New York Post Cartoonist -- NAACP Wants Your Head

The NAACP is calling for the firing of the cartoonist who drew a political cartoon they didn't like. The cartoon shows policemen standing over the bullet-riddled body of a chimpanzee and saying, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus package."

The NAACP claims it's racist, and associates the chimpanzee image with Obama. The artist says otherwise. In my view, the artist was clearly making the connection to the chimpanzee who attacked a woman and was then shot by police, and then the stimulus bill which was written mostly by Congress, not Obama.

I believe this is how the next 4 years is going to go. Anytime anything comes out that criticizes Obama, however veiled, some connection is going to be made that it's "racist" and the NAACP will then threaten boycotts until it gets its way. For the record, the paper already apologized (sort of) which was all the NAACP was calling for. Then they escalated their demands to the firing of the artist. What's next? Prosecution for hate crimes? Hate cartoons?

I don't subscribe to the New York Post, but I sent them an email earlier stating that if they don't fire the cartoonist then I may just go so far as to buy THREE subscriptions to their rag and give them to my friends.

Ok, this is fun ...

I recently discovered an online (free) video game called "Ikariam". You're put in charge of a quasi-Greek city state and told to go to town. You collect various resources, dispatch trade fleets, fortify your city and control an army. It's like mini-Civilization.

It's called "Ikariam" and I'm enjoying it a lot. Doesn't even seem to take up too much free time, as you can just click and walk away. If you can walk away, that is ...

Evangelism

I get sick and tired of the athiests and liberals in various forums and blogs I frequent, and grow quite weary of trying to discuss things with them. At times I throw up my hands and say, "To Hell with all of you!" and walk away.

However that is not what we are called to do. We are called to go into the sinful places and bring out the sinners with the words of Christ.

God, give me strength to do this task, the wit to be pleasant about it, and the intelligence to bring others to reason and your will.

13 Days of Glory

Texans should have preserved the area around the Alamo. Now only the old mission remains and the fields on which the men fought and died are replaced with hotels and Pizza Hut franchises.

Says it all

Survivalism and Beans

The level of moral blindness in the world is loathsome to me. There is a large group of people, I'll call them "latecomers" because they were late to wake up, who are now turning with frothing lips and bared teeth upon what they are told is a wealthy elite who has robbed them. Politicians are adding fuel to this fire.

While the wealthy elite are responsible for many sins, our current economic situation does not solely rest on their shoulders. I lay it squarely on the shoulders of everyone who has ever bought a product at Walmart that was made in China. I lay it squarely on the shoulders of anyone who ever voted for an incumbent who had failed to balance the government's budget or limit its spending. I lay it squarely on the shoulders of those who were too concerned with their own petty needs to worry about their children's future. I lay it squarely on my own shoulders.

Wealthy bankers are easy targets to hate. Their lavish lifestyles are repugnant, as is their sheer level of incompetence and graft. Right now these latecomers are perfectly willing to turn on them, but in time the wealthy bankers will be gone, their goods and wealth distributed to the mob, which will then squander and destroy it and begin looking for more. Eventually they will work their way down to the lowest level, turning upon YOU because you have three beans and they only have one. How DARE you have three beans? Don't you know others are making do with only one? They'll take one from you, and then later someone will show up who has no beans at all.

How DARE you have two beans when I have none?

Coming soon, to an alley near you ...

Irony

The same media which is bombarding us with the brilliance of Charles Darwin, who showed how "survival of the fittest" led us from big, bloated dinosaurs to small, agile mammals is also praising the economic stimulus which gives money to certain corporate giants deemed "too big too fail".

Yesterday you got robbed, people, if you don't know it yet. They passed the economic stimulus package. The government didn't want another repeat of earlier public outcry, so they only gave us 10 hours to see the thing before we voted on it. The media wrapped this one up nice and neat for Obama and it benefits nothing but private industries, unions, and politicians. It's theft. Pure and simple.

Bees

So the bees I installed at a neighbor's farm didn't survive through the winter. They starved out. Of the two hives I entered the winter with, one of them looks like it's going to starve out. The other is in decent shape, from appearances. I sugared both of them up pretty heavily, but if the population in the poor one has already fallen too low then they're done for. It's full of dead, frozen bees so I don't have a huge amount of hope for it. There's stll some crawling around in there, so maybe ...

This spring I've got to order more bees and see if I can't ramp up to a decent population. I'd like to close out this year with at least 8 hives.

An additional comment about politicians and apples ...

So if I were to reach into a bag of apples and pull out 3 of them completely at random and find that all three are spoiled, what would be the chances that the entire bag is spoiled? Pretty good, eh?

So Obama pulled out three politicians and found that they were corrupt and criminal fraudsters. What does that say about the rest of them?

Diogenes = Obama?

Richardson, Killefor, Daschle all blew up in his face. It's really no wonder these liberals don't really mind putting in place all these government programs. It's not like THEY'RE paying the tax bill.

Seriously though ... I actually feel sorry for Obama. How would YOU feel if you were forced to find an honest man in Washington DC?

On the Federal Reserve and Ron Paul's attempt to abolish it...

For a really good understanding of this, read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G Edward Griffin.

 

To summarize, the Federal Reserve doesn't exist to back our currency. It exists so that private banks loan our government money, which isn't backed by anything, which we (the taxpayers) then pay interest back to those banks. It's a complicated process designed to extract more taxpayer money and give it to a shadowy group of bankers (whose names aren't published).

 

President Woodrow Wilson, after signing the act that put the Federal Reserve in power, later came to realize what a mistake he had made. He said:

 

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

 

Right now, the American dollar is not backed by gold or any other substance. The government literally does not stand behind it in any way. It is a worthless piece of paper (fiat currency) whose entire value depends upon the shared global delusion that it is worth something. Right now the rest of the world is desperately casting about for something else to use as a standard. Putin and the Chinese Premier just went to the U.N. and demanded a change last month. Other nations feel (and they are right) that depending upon the American dollar which is worthless and backed by nothing puts America at an unfair economic advantage since our government can just print more of the worthless paper anytime they want.

 

Here in the next couple of years, as our economy goes further and further down the drain, you can expect that more nations are going to be disconnecting themselves from the American dollar. If they won't accept our worthless paper anymore, then it LITERALLY becomes worthless overnight. If we have to depend on some actual backed currency then America, as a nation, becomes a third-world country overnight.

 

Before one of you says that I'm exaggerating about that third-world statement, I challenge you to read the book I mentioned at the beginning of this post. The perils of fiat currency are well known and well documented. Most politicians stay in power by doling out favors and pork to their constituents. Without massive amounts of fiat currency, they can't stay in power. This gives them no incentive to change the system.

 

Ron Paul's bill is not going to go anywhere. It's like standing at the edge of the hog pen and commanding the pigs to stop eating. And I guarantee you that if we did abolish the Federal Reserve we'd have massive systemic problems immediately. However I guarantee you that those problems are going to reach us someday. It's like a man juggling rattlesnakes. The longer he does it the more risk he assumes, but he doesn't dare stop.

 

Turmoil

I can't imagine the anger seething out there in America, brewing under the surface. Try and picture, if you will, the mindset of the average American who has just watched his tax dollars taken from him and given to the company which just laid him off and to the bank which is just about to foreclose on him.

Kentucky

I drove through Kentucky on Friday. Trees were down all along the highways and I've never seen so many cars in ditches. In various parts they had power on, but in many others there wasn't anything. I'd filled up my truck in West Virginia so I didn't need to stop for gas, but many service stations had no power to pump and no water to flush. It was a mess.

The news was saying there's still almost a half million homes without electricity or water. Temperatures are still well below freezing, shelters are extended way past capacity, and there's still no sign of the government, state or federal, or any FEMA aid. Not that I'd wish FEMA on ANYONE in a disaster. Dozens have died and the national guard is asking people to leave their homes and flee the state.

However, it's important to note that when urban blacks in New Orleans are dying, it's newsworthy and the media is screaming and pleading for a Republican president to do something. When it's rural (and mostly white) Kentuckians dying then it's not even a blip on the nation's radar.

Another sign of the double standard.

On the topic of FEMA camps ...

Many of you are believing that these FEMA camps are little more than in-case-of-emergency camps set up to prevent another Katrina-esque disaster. Let me use history to explain to you just how wrong you are.



In 1937 the government opened up the first labor camp which was called "Arvin Migratory Labor Camp." These were run by the federal government under a branch called the "Farm Security Administration". They were put forward as a charitable solution, but the real goal was to have access to ready pools of skilled farm labor without exposing local communities to shanty towns and petty thievery. Initially they rounded up Mexican and Mexican-American laborers, but eventually the camps included more Anglo-American farmers such as those displaced by the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. Anyone who was displaced from their home and land ended up in one of these labor camps, and they existed right up until the defense industry geared up and workers started earning enough to go out and find a place for themselves again.



Any fan of bluegrass music is familiar with their discussion of the labor camps in the Great Depression. They are documented in Depression-era literature such as "The Grapes of Wrath".



Initially it was not mandatory that you allow yourself to be locked into one of these camps. However farm owners looking for day laborers would only go to the camps, so if you were on the outside you did not have much potential of finding work. By being on the outside you also faced risk of robbery, attack from bandits, arrest for vagrancy, the forced dissolution of your family, or harassment by locals who didn't want you there. Not to mention the very real threat of starvation.



The Farm Security Administration and FEMA's predecessor organization (Federal Emergency Relief Administration) were set up by Roosevelt in the 1930's. They were as close as we've come to America (so far) towards collectivist agriculture like what was practiced in the old Soviet Union. They were part of the "New Deal" legislation where Roosevelt enacted many bailouts and new government agencies with the stroke of a pen. Many critics and economists now believe that Roosevelt simply used the Depression as a means to enact his socialist agenda and actually hampered economic recovery by a period of 17 years.



History repeats itself. Obama is now using the same rhetoric and dire warnings that Roosevelt did in order to forward his own agenda. If you listen to their speeches and interviews, he and his cabinet members repeatedly refer to Roosevelt. They clearly idolize the former president and his "New Deal". Look at the massive numbers of foreclosures and layoffs in the news lately. Look at the locations of these FEMA camps (California, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, etc.). You've got the makings of a large displaced population (once they can't make rent and they've exhausted the goodwill of friends and relatives). You've got large camps situated in the heart of agricultural territories where corporate agriculture can use them.



If you don't believe me now, it's because you're not paying attention.