I’m getting thru to the net at 19.2k via my cell phone. It’s painful, but it works. I’m used to loading web pages in 3 seconds instead of a minute or more. I’m connecting after 9.00pm because of my unlimited minutes so you’ll get Fridays information written Thursday night. I might get some work done on the blog over the weekend.

Don’t worry, we’ll get through this.

I have had an issue with John Stossel for years. I used to be a scuba instructor, and Stossel did a standard 20/20 attack piece against the diving industry, interviewing three disgruntled people, then doing a surprise hostile interview with the VP of PADI.

But this book sounds interesting. It’s one book I might actually read. Stossel: Fight Back – Don’t Let Big Brother Take Your Freedom.

I especially liked this paragraph:

“Remember the dead-eyed look of the people in the Soviet Union?” he asked. “That’s the same look of people who live in a bureaucratic state.”

I used to notice how the eyes of people in Soviet propaganda photos out of the 50’s and 60’s looked. Now I know why.

Here’s the money paragraph:

The media use fear to panic the people, politicians use it to pander, and the trial lawyers promise to make somebody pay, all in the name of junk science fostered on the public by people with their own political agendas.

We are all being played, and it’s time we woke up to this. It almost reminds me of the subliminal messages in They live.   Yes, unfortunately I watched that movie. It’s right down there with Deep Star Six.  &nbsp But I digress.

If someone wants to buy a poor guy on disability this book, let me know by my email address on the right and I’ll set up a gift account on Amazon. Then I’ll review it for you, dear readers.

In a related vein, I found this article on Fox, Too Fat: Federal Powers Need a Constitutional Diet. And while I agree with the premise of the story, I don’t agree with the substance.

The article goes on to talk about obesity and how the federal government is considering a bill to protect restaurants and food companies from lawsuits.

This is very similar to lawsuits brought against firearms dealers and manufacturers, specifically to bankrupt them by having to defend against dozens of suits, even if the suits have no grounds and never get to trial. Just having to defend against scores of motions costs thousands of dollars.

With the number of overweight people out there that are potentially sue happy, it doesn’t take a successful lawsuit, just the chance of one to have hundreds, if not thousands of “I’m fat and you made me this way” lawsuits brought against McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, et. al., and the weight of these lawsuits will eventually bankrupt them.

While I always disagree with the federal government stepping into such matters, this will prevent the irresponsible fat people from shifting the blame for their condition away from themselves and onto somebody else.

This is one bill that needs to pass.

I am now able to connect to the net with my cell phone. My unlimited minutes start at 9.00pm Central, so my work starts after that.

I’ll see you then.

When I came back from work last night, I found my cable down. I called and scheduled an appointment this morning and the cable guy will be out MONDAY AFTERNOON to fix my problem.

In the mean time, posting will be light and late tomorrow, and really late on Friday and Monday. I apologize for the inconvenience, but this is beyond my control. I am having to come into work to get my internet fix and this is the computer available for clients to play games on and such.

I have a way to hook (slowly) to the net using my cell phone, but I couldn’t get it to work last night. I will continue to try tonight.

Hold on. I’m doing the best that I can and help is on the way.

I found this article, Blagojevich calls for assault weapons ban, and I just want to say he misses the target, literally.

“No one needs assault weapons for hunting,” the governor [Blagojevich] said. “No one should need an assault weapon for any purpose unless you’re in the military fighting a war.”

First of all, like so many times in the past, these are not assault weapons. Those are weapons that have the option of automatic fire. Those have been regulated since 1934.

Second, he is right, you do need such a weapon when fighting a war, namely against an oppressive government that refuses to listen to the will of the people. That is the true meaning of the Second Amendment. Our founding fathers would be surprised that the system of government they set up has lasted so long without another revolution or two.

We have a three step box system to change this government, the soap box, the ballot box and the cartridge box. So far we haven’t needed the third, but when you get such a repressive and over-regulating government as such in Illinois, then step 3 cannot be far behind. That is if the people don’t like the government. It could be that they like that kind of system, in which case everything is working fine.

It has been said you get the government you want. I guess that’s true.

Well, it looks like Liberal Talk Radio has finally made it to the air. Liberal Voices Get New Home on Radio Dial. The bad news is they wanted to buy the stations so they could have total programming control over the station, but that hasn’t happened. They have had to purchase air time like everybody else.

A fellow blogger remarked that the life of Air America is only to December, whether or not Kerry is elected. If we get President Kerry, then Air America will have done its job of swaying the vote in those major markets, and if we get to keep President Bush, then it will run out of venture capitol and die anyway.

Only time will tell if Air America will make a difference or not.

I am still dragging from this weekend. My circadian rhythms are still off from the lack of sleep and the massive infusion of caffeine.

I didn’t find anything that caught my eye this morning, so no insightful news commentary. Oh well, maybe if I had access to Rush’s Stack of Stuff things would be different, but I don’t have the money to subscribe.

TTYL.

This past weekend I attended the MidSouthCon, held here in Memphis, TN. If you have never gone to such a convention, go, especially if you are young, 18-25.

This was a gaming convention, and boy did I game. Board games, card games, strategy games, war games, you name it. I even ran into Brock from Signifying Nothing, who was part of the strategy board gaming group and played a few games with him.

I ran a couple of Mechwarrior demos Friday and ran one tournament Saturday. Everybody got a prize, and we gave away free stuff whenever we could. My son bought a booster and got a highly prized unique figure. Pretty good for a $10 investment.

I also got to participate in the main reason why I attended in the first place, the Rogue Trader Tournament for Warhammer 40K. There were some problems, but we got the tournament under way. I placed second overall, losing only to a Chaos Space Marine army against which I had no chance anyway. I lasted about three turns longer than was expected, but I was wiped out from almost 50 figures to three.

My second game I did the same to my opponent, wiping him totally out except for one tank and three figures, but he made some stupid mistakes that made it easy. Destroying one of his main battle tanks with my first shot didn’t hurt either.

My third game was more balanced. I had to charge his stationary position, but I made it across the table and was able to meet the scenarios objectives better than he did, so I eked out a win.

I ended up with a certificate for BEST ARMY, which I plan on getting the particulars written via calligraphy and mounted on my wall. It reads, “By a combination of masterful painting with an eye for superb army background and theme, you have put together a force anyone would be proud to command!” Not bad for my first tournament.

Back to the Con. There were all kinds of people in costume. I saw Gabrielle from Xena, Milla Jojovich’s character from The Fifth Element,   pirates, ogres, and a lot of Stormtroopers. The Stormtroopers have their own Legion and go around doing stuff like any other club.

I also made an interesting discovery, a beverage called Bawls. This is a drink that is supercharged with caffeine. I went from tired to wired in 30 seconds and three swigs of this stuff. A staple at LAN parties, this will keep you up for days. I lived off of this stuff and snack foods for the entire con.

I also discovered the formula for Romulan Ale. Equal parts of 151 rum, blue curacau and Everclear. I shied away from it as I am not supposed to have alcohol on my medication, but those of my friends who did partake, it was indescribable.

I didn’t get out of bed until 9:30 this morning, still recuperating from the con, and will probably go to bed early tonight to finally make up for it. I got about 6 hours of sleep Thursday night (planning for the con), 4 hours of sleep for Friday night and another 5 hours on Saturday night. Coupled with the side effects of my medication, I probably really only got 12 hours of sleep over 4 days.

It was worth it. I’m going back next year. My only change will be to find a sitter for the birds and get a room so I don’t have to keep driving back and forth every day.

I wish I had a better search function on this blog. Maybe when I upgrade to MT and move over to conservativezone.com. This article is disturbing, and hopefully it will be brought down. Court Opens Door To Searches Without Warrants.

It’s a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business.

The article did not get into the specifics on what entailed a ‘brief search.’ Is is just the room you’re in, or does it include the entire house/apartment? Drawers, closets, etc? And so on.

Back in December when I was writing about the Campaign Finance Law that restricts the First Amendment, I wrote this:

We have taken the second step of violating the Constitution. There will be a third step soon, then a fourth. Soon it will become a walk, then a trot, then a run.

Ex Post Facto, First Amendment, now the Fourth. When will it stop?

This little Op-Ed, Without the Consent of the Governed, has some stuff that I can agree and disagree with.

I agree that Consent of the Governed is one of the bedrocks that this country was founded upon (God-man-government) and the government derives its powers from the people, not the other way around.

This I disagree with:

… courts cannot will majorities into being–they can only articulate the implications of previously established legislative actions.

Ever since the 60’s, Liberals have sought to install judges who want to bring about social change rather than interpret the law. They have been deciding on a wide range of social context subjects that would not pass legislatures because they were too liberal.

I have yet to hear of the case before the Massachusetts State Supreme Court that made them decide that homosexual marriage is legal. It appears that they decided one day to just okay it. This is precisely what I am talking about. That and decisions that lack any basis in reality. I wish I had some of these decisions on hand, but I don’t have a Nexus account to peruse the database and do the appropriate research.

The judges have just about the ultimate say on things, as they are the judges as to what is constitutional. The process to change the Constitution is enormously difficult (and rightfully so) so that only the really important laws make it.

However, judges who constantly “reinterpret” the Constitution are a significant danger to our society and must be stopped.

I found this, G, PG clean up at the box office and was not that surprised. They have been proclaiming this for years.

The reason why these movies gross so much is because these are family films. You get four tickets for the family so the kids can see the movie. And since kids like repetition, they’ll see the movie at least twice in the theater, then purchase the movie when it comes out on DVD, all adding to the gross. While the young adults in the 17-25 watching the R movies will most likely watch the movie only once, and rarely buy the DVD.

Sometimes I believe this is a feature, not a bug. Maybe for some reason Hollywood wants our young desensitizing to gratuitous violence. Why I don’t know. Maybe those movies are “placeholders,” getting the young adults to continue seeing theatre movies between them watching the G movies as kid then parent.

Who knows.

This article, Property Rights Form Foundation of Freedom, discusses a building block of our great republic.

Personal property and the Constitutional protections afforded it goes right up there with our freedom of speech and right to bear arms. The right to be secure in the possession of ones personal effects is what separates us from the Socialists, who believe that everything belongs to everybody. Yecch.

“A man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” – James Madison on Property, (1792).

While we here in Memphis have been able to successfully able to fight eminent domain on several occasions, at least we don’t see the abuse on a daily basis.

Our land developers here are hooked on shopping malls. Strip malls abound and the number grows every day. We have the Wolfchase Galleria, a 1.1 million square foot mall. They have another 1.3 million square feet of strip malls across the street, with a Wal-Mart Super center around the corner. And they are talking about putting in more malls.

But they don’t care that malls have a life cycle. As you build new malls, the older malls die. When my family and I first moved here in 1992, there was the Raleigh Springs Mall. A pretty jumping place. Now 3 of the 4 anchors have left and it is on its last leg. We just had the Mall of Memphis close on Christmas Eve. That was a blessing, because it was also known as the Mall of Murder, for a rather rampant crime problem.

But I digress.

Personal property and the right to not have it taken away for specious reasons is a cornerstone of our Constitution and society. Fight the injustice of false eminent domain whenever you see it.

If they can get away with it today, who knows what they will try for tomorrow.

It seems that I found all of today’s subjects already. I couldn’t find anything this morning to comment on that I didn’t already last night.

Enjoy.

I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “There’s lies, damned lies and statistics.” This article, Reading Between the Numbers shows that you should always be careful when someone tries to sell you something “and has the numbers to back them up.”

How can we trust research?

The question is not trivial, since studies and statistics form the basis for many of the laws under which we live. If they are wrong, then the laws may be as well.

Short of taking a course on statistics and poring over data, the best way to get a sense of which data to trust is through common sense. There are five questions you should demand of any statistic.

And it goes on to get you to question the underlying veracity of the facts. As you should.