This came across my Facebook feed the other day. An Adam Ruins Everything on How the Electoral College Ruins Democracy. He rails against the Electoral College in presidential politics in this particular video and how some votes are "worth more" than others.

He is correct, the EC does ruin Democracy, and that's the whole point of its existence. Just not the way he thinks so.

The United States is NOT a Democracy, it is a Republic. While they share some aspects, at their core they are totally different approaches to government.

Democracy is mob rule. Whatever the mob wants, the mob gets. If someone could at election time get 51% of the voters to vote "yes" to a proposal which reads, "Starting at Noon tomorrow, any citizen who brings a dead [insert minority of your choice] to the steps of the county courthouse will receive a $50 bounty, no limit," that would become law and upheld as law until 51% of the voters say otherwise. No court could overturn the law (if courts even existed), because the only standard of law in a Democracy is the "will of the people."

The fact that we don't have such a law on the books is proof that we are a Republic.

Our Constitution was written so that it is hard on purpose to make laws. Gridlock is supposed to be the norm. On the State and Federal levels, you have a bicameral (two houses) Legislative branch that proposes laws. Each of these houses have to have a simple majority to pass a bill and send it to the Executive branch for approval. The President/Governor has a say in the matter by either signing it into law or rejecting it using their Veto power. If the President/Governor does veto a bill, the Legislative branch can override the veto and make it a law with a 2/3rds majority in both houses.

The Representatives of the House represent the People. Congressmen are elected by popular vote in the Congressional districts of each State. The power of the House is all spending bills must first be first introduced in the House. The size of the House was set at 435 members in 1911, because the Constitution says "a Congressional District will consist of no more than 30,000 people." If we stuck with that ratio today, the House would have over 10,000 Representatives. These 435 members are assigned proportionally to each state by proportion of the population.

The Senators in the Senate were elected by the Legislatures of the State and supposed to represent the interest of the States. They have the power to conduct foreign affairs by approving or not approving treaties with other governments. They also provide consent to the President by approving or not approving his nominations for judicial positions and senior Administration officials.

This setup means both the People and the State governments were represented in the Legislative branch of the Federal Government. The EC is an extension of that, because the EC is made up of 538 votes (each states Representatives and Senators, plus three for the District of Columbia) and for 48 states is set as a "winner take all" setup. Maine and Nebraska have a "semi-proportional" setup, where each Congressional district elects by majority, then the winner of the overall state vote receives the two votes representing the Senators.

Through this method, it is impossible for the government to drastically change its political leaning from a single election. It takes a constant effort of the People over three Federal election cycles (six years) to effect enough changes in their representatives in the Legislative and Executive branches of the Federal government to achieve that shift.

This way the course of the government does not change on the momentary whim of the People, President or a single house of Congress. Thus, this is an insulation against mob rule.

Our Founding Fathers wanted to prevent mob rule and rule of a king, both of which can be capricious and arbitrary. They wanted to have long periods of political discussion, followed by a vote to determine the overall will of the people. The People are supposed to be well-read and informed about the current events and at the appropriate time, to elect others to represent them and carry out the work of government according to the general will of the People.

The job of a Citizen is to keep their mouth open. This is performed by civil discussion among the People and with their representatives in all levels of government. If you don't communicate with your representatives, or vote in elections, you are not protesting, you are surrendering your power as a Citizen.

Think about that the next time you stay home on Election Day.

Winston Churchill defined a fanatic as, "... one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." Finley Dunne said, "A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case."

An activist is at least three steps beyond a fanatic. They are on a crusade for their cause, and nothing, nothing will keep them from completing their quest. Activists see offenders of their cause behind every tree and under every rock.

And when you're an anti-rape activist, who views every male as a rapist, it can be hard to hook up with a guy.

Do I believe rape happens? Yes. Do I believe rapists be punished severely? You betcha. My starting ideas will give you nightmares. The witnesses will be begging for mercy by the time I'm done warming up and ready to get down to business.

Rape is not about sex. It's about power and control. A rapist violates the victims body and psyche. There is no reason or excuse for this.

But what about when the "victim" is actually having a case of "buyer's remorse"? When a person consensually hooks up in a passionate moment, then afterwards worries about what their parents, friends, etc. will say? When "rape" is accused by the "victim" to try and assuage the guilt or deflect responsibility away from them, what are the consequences?. This false accusation will falsely and irrevocably stains the reputation and character of the "attacker" for life, even when they are fully vindicated.

Now I want you to go back and reread the last three paragraphs. Did you see any personal pronouns? "He," "she," his," or "hers?" You didn't, because the sex, biologically or declared of either the rapist or victim has no bearing my position about this. A girl can rape another girl just as savagely as a man could. A girl can rape a man as well. Don't give me "the vast majority" garbage, because when you do, you just re-traumatized that person who was really raped and shattered because you just discounted what happened to them.

So, when you carry yourself and your words imply if not outright declare a man is a rapist for the sole reason he has a penis, don't be surprised that men refuse to have anything to do with you. I have heard the ultra-feminists scream since I came of age in the 70's that "all PIV (penis in vagina) sex is rape." I have heard them say, "All men are rapists. They might not have actually done it, but they are only one erection away from raping a woman."

So when these guys hear about your activism and "you know the chief-of-police," men don't want to be in the same county as you, because he knows with one mistake on his part, or one misinterpreted signal on her part and he is ruined for the next 50 years from a rape accusation.

Be very careful in what you select as a cause and how passionate you are about it. It can have unwanted consequences to you and those around you.

By and large, if a Liberal is trying to sell you something, they're lying about it. Even to other Liberals.

Remember when they pushed "wind power"? How clean and efficient it would be? Did they mention the hundreds of birds that would be swatted out of the sky by the spinning blades? Did they mention the energy consumed in their contstruction and transportation would be more than they could produce in their entire service life? Did you notice how they fight to keep those wind turbines from where they can't actually see them, which would lower their home values?

Here's another example: Ivanpah Solar Power Plant. Consuming 5 1/2 square miles of desert wilderness, thousands of mirrors focus sunlight on the tops of three towers, the concentrated light boiling water to make steam and run electrical generators. That was the theory, anyway.

You probably don't know too much about the production side of electricity. In order to provide the steady, reliable 115 volts of electricity at your outlets, power plants have to constantly vary their output as far as amperage goes by the second, because the load (consumption) varies second-to-second as people turn things on and off. If the load jumps upward drastically and the production does not follow suit, you have a brownout and your voltage drips from a nominal 115 to say 100 volts. This can prove catastrophic to some equipment. Likewise, if the consumption drops suddenly and the production does not follow, the voltage will then jump upward and again, ruined equipment.

There are three basic types of plants, each to cover specific parts of the cycle as power demand increases and decreases. The coal and nuclear plants are the backbone of our production. These plants run 24/7/365, and they are taken off-line only for maintenance. As the demand rises, oil burning plants are brought on line. While these plants run for extended periods, they don't run all the time because oil is more expensive than coal or nuclear. Peak demand is met by natural gas plants. This fuel is the most expensive and is thus run only at periods of highest demand.

Whenever a plant is brought on-line, it has to be started, brought up to speed and then the phase of the plant must be matched to the phase of the power that is already out there on the grid. If the phase is mismatched, it can destroy end-user (your) equipment. This is not like your automobile, where it takes less than ten seconds from turning the key to on the road. Depending on the production capability of the plant and the type of fuel, this can be from an hour to several hours to complete this process.

Back to Ivanpah. Because there is a huge variability in the amount of sunlight, there is a natural gas plant there, to "pre-heat" the water and also take over entirely if the solar production drops suddenly, as when a cloud rolls across the mirrors.

Let's talk price tag. To build this plant, about $2 Billion has been spent, in loan guarantees and tax breaks by the government.

In its first eight months of operation, it produced 254,263 Megawatt-hours of electricity. The wholesale price of electricity in that region of the country averages about $50 per Megawatt-hour. According to my trusty calculator, if the Ivanpah plant operated with no maintenance costs, no payroll for workers, no natural gas costs and no interest on the loans, at that rate it would take 105 years to pay off the investment. Of course, there are costs of maintenance, payroll, natural gas and so on. Even figuring 25% of the gross income (which is a staggering amount) to payback on interest free loans, that $2 Billion will be paid off in... 419 years. Let me say that again: It will take over four hundred and nineteen years of continuous operation by that plant before a profit can start to be made.

Here's where they lie to other Liberals:

It was these same California Liberals who caused their own fresh water shortage because they dumped a trillion gallons of drinking water down a river and into the ocean to stabilize the river temperature and preserve an endangered fish species, spent $56 Million to relocate an endangered desert turtle species off the Ivanpah site. Also, 3,500 birds were cooked mid-air in the first year just because they flew over the site.

Here's the kicker. To sell the site, those Liberals said that only "about 5 percent" of the heat generated to boil the water would come from burning that evil natural gas. Once reality kicked in, they had to go to the California Energy Commission (the body that regulates the power companies) and quietly ask for that 5 percent be changed to 38 percent, a seven-fold increase.

The bottom line is a relatively small power plant that uses no new experimental technology, that actually uses more fossil fuel and emits more CO2 than a conventional plant of the same size burning the same fuel, at a grossly enormous construction cost, not to mention the massive ecological damage to the local wildlife.

Am I missing something? Other than making the Liberals involved feel better, what was the supposed benefit of this boondoggle and is there any hope that Ivanpah can ever meet any of it's stated goals?

I didn't think so.

The job of a Citizen is to keep his mouth open. We do that by voting. To refuse to vote is not a protest against the system, it's surrendering.

Our Founding Fathers designed our system to encourage contimplation. The Citizens choose the direction of our government by electing representatives to office. Once set, that direction is hard to change for the next several years. Ideally, before we step into the voting booth, we should spend some time to study the candidates. Both the incumbent and challenger deserve our due dilligence before we choose one over the other.

Don't go with the person who has the best soundbites. Go with the one whose values and ideals best align with yours. If you don't know how to decide, I have a suggestion for you.

I found this the other day: Obamacare Travesty: IRS Fines Employers For Reimbursing Workers.

Let me put this bluntly. The plans offered by the "Affordable Care Act" suck. Very, very badly. The least offensive plan I was looking at cost $61 a month. That's just the premium. Then there is the $5,000 deductible before the plan pays anything. When the plan does start paying, it only pays 50%. Put simply, I have to spend $5,700+ during the year, about $477 a month before the plan pays a penny.

I don't have $477 to spend a month. After the "survival bills" (house note, utilities, food, transportation) I have less than $400 a month for things like clothes, gas for the car and such.

Now, let's say the company I work for wants to "help me out" so they reimburse some of my health care costs. B-I-G mistake. Under new regulations set forth by the IRS (Not Congress), employers can be fined $100 a day, per employee if they reimburse their employees to help them with their health care costs. That adds up to the princely sum of $36,500 a year, per employee. Now, if a company over 50 employees doesn't offer any health care plan, it's only $2,000 a year per employee. That $36,500 penalty doesn't care if you have one or one thousand employees. Of course, that is more than most of those being helped make. Even one such fine could crush a small business, driving them out of business and making all of the employees unemployed.

I have to ask you, what kind of people feel the need to crush a business if they do not obey a regulation with no legislative oversight? This is not part of the law known as the "Affordable Care Act." This is a regulation devised, written and enforced by the IRS. Congress, the Supreme Court or another agency didn't tell them to write and enforce this regulation. I have no evidence the President told them to do this either. They just thought it would be a great idea to drive companies who want to help take care of their employees out of business.

This is no longer a government "of the People, by the People and for the People." This is now officially a government of "f*ck the People."

I hate double standards. Hate, despise, loathe and some other adjectives.

Which brings me to this poster:

The automatic assumption that Jake was the aggressor and Josie the victim is disgusting. Let's turn things around.

Jake was drunk. Josie was drunk. Jake could not give consent. The next day JOSIE was charged with RAPE. A man who is intoxicated cannot give his legal consent for sex, so proceeding under these circumstances is a crime.

If you cannot concieve that Josie could be the aggressor, you are an idiot. It can and does happen. And he does not have to be "in the mood." Look up "Pegging."

... Somewhere in the middle.

I found an entry in my FB page this morning, about a 21 year-old woman, who posted "PUT ME IN CHARGE..." (I quoted it below) and in my usual due dilliegence, I found it came out five years ago, by someone else.

Here it is, dated November 18th, 2010:

Put me in charge ...

Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”

Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

Alfred W. Evans, Gatesville

 I can at least partially agree with Mr. Evans. Benjamin Franklin spoke on the subject of Welfare, "I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."

There is also always more to the story. Someone always reads into others writings intent and meaning that is not there. Case in point, this reponse, posted July 16th, 2011. Because the first is a letter to the editor, I can post (with attributation) the entire letter. This is an article, so unfortunately even with attributation I cannot post the entire article. The author of this article is Mr. David Price.

Sometimes people form opinions about other people without knowing the full story. The well-traveled letter by Alfred W. Evans is a sterling example.

My 32-year-old son receives assistance from the government. He receives food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance, Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance.

He needs the assistance because he is not able to work. He has had epilepsy since age 6. He’s gone through all kinds of hell for 26 years trying all sorts of drugs and operations that haven’t stopped his seizures. I would never wish his condition on anyone. Yet he lives with it. He has about five seizures a day. Can you imagine living with that disability?

Mr. Price goes on to document the every day challenges and difficulties his son faces. My only point about Mr. Price's letter is he says his son is on "Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance." Having extensive experience with the disability system (as a recepient and the father of a recepient) Mr. Price does not seem to realize that one person cannot be on both because they are mutually exclusive. SSI is for people who do not have a work history, SSDI is for people with a work history. When you apply for disability, you are applying for both. During the process to approve or deny your request for benefits part of the decisions include either SSI or SSDI because you can only receive benefits from one program or the other. Perhaps that is the source of his misunderstanding.

Mr. Price does not seem to realize the primary point of Mr. Evans letter. I understand Mr. Evans as referring to those who can work, however they refuse to do so.

I was employed from 99% of the time from age 16 until I was 39, when my mental illness tore my life apart. I spent ten years on SSDI, working part time most of it because of various reasons you can learn about in my archives. My son has an Autistic Spectrum Disorder which was diagnosed when he was 6 years old. He is on SSI. The last time he got on the local public transportation to go somewhere by himself, he got off at the wrong stop, became disoriented and I had to go and get him. He would love to have a job as well. My son is extremely bright and intelligent, however he is unable to handle unexpected situations on his own.

I can see both of these gentlemans' points. They are both correct, in their own context and paradigm. I firmly believe if you are able to work, if you apply for government assistance, the government should work you as hard as possible as an incentive for you to acquire a marketable skill and join the ranks of the employed. If, for some reason you are not capable to perform work, that is the true case of charity.

This is about the SCOTUS decision on Obergefell v. Hodges.

I ask that you read this entire post, as I am looking at this issue from several disparate angles. If you miss one point, you will miss what I am trying to say by a wide margin.

First, I have friends and acquaintances who are straight, bisexual, gay and lesbian. I do not qualify my friends and acquaintances by their skin color, religion (or lack thereof), sexual orientation or any demographic quantification. If we enjoy each others company and respect each others beliefs and opinions, that's all I'm looking for.

Second, who my friends and acquaintances feel strongly about, and what they do with, to and about those they feel strongly about is quite frankly none of my damn business.

So, with this decision being about marriage, let's look at the history of marriage and what was it invented for.

Way back when, at the dawn of human history, a man protected what he considered his by force. If he had (or wanted) an animal carcass, a cave/hut or a woman, he would have to defend it or take it away from another by force. There was no 911 or police back then to help the defender. If the attacker beat off the defender, the attacker got to eat, have a safe place to sleep and sex.

Both sexes are hard-wired to preserve their genetic line. Men express this by wanting to impregnate as many women as possible, thus insuring his genetic line by sheer numbers. Women express this through quality, by partnering with a male they believe will successfully provide for and protect her and the offspring, thus greatly improving the chances of her offspring reaching the age they can have their own children. While each society handles this differently, over the thousands of years of human development this has narrowed down in most societies to the male, agreeing to provide for and protect the woman and children in exchange for exclusive procreation with the woman and official claiming of the children. Thus, one man, one woman.

This partnership and desire for "legitimate lineage" gave rise to what we now call family names. In many societies, this genetic lineage was traced from the male. The male children kept the family name, the woman took the husband's family name upon marriage. Again, societies developed differently. For example, in Jewish culture, lineage is traced through the woman, rather than the man. In the West, if you are known as "John Smith," in Asian culture the family comes first, so you would be called "Smith John."

With the rise of societies, religion and government, this pairing became codified in many religions and many governmental laws. And with approval of the "one man one woman" came the condemnation of those unions that could not produce offspring (same-sex), a high chance of deformed children (as in mating between close blood relatives), or a clear lineage. Thus it has been for a couple thousand years.

In the past 500 years or so, the State has become more and more interested and regulatory in the aspects of "breeding pairs." Government began encouraging this behavior, by offering incentives to those "legalized breeding couples," in the past century this has devolved into the "marriage and dependent tax credit." Today, the Church has been relegated to an optional minor role in the marriage, basically certifying the union. The licensing to approve and legitimize the union is handled by the State, as well as the divorce process when the union is no longer viable.

What does the (interim) bottom line mean? It means the State has, for all intents and purposes, assumed the burden of administering the process of interpersonal partnerships. Due to that power, if the State decides that the only criteria for marriage is a person loves and deeply cares for whom they want to marry, without regard to procreation, they can do just that. I do not need to document the numerous offenses where the government has gone against the will of the people. The consequences of that decision will go far beyond what anybody intended. Get ready for marriage between people and animals, people and their possessions, blood relatives and so on. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.

And I am perfectly fine with this. Because it's none of my damn business what they do in private. I am going to neither condone nor condemn if a person wants to marry their iPhone and get their jollies with its vibrate feature. I'll just wait for the fireworks when it's time to upgrade or they change providers.

Now, this case was decided on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was drafted and ratified right after the Civil War. The clauses of this Amendment covered various things, like overturning the "three-fifths" apportionment of Slaves, prevented those who were active in the rebellion from holding federal office and sticking whomever financed the Confederacy with an empty bag and unable to collect on those debts.

The clause that Obergefell v. Hodges hung its hat on was the first Clause, which binds the States to the same obligations as the federal government.

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privlidges or immunities of citizens of the United States, ... [N]or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."

While they did succeed, this was a bad hook to hang their hat on. It would have been much clearer if they had gone for Article Four, Section 1:

"Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedins of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof."

Which boils down to "What's legal in California has to be recognized in Kentucky and vice versa." If you and your spouse get married in Ohio, move to Oregon, get divorced and individually move back to Ohio, you're still divorced. Oregon had to honor the Ohio marriage certificate and Ohio has to honor the Oregon divorce decree.

Here is where I have a problem with this decision: This reciprocity is not consistently applied. If I have a drivers license, that document is accepted as proof of my identity and qualification of my ability to operate a motor vehicle in all fifty States and the Territories as well. A marriage certificate legally obtained in one State should be likewise recognized. This decision now enforces a definition of marriage from the federal government on the States. All States must now adhere to this new definition. It is one thing for Kansas to have to recognize a same-sex marriage certificate issued by New York. I think forcing Kansas to issue same-sex marriage licenses without the Kansas State government nor the citizens of Kansas having a say in the matter is totally different and very wrong.

Now I have to ask, why is this standard not equally held for concealed weapons licenses? Everything I can say about the prior examples are valid for this one, with the additional argument of the Second Amendment. So, I would look for a forced reciprocity of CCW licenses throughout the US in the near future.

What has me upset is each State is supposed to be an individual entity, which gives some of their powers to the federal government in exchange for the common defense and other advantages. That means each State should have the power to regulate the affairs that occur within the borders of the State without the interference of other States or the federal government. This decision, along with its predecessors such as Roe v. Wade has destroyed that ability of local government.

The Civil War changed us as a people. In our antebellum age, we considered ourselves as citizens of the States first, America second. Postbellum, we became Americans, a citizen of the country first, a state citizen second.

I fear very, very soon the States will no longer be independent States, with their own culture and identity. They are rapidly passing into being provinces, totally subservient entities to the federal government.

Every one of the miniature wargaming systems I have played, at one time or another (some constantly) has an "RAW/RAI" argument. These stand for "Rules As Written" versus "Rules As Intended."

There are specific places where RAW and RAI go. They also have different objectives. There are also "rules lawyers" who attempt to break down each individual phrase, with the intent of "it doesn't say I can't, so that must mean I can."

Also, the written word is very powerful. When each word has an agreed upon meaning, there must be only that meaning for that word. There may be other words with a similar meaning, however that does not make the two words equal in meaning.

Looking at my current primary miniatures game, Battletech, the RAI gives the history of the Battletech Universe and what each of the rulesets do. There are currently four core fulebooks, with a fifth due out "soon-ish." Each of these tomes gives detailed rules on how to do what.

The Constitution is also very similar. There is the "RAI" area, namely the preamble where the reason and the goals of the Constitution is laid out in very broad terms.

...in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...

Then we have the Rules As Written, like Article 1, Section 9, 3rd paragraph:

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

This passage means that no small, specific group(s) of the People shall be targeted for punishment or profit and no law can effect the Actions of the people that were committed before the law was passed. If you know the definitions of "bill of attainder" and "ex post facto," the meaning of that part of the Constitution is clear.

I can think of several instances where this law was violated, the first one coming to mind was the Domestic Violence Act which was passed in the 90's. It stripped anyone convicted of any domestic violence charge of their Second Amendment rights, including misdeameanor convictions, even if the conviction was years before this law passed and all obligations have been fully discharged. The bill of attainder example is one where several years ago Washington wanted to punish bankers on Wall Street, so they passed a law of a 90% tax on any bonuses that was structured and worded in such a way that the law only affected less than 100 people nationwide, all of them on Wall Street.

Now we have the SCOTUS ruling in King v Burwell, over this part of the IRS Code:

(2) (a) the monthly premiums for such month for 1 or more qualified health plans offered in the individual market within a State which cover the taxpayer, the taxpayer's spouse, or any dependent (as defined in section 152) of the taxpayer and which were enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under 1311 [1] of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, [...] Bolded is mine

So, the law is quite clear, it quite clearly reads for each State that has a health care market individual to the State. By the way, Johnathan Gruber, the principal writer of this monstrosity, has clearly stated on multiple occasions that it was written this way to force the States into using the exchange. We have the authors words, and his voiced concurrence to cement his intent.

Today, SCOTUS rules that, "Those are what the words say, but that is not what they mean."

Mr. Roberts (I will from now on have great difficulty using the word "Justice" with his name) wrote in the Majority opinion:

The combination of no tax credits and an ineffective coverage requirement could well push a State’s individual insurance market into a death spiral. It is implausible that Congress meant the Act to operate in this manner. Congress made the guaranteed issue and community rating requirements applicable in every State in the Nation, but those requirements only work when combined with the coverage requirement and tax credits. It thus stands to reason that Congress meant for those provisions to apply in every State as well. Pp. 15–19.

To tell you the truth, I don't give a running rats ass what they meant. This is what they said, and the law should be appliled as they said. If that is not what they meant, then Congress should change the law so it says that they meant.

This clip clearly shows how The Illustrious One thinks. The exchange starts at 35:00 and the actual comment at 35:45.

The comment in question from the President was, "Hey, listen, you're in my house."

I do not have a problem with the President ejecting disruptive attendeees. I DO have a problem in him thinking that the office he holds, the authority invested in him and where he lives is "his."

No, Mr. President, that is NOT "your house." It is the PEOPLE'S HOUSE. You rent. When our elected officials think that the power granted to them is theirs personally to wield as they please, rather than in service to those who elected them, things never end well for the People.

I am disconcerted by recent events. I am seeing people who want to be something else. If they are one skin color, they want to be another. If they are of one sex, they want to be another. I actually understand how that can happen on a genetic level.

We should identify ourselves as human beings. No more, no less. All of our ancestors came out of Africa. Our skin colors became different due to our ancestors migrating and settling in the differing climates of Earth.

That being said, there are some divisions between us. We have two sexes, both of which are needed for procreation. We have different customs, languages and societal norms, generally based on location. What is accepted as societal norms in Moscow, Russia is different from Moscow, Idaho.

But this, this labeling of people into groups within a group based exclusively on outward charastics, I am unable to abide nor tolerate this. The further we divide people into groups, be it by skin color, economic status, sexual orientation, sexual preference, all this does is promote hatred. This pigeon-holing of everybody does nothing but promote the "he is different from me, therefore I fear and hate him" mentality.

I don't care what your skin color is, if you are male, female or somewhere inbetween (or even outside of those choices), who you want to have intimate relations with, none of that. I care what is in your heart. How do you treat the people around you? The character of a person is shown by how they treat someone who can do nothing for them. Do you seek to help others, or unfairly profit from them?

It is the Liberals drive to label people by cosmetic features that led to this Rachael Dolezal fiasco. In order to insure "proportional representation" in employment, employers have to ask by force of law your sex and race when you apply for a job. Ms. Dolezal's genetic heritage or her "racial identity" should not be qualifiers for where she is employed. Under the definitions of law, she has a particular skin color. There is no provision in that law for what racial skin color she identifies with. She should have been truthful with her legal statements. This is a character issue. I can with say I am a Martian every day of the week and twice on Sunday. When filling out a job application, my wants and needs do not enter into it. In order to check one (or more) of the demographic boxes, I have to adhere to the definitions of those boxes as set forth by the law of the land.

Can we get rid of the labels, please?

Speaking of statistics, I found an article that comes from data from Neighborhood Scout, listing the “25 most dangerous neighborhoods” in the US. I washed it through a spreadsheet and came up with the following information.

First of all, some neighborhoods were spread out over more than one zip code. I stuck with the first one in those cases for simplicity. Second, there were three zip codes that appeared twice on the list, so now there is really only 22 entries. I then went to a link off the Census Bureau’s website to Proximity One and got the White and Black populations for those zip codes and did a search engine on the political affiliation for the mayors. I wanted to see how long the mayors have been from one party had been in control of the city, but most cities websites were not forthcoming with that information.

So, 22 zip codes, comprising 15 different cities. 74% of those zip codes are primarily Black residents. 9 of the cities have Democrat Mayors, 3 Republican, 2 unknown affiliation and 1 Independent.

Chicago and Detroit came in “first,” with three zip codes each on the list. Houston, Indianapolis and St. Louis each had two zip codes and the rest had one zip code.

I plan to look into this more, perhaps with slightly different criteria.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” – Mark Twain

I found this article by the Atlanta Blackstar and discovered it to be full of all three of the above: 9 Facts That Show White-on-White Crime Far Exceeds Black-on-Black Crime and How Media Outlets Conceal It.

I want to make this clear and up front, not buried in the bottom where you probably won’t read it. I believe the vast majority of people are good people. I don’t care what their skin color happens to be. There is a small subset of people who commit crimes. A small percent of the criminal population is actually responsible for the majority of crimes.

This article is about statistics, which looks at groups of people and makes generalizations based upon the group. It does not say or intend that any specific person is good or bad.

This is the author of this piece of trash:

Edward Wycoff Williams, an author, columnist and political analyst for MSNBC, conveyed a reality that many do not seem to know is real. Williams wrote for The Root…

Williams wrote that article for the Root linked to above in 2012 and it is heavily quoted in this article.

Statistics are cut-and-dry, and they do not lie. According to the FBI’s most recent homicide numbers available, from 2011, a staggering 83 percent of white murder victims were killed by fellow Caucasians.

The darkest kind of lie is the one that has enough truth in it so you take the false as true as well. Yes, 83 percent of Whites were killed by Whites.

Here’s where the lying comes in:

And because whites are the majority in the country — there are six times as many whites as there are Blacks — that means they commit the most murders.

Do you see it? You can’t because it’s actually a lie of omission, you aren’t given all of the numbers so you have a context of what those numbers mean. I got these numbers from the FBI’s 2011 Murder statistics Table 6 page.

Here’s the important part of the table:

So, according to the article, there are six White people for every Black person in the US. According to my calculator, that means the ratio between the races is 86% White, 14% Black. If we are to infer that Blacks are no more violent than Whites, we should see a similar ratio in the number of murders.

My calculator must be broken. It’s saying that blacks committed more murders than Whites in raw numbers, 2,958 to 2,904. If Blacks were equally as murderous as Whites, the Black Offender numbers should only total about 472. I can only deduce then the Black population is 6.25 times more violent as the White population.

So, here is reinforcement of the lie:

Williams wrote: “The term ‘black-on-black’ crime is a destructive, racialized colloquialism that perpetuates an idea that blacks are somehow more prone to violence. This is untrue and fully verifiable by FBI, DOJ and census data. Yet the fallacy is so fixed that even African Americans have come to believe it.”

Yet, a simple calculator will tell you the black-on-black murders alone are 40 percent of the total murders, showing that Blacks are killing Blacks 2.5 times more often than Whites are killing Whites.

Then, we start the cherry picking:

The truth, taking FBI data from 2010: Whites killed whites 3,252 times, which was 4.6 times more than the number of whites killed by Blacks.

Why change years? The author went from 2011 to 2010. Also, I haven’t found his numbers. Table 6 is single offender/single victim, he must be including when there were multiple offenders or victims involved. I do not see a table for that.

More obfuscation without context:

Whites are responsible for the vast majority of violent crimes, according to the FBI. With respect to aggravated assault, whites led Blacks 2-1 in arrests; in forcible-rape cases, whites led all racial and ethnic groups by more than 2-1. And in larceny theft, whites led Blacks, again, more than 2-1.

What is the ratio of Whites to Blacks as given on the first page of this article? 6-1. So, if Blacks were equally prone to be criminals, the numbers in that quote above should be 6-1, not 2-1. Which means a Black person is three times more likely to commit one of the aforementioned crimes than a White person.

The last three pages are invoking the specters of racism and how poor Blacks are.

Here’s more lying:

When gang-related killings are referred to on the news, they treat it as an almost exclusively Black problem. However, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, for the period of 1980 to 2008, a majority (53.3 percent) of gang homicides were committed by white offenders, and the majority of gang homicide victims (56.5 percent) were white.

Obfuscation, let me count the ways: First of all, he has to invoke a 28 year span (1980-2008). Can’t he stick with his original 2011 numbers, or would that show a bad light on what he is saying? Remember that 6-1 ratio? If Whites and Blacks were proportionally as violent, shouldn’t those numbers (53.3% and 56.5%) be up around 86%? So, a raw majority of gang homicides were perpetrated by Whites, but barely over half. This means that again, Black gang activity was most likely 40% of the total, while comprising only 14% of the population.

So, there you go. How to lie while giving facts. Cherry pick the facts, don’t give enough facts so the reader has a context of what the facts mean and don’t be afraid to quote other statistics outside of your original data set to bolster your position.

Okay folks, pull your head out of your politics.

People, by and large have little, if any, grasp or concept of laws in this country. They think the First Amendment applies to everybody, government, businesses and individuals, when it in reality only applies to the government. Only the federal government is prohibited by the Constitution from restricting your speech. If you say something stupid and it costs you your job or whatever, that is NOT a First Amendment matter.

If course, a law entitled “The Puppies and Kittens Act of 2015″ everyone would support it based on its title alone. After it becomes law, then we find out that it that lets the feds to “detain” anybody they want, for any reason and for as long as they want.

Before you go and get upset over a law or act, Read. The. Effen. Bill.

Now, the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibits the Indiana State government and its “political subdivisions (counties, cities and towns, etc.) from discriminating against a person or business based on the religious beliefs of a person, no matter if it be an individual or business owner."

That’s it.

And before you get all up in arms about this, let’s look at the States that have already passed similar laws:

Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Indiana is the twentieth state to pass this type of law.

To top that off, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington State, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, that’s eleven more states, by the way, have had state courts set down rulings that are similar to RFRA laws.

Thirty States had this in place before Indiana. Where is the hue and cry over these laws and rulings?????

Now for the flip side of things:

In Washington State, one of those “protected” by court rulings rather than law, a lady who owns a florist shop stands to lose her business and all of her assets because the government is persecuting her on her religious beliefs. Here is the story.

The events, in a nutshell, are this: Two gay men wanted to get married, one of them went to this florist to purchase flowers for their ceremony. The business owner, who has religious beliefs against such things, declined their business and suggested they patronize several other florists willing to accept their business.

The business owner, a lady who has had this shop for 30 years, has to pay Washington State a fine basically for standing up for her religious beliefs. This judgement has also opened her up to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and could destroy her business and her finances.

So, who is the injured party here? If this gay couple were denied services by all of the florists in the area, that would be one thing. One business declined their business and suggested other places to go. If that happened to me, I’d walk out with my money and not bother with that business any more. To demand a business offer their services violates the freedom of the business owner.

Now, if Gen Con, et. al., wants to move out of Indiana because of this, that’s perfectly acceptable because it is the choice of the Board of Directors of Gen Con to do so, for whatever reason the BoD sees fit.

I will however call them idiots if they land in a state with similar laws.

I was just reminded the other day about my High School Geometry and Trigonometry teacher, Mrs. Corsale. It got me thinking about using her method for selecting a primary candidate since the political season is approaching quickly.

She told me about how she picked her husband. She was in college and had three suitors vying for her hand. She couldn’t make up her mind as to which one she would choose, so she applied math.

Mrs. Corsale wrote two lists, the first was positive aspects she wanted in a husband, the second list was the negative aspects she didn’t want her future husband to have. She then gave each suitor a point per item on the positive list, then deducted a point for every item on the negative list. She married the guy with the highest total. She had been married for over 15 years at the time she related this to me and had several children by him, so it must have been successful.

I bring this up, because the Republicans have presented Presidential candidates that have somewhat approached lackluster for several cycles, simply because the final candidate was the least offensive. I see a lot of “single hot button” voters that will reject an otherwise outstanding candidate, simply because of their stance on a single issue. They might agree with that candidate on 37 other subjects, but those don’t matter if the candidate doesn’t agree with them on that hot button issue.

No candidate will ever agree with you 100%, unless you are the candidate. So, look at a candidates total spectrum before you decide to support or reject the candidate based on one choice or decision.

I have been reading through the FCC’s “Net Neutrality” ruling, released March 12, 2015. The following are my thoughts and impressions. I have a copy here.

First of all, I do not condone any agency making rules and regulations that have the same effect of law as a bill passed by Congress and signed by the President. The concept of administrators who can make what are effectively laws and do not answer to the People are an anathema to me. The concept that these administrators have no agenda is ludicrous on its face. I guess the closest comparison would be the term “Philosopher-Kings.”

Case in point: BATF and APCP. In the 80’s, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (Explosives were added later) issued a regulation that declared Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant (APCP) as an explosive and thus under their authority to regulate the possession and use of said “explosive.” They never followed their own procedures to test and determine if a material is explosive or not, they just issued a regulation declaring, “We’re regulating this now. Tough shit.”

Because most people have no idea what APCP is, it is rocket fuel. It is the only solid rocket fuel deemed safe enough to be “man-rated,” meaning we launch people into space using it. This was the fuel in the Shuttle’s Solid Rocket Boosters.

When people who engaged in high power rocketry in the 80’s starting using APCP, they had to apply for a “Low Explosives Users Permit” or LEUP which was excruciatingly detailed as to the purchase, storage, transportation and use of APCP. You were also subject to inspection at any time to make sure you were obeying their regulations.

It took years of court battles and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees by the National Association of Rocketry and the Tripoli Rocketry Association to get that regulation overturned.

Back to the FCC: Looking through this “Rule,” I find some interesting things. This is a sampling, not a point-by-point list of that I disagree with through 319 pages:

Page 8, “No Unreasonable Interference or Unreasonable Disadvantage to Consumers or Edge Providers.” The key word here is “unreasonable.” Who decides what is unreasonable? Why the government, of course! Those “uninterested” administrators.

Page 12, part 37, reads, “Today, our forbearance approach results in over 700 codified rules being inapplicable…” This hints at something that you don’t directly see in any one spot. You have to read the FCC’s website and throughout this document. It means, “We don’t feel like applying these regulations right now.” So they are selectively applying their own rules. Sure, they aren’t enforcing that rule today, no guarantee on tomorrow.

Page 14, part 43, “Exercising our delegated authority to interpret ambiguous terms in the Communications Act, as confirmed by the Supreme Court…” Again, the administrators have the power to interpret the law passed by Congress however they want to. And what the administrators say it meant yesterday, does not mean it will mean the same thing tomorrow.

Page 16, part 51, “In finding that broadband Internet access service is subject to Title II, we simultaneously exercise the Commission’s forbearance authority to forbear from 30 statutory provisions and render over 700 codified rules inapplicable…” Again, the administrators are deciding today that these parts are inapplicable. They can always change their minds.

The first 282 pages of this 400 page document is only justification on why and how they will or will not enforce the laws and regulations already in place along with 1,777 footnotes. The actual rules, “Appendix A” starts at page 283 and runs for just 7 pages. However, considering that there are passages like: “AUTHORITY: 47 U.S.C. §§ 151, 152, 153, 154, 201, 202, 208, 218, 230, 251, 254, 256, 257, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 316, 332, 403, 503, 522, 536, 548, 1302.” Your reading will be a lot longer.

Appendix B, the “Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis,” runs another 22 pages and 173 more footnotes.

The last 86 pages are supporting or dissenting opinions of the members of the FCC Commission. The FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler and the other approving members, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel gushed the “party line” for a whole six pages collectively. Commissioner Ajit Pai dissents for 63 pages and 487 footnotes. Commissioner Michael O’Rielly also dissents for the last 15 pages and 76 footnotes. Both Commissioners Pai and O’Rielly systematically detail and pick apart everything that is bad about this new rule and how it will hurt the American People and the Internet.

I highly suggest you read it with an open mind.

Warning: occasional profanity.

The Internet is wonderful and terrible at the same time. Right now, we can in our Facebook feed, or checking some news aggregators, or even just YouTube, see dozens of “police abuse” videos. Most people, from those reports, will make the inference that “there is an awful lot of police brutality” going on.

I am not saying there isn’t any “police brutality” going on. There obviously are instances of such activity. However, when there are hundreds of thousands of police encounters every day, even a hundred is a very small amount. For example, 100,000 police encounters nationwide every day (a very low estimate) and if 100 of those encounters that fall into the “Police brutality” category (a very high estimate) yields according to my calculator a 0.001% of police encounters meeting the brutality category. Honestly, you have a better chance at getting run over by an 18-wheeler.

Let’s take an objective look at a police officer, their mindset, their job and everything else.

First, a police officer is a human being. They have the same fears, thoughts, hope, dreams and feelings like everybody else. They worry about their spouse and kids when the family is sick, financial troubles because the bills outweigh the income, all that stuff you worry about when you’re at work as well. If their spouse was yelling at them the night before or this morning over something, or their boss is yelling at them, they are going to carry that frustration and anger into their encounters during the day… Just like you would.

Police officers are people who are trained to be observant, assertive, aggressive when necessary, what laws they are charged to enforce and the constraints and procedures they are to use while carrying out their duties. They have to demonstrate a certain level of physical strength, endurance and firearms proficiency.

A police officer is trained to assert and assume control over any encounter they have. That is their self-defense mechanism, because if they aren’t in control, they will likely end up dead. They never know if they are stopping a harmless little old lady or a gangbanger who just murdered someone when they pull a vehicle over for a broken tail light. If they are personally emotionally upset coming into that encounter, there exists the possibility that they will be more aggressive than needed.

The officer has the authority, both for personal protection and as an agent of the state, for him and fifteen of his buddies to beat the living shit out of you if you do not instantly obey everything he tells you to do. The police must win every encounter, especially when violence is involved. If you fight with them, they will use fists, feet, batons, Tasers, firearms and anything else they can get their hands on to make you comply. The only thing that fighting with the officer will get you is hurt or dead. If you are being detained or arrested, any type of resistance at that point will hurt you physically and hurt your case when it comes to the courtroom.

Second, there is some misdirection going on. All of these news stories and YouTube videos do not tell you the whole story. You almost never find out the details as to why the encounter happened in the first place. Most likely, the person broke a law or regulation in view of the officer. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber, was pulled over for an expired license plate on his car. Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO was jaywalking. The duty of a police officer is to detain and/or arrest people he believes have broken a law he is charged to enforce. The police do not write the laws, nor can they choose which laws to enforce or not enforce. If you have a problem with being arrested for a particular law, take it up with your legislators about removing or altering the law.

Third, if you get into an encounter with the police, there are some things you need to consider and carry out. First of all, know the laws of the state where you are. Know your rights. You don’t have to recite court cases or anything like that. Know when you have to show your identification and when you do not have to show it and things like that. In my state, if I am pulled over for a traffic violation, I have to show my driver’s license. If I am walking along the street and I am detained, I do not have to show any identification. You also have the right to remain silent. That means, don’t talk. Let me emphasize that point. Under no circumstances are you to open your fucking piehole. That means don’t talk, shrug your shoulders, move your hands/arms, change expression on your face, nothing except, “I do not consent to any searches of my person or property. Am I being detained or am I free to go?” Everything that you say or communicate by bodily movements, etc., can and will be used against you to convict you with whatever you will be charged with. Anything exculpatory (that means proves your innocence) will not be used to help you. A police officer can testify that you confessed to whatever you’re charged with, however if you say something that shows your innocence, the same officer cannot testify about it, as exculpatory statements are considered “hearsay” and thus inadmissible in court.

If you are being detained, an officer has the authority to feel on the outside of your clothing to see if you are carrying any weapons on your person. If you resist this pat down, you will be given a vigorous and enthusiastic (on the officer’s part, not necessarily yours) beat down until you stop resisting. A simple, clear and polite, “Officer, I do not consent to any searches of my person or possessions” limits them. If the police perform an improper search after you tell them you do not consent, that evidence can be disregarded by the court. There are a lot of particulars that I am unable to go into, as I am not a lawyer, and anyways what can happen in Cleveland, Ohio may not fly in Cleveland, Tennessee.

I am happy to see videos like this:

This young man was polite and respectful to the officer and the same courtesy was given to him in return. This young man was given a warning instead of a citation and he went on his way. What he didn’t try to do is try and intimidate the officer by showing what a “bad ass” he is. He also didn’t run, swear or be confrontational.

The next time you have a “police encounter,” I hope you remember who you’re dealing with. As a person and a position.

I’m starting to pay attention to some Twitter comments, as that will be part of my job in the week ahead.

This one popped up, Pat Sajak (the host of Wheel of Fortune) Tweeted the following:

When I had minimum wage jobs, my goal was to better myself, not to better the minimum wage.

It’s stuff like this that warms my heart. Because, in the minimum wage world, there are two groups of people: people who have mental/physical disabilities and everyone else.

The first group, people who have disabilities generally have some kind of public assistance supporting them. They work because they want to work. I commend them for that. To push or expand beyond their disabilities makes me very proud of them. If I was hiring, I would take someone with disabilities who push themselves 104% versus a non-disabled person who does the minimum to get by.

“Everyone else” actually have a couple of sub-groups. You have these broad categories:

• Teenagers in their first job
• Adults 30+ who have been laid off and are working to get a better job
• Seniors who are supplementing their retirement
• People who have worked minimum wage for 5+ years

The teenagers group get minimum wage jobs because they are still living at home. All they need is “gas and date” money, as probably their parents are paying for everything else. They have zero job experience and are looking to start their job history.

The 30 and older adults, they have experienced a setback by being unexpectedly laid off or whatever. They are doing whatever it takes to support their family, even if it means being a line worker in a fast food restaurant. Today, it is easier to get a job if you already have a job. It is assumed that if you have been unemployed for an extended period you are either A) a slacker or B) you are being too picky about a job. I experienced that during my nine months of unemployment last year.

Seniors, our third sub-group are looking to supplement their Social Security and stay active. Due to age discrimination, they can’t stay in whatever field they worked in during their younger years.

The last group are generally the ones who want the “living wage.” If you have worked in a minimum wage environment for 5+ years and are not disabled, let me put it to you bluntly: YOU ARE A SLACKER. Because this means you have not received a useful college degree or have not graduated from a trade school, thus upgraded your skills and become a more valuable worker because you have a knowledge and skill set that is in demand.

For several years back in the 90’s, I had a job installing point-of-sale computers in fast food restaurants. Because of the “back office stuff” I had to be knowledgeable about the industry. Here is what I found:

A $2.00 hamburger has the (roughly) following costs:

• 50 cents: Materials (bread, meat, cheese, etc.)
• 80 cents: Labor (workers, management, maintenance, etc.)
• 46 cents: Overhead (Main office workers, rent/mortgage, utilities, etc.)
• 14 cents: Franchise fees (the store owner paying the brand name)
• 10 cents: Net profit (what the franchisee receives)
• 200 cents: Total

Now, jumping the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15, that’s doubling it and then some. It would not be out of bounds to think that keeping the same amount of staffing at the higher rate would jump the labor costs probably about 48 to 50 cents. The result would be this:

• 50 cents: Materials (bread, meat, cheese, etc.)
• 128 cents: Labor (workers, management, maintenance, etc.)
• 46 cents: Overhead (Main office workers, rent/mortgage, utilities, etc.)
• 18 cents: Franchise fees (goes up because of the price increase)
• 10 cents: Net profit (what the franchisee receives)
• 252 cents: Total

So, because the labor costs almost doubled, the total price of the item jumped about 25%. It is math, and no matter how much you whine about it, that won’t change the numbers. This business will sell less of that $2.00 item because it will be “too expensive” for some people and they will probably choose another place, because all of the prices there will jump up a similar amount.

So, in order to reduce the labor costs back to the original 80 cents, a combination of two things is necessary:

• Reduce staffing levels (less jobs)
• Increase automation.

So, the result of increasing the minimum wage will result in either higher prices or less people working and more automation like this:

That is the result of artificially inflating wages. Any questions?

The mountain of irrefutable facts grows.

President Obama is steadily marching toward crowning himself Emperor Obama while the Republicans are paving the way by refusing to make any significant effort to impede his progress. Case in point: Iran. Here we have a country who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, who's President has repeatedly stated they want to "wipe Israel off the map" with nuclear weapons, who has supplied insurgents in Iraq and is currently supplying ISIS with the tools of war.

President Obama, in a horrible imitation of Neville Chamberlain (who negotiated a "peace at any price" agreement with Hitler) is currently negotiating with Iran, to delay them having a nuclear weapon "for 10 years." Which means the 45th President (unless Obama refuses to leave the White House) will have to deal with a nuclear mushroom cloud over Jerusalem or Washington, thanks to the Iranians.

Let me explain why a nuclear-armed Iran is A BAD THING. We have stood toe-to-toe since the 60's with the Soviet Union/Russia and China because they are reasonable men. They have not launched missiles at us, nor have we at them. We both want to survive and in a full scale nuclear war, there are no winners. We could use that to make sure the Soviets/Russians and Chinese would not attack us, because they know thousands of missiles and bombers would quickly retaliate.

Iran is not rational. They are perfectly willing to sacrifice themselves and their people to achieve the goal of killing most if not all Jews on the planet. You cannot talk them out of that. There is no incentive you can use to dissuade them from that goal. If they manage to acquire a nuclear weapon, they will use it the first chance they get. What Obama and the Republicans seem to forget, any treaty or agreement negotiated by the President must be ratified by the Senate. Obama thinks this agreement can be binding with just his signature, and by the laws of our country, it cannot without the consent of the Senate.

But then again, considering how much Obama has ignored the laws of this country, and how the Republicans refuse to do anything about it, the Senate just might rubber stamp the treaty. Right now, I am holding out zero hope that the Republicans will grow testicles and refuse to ratify this agreement. Because on the off chance they do actually refuse to ratify, Obama will sign the agreement despite the refusal of the Senate, then the Congress will not act to hold Obama to any account for violating the Constitution for the umpteenth time.

I am very scared. Not too much personally, rather for the country as a whole.

We are seeing the Chief Executive of the United States turning from a President into a dictator. It started with the "Affordable Care Act." The next chapter is "Net Neutrality." In each case, onerous regulations are enacted, mostly from the power given to the Executive Branch by Congress in the phrase, "The departments tasked with enforcing this Act may issue additional regulations as needed" or words to that effect.

The Law enforces draconian laws, however, if you are willing to endear yourself to those in power (bribes, campaign contributions, doing their bidding, whatever) you can obtain a "waiver" which exempts you from said onerous law. Through this mechanism, we depart from a nation of laws, where all are equal before the law, to most are crushed under the law, except for the privileged few who do not have to follow the law.

Then the new chapter, "Ammunition Bans." Just because the BATFE has "decided" to ban .223/5.56 ammunition, they are going to do it. Of course, BATFE "decided" APCP (the fuel used in high power model rockets and the Space Shuttle SRBs) was an explosive, it took 20+ years of bullshit to store and use something that is clearly not an explosive. I have more to say on this, I have to find the proper words.

We all know about the two American hostages of ISIS that were beheaded. Our Glorious Leader, President Barack Obama, issued some stern words to the press about this on his way to a game of golf. Earlier this week, ISIS executed a Jordanian fighter pilot by immolation and King Abdullah II is pissed. He ordered the immediate execution of two ISIS linked prisoners and flew home from the United States early. He is commencing to step up airstrikes and I am willing to bet that's just the start. He learned how to properly deal with terrorists.

In Beruit back in the 80's, twenty-five Americans were captured and held, some for years. Some were killed. During that time, four Soviet diplomats were taken hostage, all at the same time. One was killed, the other three were released unharmed within a month. Why the difference? This story might explain. Here's part of it:

The incident began when four Soviet diplomats were kidnapped last September by Muslim extremists who demanded that Moscow pressure the Syrian government to stop pro-Syrian militiamen from shelling rival Muslim positions in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. The militiamen, the Jerusalem paper said, did not cease their attacks, and the body of one of the Soviet diplomats, Arkady Katkov, was found a few days later in a field in Beirut.

So, the extremists were playing tough. The KGB was tougher:

The KGB then apparently kidnapped and killed a relative of an unnamed leader of the Shias' Hezbollah (Party of God) group, a radical, pro-Iranian group that has been suspected of various terrorist activities against Western targets in Lebanon. Parts of the man's body, the paper said, were then sent to the Hezbollah leader with a warning that he would lose other relatives in a similar fashion if the three remaining Soviet diplomats were not immediately released. They were quickly freed. The newspaper quoted "observers in Jerusalem" as saying: "This is the way the Soviets operate. They do things--they don't talk. And this is the language Hezbollah understands."

I like a leader that has brass balls the size of shot-puts that go klang klang klang when he walks.

You can't negotiate with people like this. They want us dead and no amount of talking will dissuade them from that goal. You have to kill the bastard. Make it clear to them that you will kill them, their wife, parents and children, their pet goat and camels and the rest of their family out to their 12th cousin twice removed. In order to make sure that his countrymen make sure we don't deal with the terrorists, you erase the terrorists village. Kill everybody and everything, all the way down to bacteria, and the five nearest villages as well. That should incentivize some self-policing.

Force is the only thing they understand. Raw, unmitigated, unstoppable, overwhelming force that could easily be confused with the wrath of God. I have no doubt our testicle-less Glorious Leader would never do such a thing. More's the pity.

With the several deaths that have ensued at police hands recently, people aren't listening to the other side. They basically agree on the major points, they just see things... differently. Here is a video story out of Phoenix that was about a Black Rights Activist going through a live use of force scenario.

When I had a CCW license, I trained constantly. Marksmanship, practical pistol competitions and specifically what are called "shoot/no-shoot" scenarios. I used an air-powered simulation pistol with a narrow light beam and sensor in the barrel, with a system similar to the NES's Duck Hunt. You then watched a short video using a wall projector to simulate the exercise. When you pulled the trigger, the air piston would rack the slide (thus giving the feeling of firing a round) and flash the light. The projection screen would for 1-2 frames go black, except for a white spot to represent a proper target, generally the center of mass of the person(s) on the screen. If the weapon was aimed at the white spot, the light would reflect off of it and back to the sensor in the weapon and tell the computer to register a kill. The computer would then play the appropriate video clip based on if you were justified in shooting and if you hit or missed. If the person(s) on the screen made an aggressive move (such as advancing toward you and/or pulling a weapon) and you shot and hit, the video would show the person dropping. If you missed, they would shoot you and declare you "dead."

Sometimes the person would throw up his hands and surrender or run off without pulling a weapon. If shot then, you lost because your use of force was unjustified. Police officers make split-second life-and-death decisions every day. "Armchair quarterbacks" who have days or months to analyze what happened will 99% of the time find something that the officer missed in the 0.72 seconds the officer had to decide in who lived and died. The armchair quarterbacks can also kibbutz about "Why didn't you shoot the gun out of his hand?" or "You should have shot him in the leg to stop him instead of the head" are blowing smoke out their ass.

Unless you have had to make those kind of split-second decisions, be quiet. You have no idea what you are talking about and "should haves" are bullshit.

Liberals, by and large, like to pigeon-hole everybody. Give them a label, and that's what you are for the rest of your life. Black, White, Conservative, Mentally Ill, it doesn't matter.

With real human beings, however you cannot realistically do this to them. No "bad" person is 100% "evil," nor is every "good" person 100% perfect. We are a spectrum ranging from good to bad and everything in between.

I now present Darlena Cunha. She came to my attention this morning, after writing in Time magazine in favor of people rioting in Ferguson. Something prompted me to take a deeper look at her through what she has written and this is what I found: in 2007, Darlena moved from California back home to the East Coast. She became pregnant by her boyfriend. Her boyfriend proposed, then they bought a house. Then, several events ganged up on her. Three weeks after closing, the housing market collapsed and their home instantly lost 40% of it's value. Then her boyfriend was laid off. Darlena gave birth to preemie twins, and decided to freelance from home to raise their children. As a result, they suffered an 80% pay cut.

She wrote the article, The day I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps, where she described her experiences applying for Medicaid, SNIP (otherwise known as food stamps) and WIC. She had this to say about the Mercedes (and why it was a significant part of the story):

That's the funny thing about being poor. Everyone has an opinion on it, and everyone feels entitled to share. That was especially true about my husband's Mercedes. Over and over again, people asked why we kept that car, offering to sell it in their yards or on the Internet for us. "Sell the Mercedes," a friend said to me. "He doesn't get to keep his toys now." But it wasn't a toy — it was paid off. My husband bought that car before we met. Were we supposed to trade it in for a lousier car we'd have to make payments on? Only to have that less reliable car break down on us? And even if we had wanted to do that, here's what people don't understand: The reality of poverty can spring quickly while the psychological effects take longer to surface. When you lose a job, your first thought isn't, "Oh my God, I'm poor. I'd better sell all my nice stuff!" It's "I need another job. Now." When you're scrambling, you hang onto the things that work, that bring you some comfort. That Mercedes was the one reliable, trustworthy thing in our lives.

I would like to say, as of the publication of the article (July 2014) they still had that Mercedes. Good for them. The next article gave me a very wide grin.

Darlena attempted to apply her Liberal virtues upon her children, and got them thrown right back in her face by her children. I’m a die-hard liberal. It ruined my parenting. What she attempted to do was apply a reasoned approach to why she did what she did to and for her six-year-old twin daughters. She attempted to get "buy-in" from her daughters and it failed miserably. Her daughters logic was impeccable and better than Darlena's.

So, she had to fall back on those old Conservative (although she doesn't use that term) principles of "Do it, because I'm your Mother." The system of telling young children (generally under 10 years old) what to do rather than explaining why and expecting the "now enlightened" child to do it of their own volition has worked for several thousand years. Once children start developing the ability to reason through several sequential thoughts to get from start to finish, then you can take the time to explain the why's and wherefore's to them. The best thing to do with children is tell them to do it. Make the rules for their conduct age appropriate and clear beforehand. If you have to administer punishment, do it when you are calm (or have the other parent do it while they are calm), then love and hug them before and after the punishment. When correction (and by extension discipline) are done through love and support rather than anger, you will end up with a better young adult. Now for the reason for the post: Ferguson: In Defense of Rioting. In typical Liberal fashion, she writes this (emphasis mine):

Because when you have succeeded, it ceases to be a possibility, in our capitalist society, that anyone else helped you. And if no one helped you succeed, then no one is holding anyone else back from succeeding. Except they did help you, and they are holding people back. So that blaming someone else for your failures in the United States may very well be an astute observation of reality, particularly as it comes to white privilege versus black privilege. And, yes, they are different, and they are tied to race, and that doesn’t make me a racist, it makes me a realist. If anything, I am racist because I am white. Until I have had to walk in a person of color’s skin, I will never understand, I will always take things for granted, and I will be inherently privileged. But by ignoring the very real issues this country still faces in terms of race to promote an as-of-yet imaginary colorblind society, we contribute to the problem at hand, which is centuries of abuses lobbied against other humans on no basis but that of their skin color.

Then Darlena has the temerity to invoke the Boston Tea Party. For those of you who do not keep up on history, the Boston Tea Party was a political protest over "Taxation Without Representation," the frustration of American Colonists and their being taxed by Great Britain without Colonial representatives in Parliament.

In today's dollars, about $1.6 million of tea was destroyed by throwing the chests containing said product were thrown overboard from three cargo ships. Nothing was burned and no one was hurt. Benjamin Franklin (that old, evil white guy) actually called for and tried to make restitution for the losses. The Boston Tea Party was actually considered at the time something shameful. It didn't get its current prospective until 60 years after the event.

As far as what I have in bold above, I think Darlena has a different dictionary than I do. My dictionary defines racism as, :"... the doctrine that a certain human race is superior to any or all others." To say "I am racist because I am white" as a blanket statement is beyond ludicrous. And, just as a thought, if she is a self-admitted racist, why should any person who is not of her skin color trust her?

I prefer to judge people on their actions and the content of their character. The color of another persons skin is not a factor in any decision I make about a person. There you go. Darlena is a self-admitted Liberal, and a self-admitted racist. Do I think every other Liberal is a racist? No. I make that determination based on each persons actions and words. You draw your own conclusion.

There are always consequences of your actions. Any action you perform interacts with and changes the Universe to some degree.

Too bad we have been taught that "consequences" has a negative tone. Because consequences can be positive as well. If you do the right thing for the right reasons, the resultant consequences are positive. If you hurt others, the consequences are negative.

Hence this article, U.Va. Looks at Alcohol as Factor in Sex Assaults. Disclaimer: I was drinking at 18. That being said, I was on a military base where the drinking age was 18. Off-base, the age was 21 and I did not drink off-base. I also assure you, if I had gotten drunk on-base and something stupid, I would have faced the negative consequences of my actions.

Back to the article: In this typically Liberal bastion, the Regents are more concerned about appearance than substance. So, these "regrettable incidents" are either quietly swept under the rug or ignored altogether. Here is a novel idea. How about the laws of the land be enforced? How about the university attach some significant consequences to bad actions? Let's start by enforcing the law of the land. All students under 21 years old found intoxicated will be presented to the police for investigation and if necessary, appropriate charges. Same with a sexual assault. Both parties are to be referred to the police for investigation and appropriate charges. That would include charges against the "victim" for filing a false report if that was found to be the case.

Now, what can the university do to ensure this doesn't happen on campus? How about, for a misdemeanor conviction, the student loses the entire semester. All class fees for that semester are forfeited. No classes count toward graduation. You must retake all of the classes for that semester. A second misdemeanor conviction during the twelve months following the first conviction will result in immediate expulsion from the university and forfeiture of all credits and fees. Any felony conviction will also result in forfeiture of all credits and fees.

As far as the "Greek system" goes, I am willing to give a bit more latitude, as one adult or organization should never be held accountable for the actions of another adult. If an on-campus Fraternity or Sorority (I'm willing to be equal here, the university in the article wasn't) in the course of a year (or whatever the pledge cycle is) has an "incident" involving a member of that Fraternity/Sorority, upon conviction of the member(s) involved, it goes on immediate probation. A second conviction results in pulling of that charter and banishment of that Fraternity/Sorority from the campus for not less than five years. I specify on-campus organizations, because the university has no authority over things that happen away from their campus.

Now, will this "stop" the underage drinking and sexual assaults? Of course not. An 18 or 19 year-old is by definition impulsive and curious. I most certainly was. I made my share of mistakes, and I paid for them. Fresh away from home like this they are on their own for the first time in their lives. They are going to try new things. Some of them will be stupid things. The best way to mold these wild young adults are to give them a clear set of rules and guidelines, as well as the positive and negative consequences of these guidelines. This should have been started when they hit about 10 years old, but I digress. To those who follow the rules, they will most likely end up as responsible and contributing members of society. Those who cannot or will not follow the rules, most likely won't have that outcome. It's really as simple as that.

I found this while working on my post below: NASW Statement on Ferguson Grand Jury Decision. Through my years working in behavioral health, I worked with a lot of Social Workers, as co-workers and as a client. As a group, Social Workers are very hard working. They want to help others. They are also frustrated, bound by constraints of the agency they work for, and the times when the services they offer do not fit with the needs their clients have. So when the "national organization" says things like this, it is disheartening:

NASW supports reforms that could prevent unnecessary police shootings from occurring. These include:

• National standards on the use of lethal police force.
• National standards on how police handle persons living with mental illnesses or disabilities.
• Training to help end police bias and racial profiling when dealing with people of color.
• Making body cameras standard police equipment.

First of all, I support body cameras on officers. It documents when they did things right, as well as when they do things wrong. Body cameras are an impassioned, neutral witness to events whose story does not change as time goes on. Second, "national standards" doesn't work. It sounds good, however remember we are a patchwork of 50 States, each with its own identity. What works in California probably won't work in Arkansas, and vice versa. Also, you would have to write out every possible instance and the appropriate reaction for that case.

Of course, none of the people who will write this "standard" will have ever been in a gunfight or any type of fight for their lives, thus having no idea what they are talking about. The result will be unreasonable standards of conduct, parsed to the point where even the tiniest mistake (Remember Ed, whose misplaced comma cost his firm $1.6 Million?) will leave the officer dead or in jail for the rest of his life.

"National Standards" probably won't work in dealing with "mental health calls" too much either. See above. Unless you want to apply something that supersedes the law, human kindness. People with mental health issues are not operating under the same set of facts that everyone else does. The result is, they will act differently. I know this, because I've been on that end of a "police encounter." The Crisis Intervention Team concept was developed here in Memphis, Tennessee. It teaches the officers to talk with, not command a person who is scared, disoriented and who sees and hears things no one else does.

I remember one time a man who was severely affected by paranoid schizophrenia. We were in a "Psychiatric Evaluation Ward" and he was curled up on the ground shouting, "Help me! The voices are telling me to kill!" Despite all that, the officer still has to protect himself and others. Here in Memphis, not every mental health call is successfully resolved, but the vast majority are.

Last point: I personally, just me, think that the laws should be as few as possible. With all of the laws, rules and regulations on the books, our physical, emotional, social, economic and other freedoms are extremely restricted by the government. That being said, the law must be color-blind. And I know in Ferguson it is not. Race should never be a factor for the police to stop or investigate a citizen for anything. If 79% of any group (be it by skin color, religion, sexual orientation or any other description you wish to use) breaks a law, it is no reason to detain without provocation any person of that group, because you just might grab one of the 21%.