Helpful government - thewaywardwind's Blog

Helpful government - thewaywardwind's Blog - Victoria Advocate http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind Government from local to national is deciding what is "best" for us. California wants to put remote control thermostats in homes because the government knows best. California has decided that children cannot be home schooled unless the parent has a teaching certificate because the government knows best. Mississippi has a bill pending in the legislature that fat people (as defined by the state) cannot be served in restaurants because the government knows best. Texas tells people they cannot play eight liner machines that pay out too much because the government knows best. The United States government tells us what time it is because the government knows best. I'm tired of the government telling me what is best. I want to return to the days when I was allowed to decide for myself what is best. Government from local to national is deciding what is "best" for us. California wants to put remote control thermostats in homes because the government knows best. California has decided that children cannot be home schooled unless the parent has a teaching certificate because the government knows best. Mississippi has a bill pending in the legislature that fat people (as defined by the state) cannot be served in restaurants because the government knows best. Texas tells people they cannot play eight liner machines that pay out too much because the government knows best. The United States government tells us what time it is because the government knows best. I'm tired of the government telling me what is best. I want to return to the days when I was allowed to decide for myself what is best. en-us Texans One; Governor Goodhair Zero http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9918 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9918 <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6196406.html">http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6196406.html</a> This is the best news I've heard since I found out my wife wasn't pregnant.  Now that it's dead, let's drive a stake through its heart so it doesn't come back later. Just when you thought red light cameras were intrusive... http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9865 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9865 ...Oregon wants to use GPS technology to tax its drivers. <a href="http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2008/12/28/news/local/1aaa02_road.txt">http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2008/12/28/news/local/1aaa02_road.txt</a> It's nice that the state says it won't track people using this technology.  Uh huh.  I'm sure the citizens can believe that.  Of course, the state being Oregon, the citizens probably DO believe it. Preching on the editorial page? http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9841 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9841 I'm sorta used to seeing Kenneth Schustereit's preachy blogs on the Advocate web site, but this morning when I opened the paper to the editorial page, I found him preaching in a guest column.  Is the Advocate turning into a religious publication rather than a newspaper?  If, in the name of fairness, I find a column from a part-time amature imam, I think I'll just cancel my subscription.  Please, Advocate, print the news, editorial opinions of the news, and opinions of credible journalists whose opinions of the news we might not get to read and leave the preaching to preachers.  It's just my opinion, but like some other things, everybody has one. What do people expect? http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9829 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9829 <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081223/D958CL280.html">http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081223/D958CL280.html</a> Once again thousands of people are stranded in cold country airports because of delayed and canceled flights.  They get mad at the airlines because the snow in six feet deep and the winds are blowing 50 MPH and the planes can't fly.  I know that people like to be with family at holiday time, but, come on people.  Be reasonable.  Chicago's O'Hare airport is among the hardest hit in this particular storm pattern and a disruption in O'Hare can affect travellers all over the country.  When a major hub gets blasted, not only can planes that are there not leave, planes that are in other places cannot get in.  I know people get frustrated, but why do they lose all their common sense?  The passengers demand the airlines get them to their destinations but there are no planes flying.  They demand that the airlines work with them exclusively but there aren't enough employees to give each passenger immediate attention.  Lines are inevitable.  If you don't want to be inconvenienced at Christmas, stay home, have some turkey and hot chocolate and watch the news stories of idiots stranded by a "surprise" snow storm in, of all places, CHICAGO!  Make your travel plans to visit Grandma for the Fourth of July when you are much less likely to be stranded by a snow storm in Chicago, Denver, Seattle, St.Louis, Kansas City or Cleveland.  I know some tree huggers are talking about global warming, but this is one of the coldest winters in decades.  Chill. Another chance for BO fans to cheer http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9792 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9792 Here's another chance for all you fans of BO to cheer his being elected.  He's a sponsor in the Senate of the Global Poverty Act which will, if passed, require the US to increase its spending on humanitarian aid from 23 to 98 billion dollars a year.  It is the US response to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal project of reducing by fifty percent the number of people worldwide who live on less than two dollars a day.  Unfortunately, it also has portions that infringe on US Constitutional rights.  It would require the president develop and implement a policy to "cut extreme global poverty in half  by the year 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief and other programs.  BO said the bill is the type of legislation, "We can -- and must -- make a ... priority."  BO said, "It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water."  Specifically, the Act would declare that the official US policy is to eliminate global poverty, that the president is "required" to "develop and implement" a strategy to reach that goal and requires that the US efforts be "specific and measurable."  Since the US is broke, BO doesn't say exactly how he'll pay for all this.  The UN resolution would, if adopted, commit nations to banning small arms and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention an the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the Millennium Project confirms the UN plan is to force the US to add about sixty-five billion dollars a year to what the US already donates.  Sachs says the only way to raise the funding is through a "global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels."  This would amount to a tax of from thirty-five cents to a dollar a gallon on gasoline in the US. It seems that BO wants the US to fund the world.  He won't eliminate poverty, though, he'll simply expand it to include the United States.  Think how pleased you will be to have the United Nations tell you your gun ownership is now illegal because the world requires it.  Think how you will be pleased that the UN will be telling you how to raise your kids.  And remember, this is a priority project of Barack Hussein Obama, our newly elected messiah.  Let the flames begin! What happened to the Secret Service? http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9763 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9763 Let's see...an idiot throws his shoes at the President and the Secret Service didn't shoot the barefoot thrower?  What's going on here?  Why isn't this guy as dead as last weeks meatloaf? World Government??? http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9699 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9699 Bill Kennedy wants the United Nations to take over the government of the world. He doesn't say what that would do to the United States and IT'S government.  I'm not sure exactly WHY Kennedy would want the United States to surrender soverignty to the UN but that's what he wants.  Bill, if we were to do that, what would you say to the ghosts of the Founding Fathers who were willing to hang together so they would not have to hang separately.  How would reconcile the U.S. Constitution with the UN charter?  Would you pledge alliegence to the UN?  I guess the hundreds of thousands of men and women who gave the last full measure for liberty in this great land died for nothing.  If we surrender our government to the UN, that's what we're saying.  I think it's treasonous for anyone to suggest submitting to the UN and a One World Government.  Not only no, but HELL NO! Bush will live in Dallas http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9678 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9678 President Bush and his wife have purchased a house in Dallas.  That's a shame.  His sorry self  should move to deep south Texas, close to the border where they could possibly learn to appreciate the efforts by the U.S. Border Patrol and its agents to stop drug running and illegal crossing of the border into Texas.  Perhaps some of the illegals would damage his property and even threaten him and his Secret Service escorts.  Perhaps THEN he would wish he'd pardoned the Border Patrol agents his "justice department" persecuted into prison.  Now, all he has to worry about are some Oklahoma football players crossing the Red River heading south  to get home to mama.  Twenty thousand soldiers for domestic defense http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9640 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9640 I saw this story on the internet and it reminded of some discussions on this forum last week.  I'm not sure just how I feel about it.  My Liberterian core says it's not a good idea, but I also understand that local law enforcement can be, and sometimes is, overwhelmed.  <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_pf.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_pf.html</a> Pirates -- and not from Pittsburgh http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9616 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/thewaywardwind/9616 Somali pirates have captured another ship, this time a chemical tanker, in the Gulf of Aden/Indian Ocean area southwest of the Persian Gulf.  It is reported that there were there British security people on board and they jumped into the sea and were rescued by a French vessel.  The security people jumped overboard when the pirates took the ship????  Well, yeah.  You see, they were not armed.  Now, I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know that there are few things more useless than an UNARMED security guard.  If the ships carried automatic small arms and 20mm cannon mounted on the bridge wings, the pirates with their speedboats won't get within a quarter of a mile of a ship thus armed.  The AP reports that 40 ships have been hijcked this year out of 97 attacked.  Fifteen ships with about 300 crew members are still being held hostage including a 300 thousand ton oil tanker.  The question I have never seen answered is HOW THE HELL can the pirates board a ship under way on the high seas from a speedboat.  The decks of ships are from 30 to almost a hundred feet above the water.  How do the thugs get on board to take over the ship?