Mike at Half-Bakered has come out of his shell and put his Liberal Arts degree to use with Harold Ford, Jr.’s Soliloquy.
It starts:

To run, or not to run, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler for the candidate to suffer
The slings and arrows of campaigning
Or to take refuge against a sea of troubles in a safe House seat,
And by ducking again avoid them? To run: to campaign;
Once more; and by running to say we welcome
The heartache and the thousand political barbs
That candidates are heir to, ’tis a falsehood

Read the rest. It’s a riot.

I didn’t get in until early this morning, then overslept and had to rush to get to work. I’m at work right now to let you know that any blogging I do will be tonight.
See you later.

I’ve updated my blog a little bit, I’ve added some new blogs to my blogroll, and added “A Human Right” to my sidebar as well. I highly suggest that you click on it to learn what’s it about. You’ll have two ways to go once you hit the web page, I highly suggest that you click the “A Liability” first. It’s a real eye opener for those of you with an anti- view of this necessary human right.
Two two separate blogs are both about Epic:Armageddon. Since they are not my “normal” list of political blogs, I decided to put them a little separately.
I will be adding some ribbons as soon as I can get off my lazy butt and do it. All it takes is initiative and effort, which I seem to lack at the moment.
See you tomorrow.

The realm of where you can be by yourself and not be monitored is shrinking quickly to zero. Two articles drive home this fact:
Surveillance Cameras Reduce Private Space and Prying eyes are everywhere.
The only good point is that it’s not a monolithic government doing all of the monitoring. The bad point is it’s not a monolithic government doing all of the monitoring. You have to worry about your boss, spouse and parents as well.
Your keystrokes on your computer, webcams, GPS tracked cellphones, these are just a few of the many ways you can be tracked wherever you go, whatever you do.
I think the end of the second article sums it up pretty well:

“There’s a lot more insecurity because people don’t know if they’re being watched or monitored. They’re more cautious. And therefore there’s a certain amount of paranoia that exists today. Who’s watching me? Little Brother? Big Brother?”
The future probably will be even more intense.
“It’ll take a while,” Saffo predicts. “But we’ll be well into it in the next 10 years. Wherever you go, you get to be tracked. And finding privacy is really going to become an oddity.”

Privacy will become an oddity. How quaint. Not.

Rust never sleeps and all that.
I just happened across a multimedia presentation of an Epic:Armageddon battle report and I wanted to share it with you. Here it is.
This gives you the whys and hows of the rules as well as the battle report and you can see the battle unfold. Check it out and enjoy!

Well, that dreaded day is finally here. Even though I got a large refund, I procrastinated until yesterday before my return was sent in. Now that I know that I qualify for the EITC I’ll be filing a lot earlier next year.
By the way, the 17th is another important tax day, it’s when you start working for yourself. From January 1 until this coming Sunday, every dollar you earned up to that point has gone to pay taxes of some sort.
Just remember that.

Sorry, I couldn’t find anything to comment on today, nothing struck my eye.
I post these little note saying no news because in my case, no news is bad news. If I am not posting without prior warning, then something is wrong with me in a serious way. These little posts are my way of saying “I’m okay.”
Y’all come on back tomorrow and see what I have posted, okay?

Here is a clear cut example to show that the Fourth Estate is all for illegal immigration: ‘Minuteman’ Newsbeat Shuns The Word “Illegal”.
The newspapers simply refuse to use the term “illegal immigration.”
From the article, here are some headlines:

1. 1,000 activists to patrol Arizona border for migrants
2. Volunteer patrols stir uneasiness on border: Minuteman Project could draw 1,000 for migrant watch
3. ‘Minutemen’ wage immigration battle at border
4. IMMIGRATION: More than 20 area activists plan to watch border crossers. Fears of violence arise
5. Wanted : Border Hoppers. And Some excitement, Too.
6. Hispanic legislators to monitor monitors: Lawmakers will keep tabs on border project
7. Tombstone at the eye of Minuteman storm
8. Border watch group, human right activists arrive for monthlong patrol
9. US vigilantes begin border stake-out
10. Immigration Opponents To Patrol U.S. Border: Rights Groups Condemn ‘Minuteman’ Protest
11. Private volunteers patrol a porous border
12. Border watchers have eyes on Texas
13. Tombstone gang guards US border
14. Border volunteers descend on tourist town
15. Armed Volunteers Plan to Patrol Border

This can be best summed up by the following thought:
“Calling an illegal alien an undocumented immigrant is like calling a rapist an undocumented boyfriend.”
Yeah.

I commented on Mae Magouirk earlier, the grandma who was not terminally ill, not in a Persistent Vegetative State or anything like that that was given the Terri Schiavo treatment.
Here’s the full story: Closest kin prevented from visiting ‘grandma’.
You should read this, and see just how this woman is being abused. For some reason the granddaughter has her head in the wrong place and basically wants to hasten Grandma’s death instead of letting it occur naturally. She totally misreads the situation and is being an ass about what is going on, just like Michael Schiavo.

Sorry for the no posts today, but other pressing business is upon me. I’ll see what I can do tonight so you can have a double dose of bloggedy goodness tomorrow.

Here you go, that old slippery slope again: Granddaughter yanks grandma’s feeding tube.
Here you have the case of an 81 year old woman, who has a living will in place for all measures to be taken to extend her life. She is alert and lucent. She is not terminally ill, comatose or in that “persistent vegetative state.” She merely cannot feed herself.
Yet a judge ignores her living will, and hands custody of the grandmother over to her granddaughter. What does the granddaughter do? Transfers Granny to a hospice and proceeds to remove all life support, including food and water.
Reread that second paragraph again, then reread the third.
Such is the culture today. The grandmother wants to live, and the granddaughter wants her to starve to death, because she heard about how “peaceful” the starving process is.
What disturbs me is the words of the granddaughter:

“Grandmama is old and I think it is time she went home to Jesus,” Gaddy told Magouirk’s brother and nephew, McLeod and Ken Mullinax. “She has glaucoma and now this heart problem, and who would want to live with disabilities like these?”

Obviously Grandma would want to live with disabilities like these, because they have had to keep her sedated at the hospice. If I were her I would be raising holy hell over being starved to death.
But there is good news at the end of this story: ‘Grandma’ airlifted to medical center.
This is a sad state of affairs, and I am sad to report that this goes on every day. This needs to stop, because every death is an encroachment into life.

This article will get you to thinking. State Legislators Weigh in on Gun Debate.
The article opens with a surprising fact, and asks a pertinent question:

With more than four out of five states allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons, that argument is finished. Now, the nation’s long-running argument over guns turns on how much to loosen the rules — should guns be allowed in judge’s chambers? Bars? In workplace parking lots?

Many states are loosening the carry laws as to where citizens with Concealed Weapons Licenses can go. Like here in Tennessee, when the law was first passed, I could not go armed into any place which “sold or served alcohol.” That was ruled to include places like grocery stores and convenience stores. That hole is now in the process of being corrected.
Look at it this way: School shootings started to occur after schools were declared “gun-free zones.” Why? because people don’t have guns there. There would be no one to prevent them from killing with impunity.
Put yourself in the shoes of a criminal. You pull a knife on someone and ask for their money. They pull a gun instead of a wallet. What are you going to do? Run like hell. Even if you have a gun, are you going to be enthusiastic about trying to rob someone who can shoot you? If you don’t know who’s armed, are you likely to go after anybody?
Guns, in the hands of responsible citizens, reduce crime, period. They deter anybody who wants to do bad things. If you don’t know who’s armed, you are less likely to carry out your plans.
Think about it.

Robert Novak reports in todays Sun-Times that the New York Times may have gone too far: Quest to get a Republican to fight DeLay may have crossed a line.
This line, the one between impartial observer to biased participant, was crossed long ago by many of the Fourth Estate. Their distorted Liberal views and the mindset that goes along with it, has long been known to us on the Conservative side.
How do we know? Look at any “hot” political topic. For example, in the 2000 election, President Bush’s service in the Guard was brought up, gone through and dropped as nothing important. In 2004, instead of staying dead, it was brought up again and again, this time with manufactured documents that was detrimental to the President. Every time something was discovered that hurt the President, it was loudly proclaimed on page 1. If anything that was supportive of the President was published at all, it was way back in the paper.
If lawyers violate the canons of their profession, they are soundly thrashed and disbarred. When (not if) reporters violate their objectivity, they are proclaimed as heroes from the rooftops.
Novak is merely reporting that the Emperor has no clothes.

It seems the depression is kicking up a notch, it’s been hard getting out of bed and staying out of the closet these past few days. After such a high as MidSouthCon, I’m not that surprised. That was a couple of days of running around Manic like my hair (what little is left) was on fire. The disruption of my schedule, and everything else has put me off my feed, but I plan to recharge this weekend.
I’ll see you Monday.

This is a travesty of justice. Sometimes, There Ought Not To Be a Law.
Things should be criminalized because they are bad, not bad because they are criminalized.
This is a prime example of a legislature out of control:

Unfortunately, RIDA [Recycling and Illegal Dumping Act] is only one example of overcriminalization at work. Historically, criminal convictions required defendants be found guilty of both criminal intent (mens rea) and a criminal act (actus rea). Activist legislators such as Sen. Feldman aim to diminish — or eliminate altogether — the requirement of criminal intent and focus solely on the harmful act.
This break with centuries of legal precedent is dangerous. It jeopardizes the liberty of everyone. Consider: Will average New Mexicans have any reason to suspect that it is a criminal offense to store old tires on their own property?
Criminalizing relatively minor offenses damages the credibility and authority of the rule of law. Civil society prospers when citizens acknowledge the laws that govern them as patently legitimate. When the rule of law becomes nothing more than the whim of power-hungry legislators, civil society suffers.

Amen. Lawmakers pass laws like they were paid on a commission basis. Maybe they ought to pay a fee for every time they want to introduce a law. Something on the order of 1/4th to 1/3rd of their salary for being a legislator. Then put it on a sliding scale for those who have money beyond what they get for being a lawmaker.

Under the vague pretense of protecting public health, safety, or vitality, government can justify criminalizing an unlimited litany of offenses — and therein lies the problem. As long as government can do something, it will, and so legislators will legislate and prosecutors will prosecute.

Just think about that for a minute, and ask yourself if that’s what you really want.