Try again."

Officer: "I'm sorry. I can't waive the fee."

So, my brother tells the officer that he's not paying, and that he'll be happy to contact his lawyer and that the officer can talk to him. At this point, the officer becomes annoyed with my brother because my brother is definitely starting to lose his cool. According to him, the officer is being completely arrogant by this point, refusing to admit any wrongdoing at all, and refusing to do anything to assist my brother. Finally, 30 minutes later, and after a second threat to call his attorney, they finally get a judge out of bed who orders them to waive the fee.

I told him he's lucky he didn't get tazed by the jackbooted ass. What a nice moneymaker for the town though. I wonder how many people just suck it up and pay because they're afraid to stand up for their rights. Kudos to my brother. He reminds me of, well, me.

Speaking of government thugs in Amherst, NY, I ran across this little tidbit as well. I'm sensing a trend.

If you listen closely, you can already hear the jackboots coming in the night...

It just keeps getting better. And by better I, of course, mean more terrifying.

Yet another in the long list of things the government is taking control of...

First the banks, then the auto industry, now the White House wants control of the internet during cyber-emergencies. But it's only during emergencies, right? Maybe, for now. But guess who defines what a "cyber-emergency" is in the first place.

The speed with which this is all occurring is astounding.

See Dick masturbate...

In what may be the most compelling reason yet for the US to sever ties with the UN (as if we needed another one), I present to you this little tidbit. The day this happens is the day we start homeschooling.

Yeah, but WE'LL do it better...

On why socialized health care is a GREAT idea...

Is it the overcrowding of the system?

Or maybe it's the ineptitude of government doctors.

Or maybe it's the gigantic increase in taxes that will be required to pay for it all.

Any way you slice it, government run health care is a bad idea.

It's a little trick we like to call entrapment...

Who's the real criminal here? A 19 year old Illinois man had a little too much to drink at a Dave Matthews concert in Madison, WI. He decided to sleep it off in his car in the parking lot rather than drive home. Soon, a police officer wakes him and tells him he needs to leave. Our hero tells the officer that he's too drunk to drive and that he's sleeping it off. 99.9% of rational adult human beings would view this as the responsible thing to do. But what do Wisconsin's finest do? They force him to leave, KNOWING he's drunk, and then promptly arrest him for drunk driving as soon as he's out of the parking lot.

Is this someone's idea of a sick joke? Where in the whole "To protect and serve" line of B.S. does endangering the public welfare by forcing him to drive his vehicle off the proprety fall? Oh... it must fall under the section titled "How to trick someone into breaking the law for fun and profit."

Once again, I'm appalled that I used to tell my kids to find a police officer if they needed help. I now tell them to find a mom with kids. I officially now trust complete strangers more than the law enforcement officers charged with protecting us... or not... depending on their mood.

Your tax dollars hard at work...

Apparently, this is what Montgomery County Police resources are being used for instead of fighting actual crime. No, instead they're being used, outside of their jurisdiction I might add, to simulate crime fighting for your television viewing pleasure.

I have no problem with off-duty officers doing something like this if they want. What I DO have an issue with is county cars, uniforms, weapons, and any other equipment, being used to film a fictional TV show.

Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said "the department allowed officers to participate because it was told that filming would occur inside the county's borders."

Oh, well... that's different then. That would have totally justified the use of taxpayer owned property.

Whatcha gonna do when she comes for you...

DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier thinks you're a coward if you use technology to avoid speed traps in the Peoples Republic of District of Columbia.

In reference to an iPhone app that notifies users when they are approaching a speed camera, Lanier is quoted as saying "It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives."

Well Cathy, thanks very much for being concerned about my life, but I think your ire has more to do with the next little tidbit...

"Photo radar tickets generated nearly $1 billion in revenues for D.C. during fiscal years 2005 to 2008."

That's One. Billion. Dollars. In three years. Holy jumpin' Jesus! No wonder she's so upset. I'll bet that little iPhone app and others like it have the potential to put quite a dent in the city's revenue stream.

I've known my share of police officers, and every last one has said that they don't care if people use radar detectors, or flash their headlights, or put up giant signs on their front lawn warning motorists. Their sole intent in setting speed traps is to slow people down (that's a different argument for another time), not issue tickets, and all of the above mentioned things do that.

Cathy Lanier is a different breed. She WANTS to bust you. She WANTS to see you slip up. And she WANTS the revenue generated when you do. She all but says so in this article. Lanier also "promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices, which can also help drivers dodge sobriety checkpoints." What's she going to do... send out a legion of little Roscoe P. Coltranes to jump out of the bushes and plant fake speed limit signs along roads to catch unsuspecting travelers?

As if that's not chilling enough, I'll leave you with this...

When asked whether she'd pursue banning the iPhone app, she said, "with the Internet and all the new technology, it's almost impossible to stop the flow of information." Stop the flow of information... hmmm... sounds like state sponsored censorship doesn't it?

Do these people actually believe the crap they spew?...

I borrowed the link to this Parade Magazine "Intelligence Report" article from another site that I frequent. They should call it an "Unintelligence Report." It continues to amaze me how A) Stupid, or B) Blatantly willing to lie anti-gunners are in this country. The best quote from the article is this...

"It's what happens when a person gets mad and has easy access to a gun. Someone is shot over a game of dice. Had the gun not been in their hands, no one would have died."

Oh really? So you're saying that murders never happened prior to the advent of the firearm? No one's ever been killed in anger by a knife, an arrow, a hammer, a rock, a baseball bat, or any one of a million other methods? Do us all a favor, Parade Magazine, the next time you decide to publish something stop and actually read it first.

On a related note, maybe we should ban kitchen knives like Great Britain.

Move over Chicago...

In a move that shocks even me, a former New Yorker who's used to the shady political moves that occur at the city, county, and state levels there, New York State Senate Democrats stooped to new lows yesterday. In a nutshell, they held an invalid session that excluded Republican members, and then fraudulently included a Republican senator as their 32nd vote to break a three week deadlock and unanimously pass 125 bills in 3 hours. (The article doesn't say it, but it's implied that they needed 32 members present to make it a "legal" vote.) I say fraudulently because the senator in question, Republican Frank Padavan, states that he wasn't present for the votes. The Democrats' logic for including him? Wait for it............ He walked through the chamber on his way to the vending machines on the other side.

And these are the people we trust to "govern" us. The sad part (and I've witnessed it time and time again having lived there for 23 years) is that New Yorkers will vote these people back into office in a heartbeat.

Whew...

There, I've posted a couple new posts and I feel better already. It's good to be back.

Do as I say, not as I do...

So, it's ok for the government to tell you that you can't smoke, but if your husband does it, it's domestic battery. That makes sense. While this guy's actions seem a little over the top, it hardly seems like domestic battery. I'm surprised the police didn't tase him!

And doggone it, people like me...

Dear God! I can't imagine a worse fate for the good people of Minnesota.

Paging Mr. Gore...

Things must be slow over at the EPA. So slow, in fact, that they are drumming up business by allegedly suppressing a report that disputes the "science" behind the smoke and mirrors more commonly known as Global Warming [insert wholesale panic here]. Why, just the mere mention of global warming strikes fear into the hearts of the uninformed and causes gnashing of teeth and spontaneous purchases of Priuseseseses.

The problem is, global warming doesn't exist. But then, those of us who actually pay attention to the world around us already knew that. But if EVERYONE knew that, then the government wouldn't be able to keep spending tax dollars to combat something that doesn't exist. So, they will continue to do their best to keep that knowledge away from the public.

My, how time flies...

...when you're burned out on politics. I can't believe it's been three months since I posted anything here. The good news is, I'm getting back to the point where I feel fired up again rather than beat down. Plus, the irony of celebrating Independence Day as we watch while our independence is eroded more each day is just too tempting for me to sit on the sidelines any longer. So, without further delay...

And to think...

...that I actually tell my kids to find a police officer if they need help. The stupidity of this story is astounding.

I hate to say I told you so... but I'm gonna anyway...

Ok, I've stayed quiet for a long time. Really. Check my posts. I haven't said much of anything about politics since the election. Part of the reason was because I was completely burned out on politics, and part was because I really wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, Barack the Benificent was going to surprise us all and actually do the right things... make the right moves. Well, it's been a couple of months now, and the wheels have already fallen off. I'm going to skip the part where Barack Obama has spent this country into debt that our great-grandchildren will still be paying off. I'll skip the part where he is going to release terrorists and close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. I'll skip the part where we're not allowed to even call them terrorists anymore. I'll skip the part where he's given North Korea and Iran pretty much free rein to do whatever the heck they want now. I'll skip the part where almost every cabinet appointee he's appointed has been rejected or has stepped down due to various and sundry skeletons in their respective closets. Nope... I'll skip straight to the part where he just fired Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors.

Congratulations Mr. President. You shocked even me with the speed in which this country reached full blown socialism. I mean, I knew it was coming and all, but wow! Kudos to you. Color me impressed.

I have so much to say and so little energy to say it, what with all the extra effort I'm putting in at the office to pay for all of this. Whatcha gonna do for your next trick? I can hardly wait...