According to my contract with the blogosphere, I have to link to Instapundit every few days. So check out this NATIONAL POST by Matt Welch.
For those who like good old fashioned drama, watch the "Peacemakers" starring Tom Berenger.
I've watched two episodes so far and it's a good TV series. Since I like it they'll probably cancel it.
At the moment I'm watching Jerry McGuire, starring Tom Cruise. Man, this is a pretty good movie. However, XRLQ has an opinion on something.
The Reverend Donald Sensing has an interesting post about a dilemma his church faced and an opinion about the recent news about Gene Robinson.
In the comments sections there are many comments worth reading and, apparently, this subject matter is important to many people.
It's been a little while since one of the mindless minions from the lunatic Roger Weidner gang has come over to where I live to tell me that the FBI has been informed that I'm committing all sorts of homosexual Satanic crimes and that soon the FBI will be out to bust me.
I'm not the only one the gang tells this nonsense to. Hard to believe the gang has been informing on their perceived enemies to the FBI for about twenty years, but it's true. The thing is, what the gang tells the FBI about the gang's perceived enemies is doing is based on outrageous, ridiculous delusions.
Over the years I've had a lot of people come up to me and start out talking to me by saying, "We were told......", and then they end that beginning part of the sentence by saying I'm a Scientologist, a space alien, a homosexual Satanic ritualist, a psycho, a person who has the dreaded "small man's anger", and other nonsense.
The "small man's anger" nonsense I heard just recently. At first I didn't know what it meant but after asking I found out it means small guys like me want to fight big guys. Well, apparently, a lot of people were told by the Roger Weidner gang that I went around getting into bar fights with big guys. I don't and never have and, generally, throughout my life I've managed to avoid fights. Although I have been shot at, attacked with knives, attacked with a hatchet, and been beaten up more times than you can imagine I never started a fight. Most of the fights I couldn't escape from were usually started by gang members of this or that gang who gave me orders that I refused to obey.
Sometimes I think my stubbornness is just plain stupid. I know I've ended up in a hospital numerous times because I refused to do something I thought was idiotic that somebody ordered me to.
Good Grief, first VodkaPundit and then Lileks.
Next thing you know if I want to find out about the blogosphere I'll be checking out Scottish Blogs.
What do you think of the title to this post? Pretty radical, isn't it? I actually stole the title from the Legal Theory Blog.
At the moment, depending on whichever post you read from the Legal Theory Blog or one of the postings of Hugh Hewitt entitled The Catholic Test, Part 2, you may find out that The Legal Theory Blog is a member of the "frenzied left." Maybe if The Legal Theory Blog takes valium then The Legal Theory Blog will be a member of the "very relaxed and mellow left".
Now for a serious thought. Despite all the word play on both sides of the issue, the Democrats are being hounded by the National Organization of Women and other radical abortion, one issue proponents to try and derail all nominations of Catholics based on the perceived notions that Catholic judges will uphold the laws of the Vatican instead of the laws of the US.
I, personally, am pro-choice, but even I have to admit there are crazies in the pro-choice movement that I don't want to have anything to do with. Even though I disagree with the Vatican on a lot of things (I'm not Catholic) I can still see that the Democrats are using religion to deny otherwise well qualified individuals from being appointed to the federal bench. To me this smacks of the most vile of religious bigotry. And believe me, I am constantly being insulted and put down for my Taoist philosophy and the fact that I studied Zen for about twenty years so I know about religious bigotry. I have even been assaulted for some of my beliefs.
The Prince George's County, MD police are probably some of the most violent and incompetent police anywhere in the US. I guess this includes their canine units.
Here in beautiful, downtown, looney, homophobic, racist Washington County we have a police force that has a canine unit that is one of the most professional and disciplined in the entire US. It is the canine unit of the Beaverton Police Department and it is one of the best canine units in the US....AND.... sometimes, during each summer, the canine unit even puts on a show that is quite impressive. I know, I've seen it. There are exceptions to all things and even the Beaverton Police Department has a person, in my humble opinion, of dubious honesty, and his name is Dr. Ron (everybody is a homosexual Satanic pedophile) Turco. Not only is he a dubious Beaverton Police officer, but he is also a dubious psychiatrist.
But remember, don't piss him off because he is also, according to people who come over to where I live and bore me, a karate expert. Wow!!!
My own personal opinion is that he is just............dubious.
However, there are police departments that act more like gangs of thugs than well disciplined law enforcement agencies and one of them is mentioned in the link and story below:
ABCNEWS.com : When Police Dogs Grow Too ViciousAfter being arrested and treated for his wounds — and then not charged with any crimes — Azurdia sued and received an undisclosed settlement.
When Willie Walker was arrested in 1997, he was repeatedly bitten by a police dog. Though he was found to be guilty of no crimes, he was seriously injured and suffered permanent disfigurement.Esther Vathekan was asleep in her own bed in 1995 when police say she was mistaken for a burglar. Her face was mauled by police dogs.
All three incidents took place in Prince George's County, Md., about 25 minutes from Washington, D.C. The dogs, often 110-pound German shepherds, are the county's trained police canines. But according to press accounts, approximately 1,300 people have been attacked since 1987, making these police dogs — which are supposedly under the control of officers — the most dangerous canine unit in the country.
The department has been the target of federal civil rights investigations, with the FBI initiating 33 criminal investigations since 1999. A Downtown investigation shows that problems may still persist, despite reports of change.
"The police dog is a very valuable asset," said James Fyfe, a former New York City police officer who tracks alleged police misconduct nationally. "But when they're misused, they're awful."
And like all weapons, their misuse can lead to devastating consequences.
"Unlike a police gun, a dog never misses," said Fyfe, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "They're very, very serious … They've torn out bicep muscles, tricep muscles, torn noses and ears off and really left maiming injuries."
According to Fyfe, the problems with the dogs of Prince George's County is really a problem with the officers who handle them. In some cases, he said, the officers use the dogs as a four-legged form of excessive force. "I had never encountered a situation quite like P.G. before," he said of Prince George's County. "The professionalism and training of the dogs is not there."
‘The Dog’s Job Is Not to Torture’
Julius Booker would certainly agree. In October 1997, he abandoned an allegedly stolen van and attempted to flee on foot from canine officer Anthony Mileo and his dog, King. Boker said that even after he was caught and handcuffed, the dog bit him repeatedly.
"He [Mileo] let the dog continue to bite me," said Booker in a taped deposition. "[I] couldn't do nothing, I was handcuffed face to the dirt, crying, begging for mercy."
Sharon Weidenfeld, a private investigator who's been looking into police dog bites for more than 10 years, worked on Booker's case.
"They're justified in letting the dog go after somebody that has fled," she said of canine officers. "But the dog's job is not to torture somebody once the dog catches him."
Weidenfeld said that in most of her cases, including Booker's, "The police officers aren't in danger when the people are bitten." Booker, she said, was running from a stolen van, which is not a violent crime. "He's not doing anything to the police officer, and they're just letting the dog bite him and bite him."
Booker was acquitted of all charges in the case. He sued the county and received a cash settlement, though the county admitted no liability.
No disciplinary action was taken against Mileo, who has since been transferred out of the unit. In court documents, Mileo estimated that in a six-year period, his dog bit 30 to 40 people — 15 seriously enough to be admitted to the hospital.
Civil Rights and Excessive Force Complaints
Police say that most dog bites occur during the course of legitimate arrests, when a canine unit is called to help locate or apprehend a suspect. But Downtown found many cases when the victim was guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I looked over and saw this dog coming at me full force," said Gregory Chandler, a county police officer who was pursuing a suspect when one of Prince George's County's police dogs ran toward him.
"All I could do was stick out my arm, and he grabbed hold the arm," said Chandler. "The dog wouldn't let go."
Kheenen Sneed also thought he had no reason to be bitten. He was asleep in a hammock behind his house while, unbeknownst to him, police were pursuing a burglary suspect in the area. He was violently awakened and thrown out of the hammock by canine unit officer Stephanie Mohr and her dog.
Sneed filed a lawsuit against Mohr, who was eventually prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Last December, Mohr resigned after being found guilty of deprivation of rights. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Mohr is appealing her verdict.
Critics say Mohr was prosecuted by the Department of Justice because the county is unable or unwilling to discipline its officers.
"That's totally wrong," said John Farrell, Prince George's County police chief. "We've dismissed probably close to 80 officers since I've been here … We have thousands of sustained complaints where action has been taken."
In 1996, Farrell was hired to reform the department, which had a reputation for using excessive force. Since then, he says, bites are way down. By July 2001, all 14 dogs in the unit were replaced. Instead of being trained to "bite and hold," the new dogs had been instructed to "guard and bark," he said. So now, as long as the subject stays still, the dog is trained only to bark rather than bite.
Police Chief Resigns
But in January, there was a report of an incident at a gas station where a canine unit officer allegedly allowed his dog to unnecessarily maul a suspect. The complaint came not from the person allegedly attacked, but from a fellow police officer on the scene. The county police and FBI are looking into it.
"I am convinced of one thing: What we've got in place here right now will serve the community well in the future," said Farrell.
But he will not be the police chief if and when that happens, because he resigned on Feb. 12.
"Now is a good opportunity for me to spend more time with my family and to pursue other interests," Farrell wrote in his resignation letter. He will, however, be staying with the department as a consultant.
The new police chief, Lt. Col. Gerald Wilson, who started six days ago in Prince George's County, has promised to rebuild the trust of the community — just as his predecessor did.
You might wonder why Virginia hates to see wrongly convicted people released, but here's my theory. Virginia is afraid innocent people who can prove their innocence after they have been falsely convicted might show that Virginia has a lot of incompetent judges, juries, and prosecutors....and, man, that would be bad publicity for Virginia and less criminals might move there. And if that happened, Virginia might have to reduce taxes and have less corruption.
This would be bad for crooked judges and crooked prosecutors and crooked cops.
Panel Urges Va. to End Felons' Evidence Limit (washingtonpost.com)
I'm almost speechless. I think Arnold being a candidate is great. If I lived in California I'd vote for him.
According to a post at - The Gweilo Diaries: Still More Korea Bashing - , a well known South Korean company cooked the books to hide a 500 million dollar transfer to the North Korean leadership. Now that I think about it a second time, maybe bribery is good for business in South Korea.
Maybe Kim Jong-Il used all that money for campaigning. All that hard campaigning must have paid off because Kim got reelected with 100 percent of the vote.
The Oregonian used to have some top notch investigative reporters. I wonder where they've gone. If you want to read some other newspapers with some good investigative reporters then click on the link below:
Some cops and court reporters I communicate with are having a discussion about whether Pacer is worth the money or not. Apparently, the majority agree with me that it is worth the money. I've had an account with Pacer for almost two years and I can get all sorts of information without having to go down to the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon. Besides, when you have crazy homophobic, white supremacists dedicated to killing you, you don't really want to travel around without some sort of protection, and I don't have any protection other than that I can run away really fast.
Hmmm....maybe I should explain what Pacer is. Ok. It is
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket information from Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy courts, and from the U.S. Party/Case Index. Currently most courts are available on the Internet. Links to these courts are provided from this web site. However, a few systems are not available on the Internet and must be dialed directly using communication software (such as ProComm Plus, pcAnywhere, or Hyperterminal) and a modem. Electronic access is available for most courts by registering with the PACER Service Center, the judiciary's centralized registration, billing, and technical support center.
The following is a perfect example of the now completely discredited Recovered memory therapy. There's more information here. The woman mentioned below is suffering from actions that never happened outside her fevered delusional mind. Oh well, it just proves there are gullible idiots everywhere.
NBC-TV To Air Alanna KrauseFederal Lawsuit Story
Marin County's Marshall Krause, Sandra M. Acevedo, Lana Clark, Ph.D. and Diamond, Bennington & Simborg, P.C. all named in Federal Lawsuit
The story of Alanna Krause and her federal lawsuit will be shown on the NBC affiliate in the Bay Area (KNTV) during the 11 O'clock News on February 12th.... It will be only 2 minutes long, but will be followed up with special projects reports throughout the entirety of the case.
It can also be viewed on the Internet at NBC11.com, which links to a site called the Feedroom. According to the producer, it's best to check the site out ahead of time so you can learn how to negotiate it.
Produced by:
Dana Alyiah Nachman
NBC11 San Jose - Oakland - San Francisco
Special Projects Producer
"Nachman, Dana (NBC, KNTV)" Dana.Nachman@nbc.com
(408) 975-3489LAWSUIT FILED BY ALANNA KRAUSE AGAINST HER FATHER, THERAPIST, AND COURT -APPOINTED ATTORNEY
Eighteen year old Alanna Krause filed a multi-million dollar federal court lawsuit [Case No. C-02-5277, Northern District of California] on November 1 in San Francisco against her father, Marin County attorney Marshall W. Krause, her psychotherapist Lana Clark, her court-appointed attorney Sandra Acevedo and the law firm of Diamond, Bennington & Simborg, alleging that she suffered years of childhood abuse at the hands of her father.
Ms. Krause claims that Acevedo and Clark knew of her abuse, but failed to protect her. Ms. Krause, now an honors student at Northwestern University, has been a vocal critic of the Marin County family court system and the use of court-appointed attorneys for children in custody cases who ignore substantial evidence of child abuse and fight to keep children with parents about whom the children complain. Ms. Krause demands a trial by jury on all issues.
On July 17, 2000, the San Francisco Daily Journal published Ms. Krause’s editorial, “Letting Children Speak for Themselves: Youth in Court Need Attorneys Who Represent Their Interests Fairly, Strongly.”
http://www.ocof.org/KidsSpeakOut/Alanna’s%20Truth.htm and/or
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/Research/PAS/PAS4/pas4.html.Ms. Krause is represented by a nationally renowned legal team, New Orleans attorneys Richard Ducote and Becki Truscott, and Napa attorney Seth Goldstein.
You can't make this stuff up. The following crazy email by a crazy female white supremacist shows that these female white supremacists think everybody outside their stupid cult is a child molester. They even have their own language.
Read the following nonsense just to get an idea of why normal society thinks these crazy female white supremacists are.....well.......crazy.
Posted by Tshedek on January 06, 19102 at 14:11:18:In Reply to: Re: NEED RICHARD DUCOTE'S CONTACT INFO posted by Richard Ducote on December 02, 19101 at 10:42:23:
My only grandchild is living with her molester. Her mom, my daugher, is facing 'custodial interference', custody was taken from her in an incest case, the abuse never investigated. I have learned that sometimes judges 'red flag' incest cases, which means to the case worker, 'do not investigate' and the judge will cover the cps workers butt and the law guardian who is just as bad as the judge and cps worker. We are poor working Americans and we can not fight the corrupt father's rights system that recieves federal funding which I believe is paying for the accused father's lawyer. One attorney came out of court recently and made this statment, 'something very evil is going on in that court room'. He was right. Child molesters are getting custody and unless we find a 'good man or women' who is not in it for the money we will never get justice for any of these children.
Servent of God
Justice is dead we deserve the wrath soon to cometshedek the just
This crazy, delusional grandmother should not be allowed around children. I wonder if the daughter is as crazy as the old bat.
Today I was watching the short court appearance of Kobe Bryant (not difficult to do because it seemed all news channels were running the court appearance) and somebody came in and asked me what was going on. I explained not that much, just the waiving of the reading of the charges and that the judge was reminding the media representatives that the judge was boss when I was interrupted and told, "Kobe's guilty. All black men are rapists."
See, how can you have an intelligent conversation with a crazy bigot? What's worse is that the person who said the above idiot line is also a snitch for a homophobic, racist cop.
It seems here in Washington County snitches don't help the cops catch criminals. Instead, the snitches just have sex with the cops and then spout idiotic nonsense.
Only in looney, homophobic, racist Washington County, Oregon.
It's almost certain that whoever was involved in the Assault of a Woman many years ago was a person she was a snitch for. It's now also almost certain that the person she was a snitch for has done almost everything to hide the fact that he and his buddies committed crimes. Whoever she was a snitch for has done his best to destroy her credibility and anybody elses credibility that might cause him to go to prison. Sound familiar? It is. It's the typical modus operandi of those in power who get caught doing no-no's, especially really illegal no-no's.
Now all that has to be done is to get the citizens of Washington County, Oregon educated so these types of illegal shenanigans by people in positions of authority cease here and now.
Since the citizens of looney, homophobic, racist Washington County, Oregon like to bury their heads in the sands of apathy and pretend Washington County has no problems with gangs, hate groups, or corrupt officials, the education part may be the hardest part to achieve.
It's about time the citizens of Washington County, Oregon started paying attention to what is going on in Washington County, unless, of course, they don't care about how conditions are in Washington County. Do the citizens of Washington County want to have a county that is as corrupt as various counties in Mississippi are?
In order to view the above link you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download it for free by clicking on this link.
It seems Professor Samuel Walker, Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha has a website called BEST PRACTICES IN POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY - A project of the Police Professionalism Initiative, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
After listening to a bunch of stuff put out by the various Democratic candidates, it seems the Democrats are controlled by the following flaky special interest groups and flaky agendas:
I would like to remind all veterans to enroll in the VA's health care system for many reasons, one of which is the following:
There are many countries in the world that could use the help of other countries, but today I'm highlighting only four of them.
From the CIA World Factbook and Talkleft are four of the most unfortunate places on earth to live:
Gut Rumbles has a list of favorite comedians along with Amish Tech Support.
I don't really have a list of favorite comedians but if I did I would have to include some of the best comedians of silent films, vaudeville, radio, early TV; and comedians that broke new ground like Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, Redd Foxx, Will Rogers, Lucille Ball, Imogene Coca, George Carlin, Don Rickles, Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Minnie Pearl, etc.
I can't really characterize Bob Hope as a comedian. I saw Bob Hope in 1983 onboard the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) off the coast of Lebanon, and he seemed to me to be more of a vaudeville entertainer than just a comedian, which is probably why he didn't mind having comedy writers on his payroll.
I also saw Bob Hope for a few minutes at a time on several occasions when I used to party in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the Bel Air Estates in my teen years and in my early twenties, but I never saw him do a show until I was off the coast of Lebanon.
There are so many good comedians around these days that, for me at least, it would be difficult to come up with any kind of inclusive list.
Tim Blair: TERROR LESS TRAVELLED
I had assumed, it turns out quite incorrectly, that when people check out a post they usually check out the comments. I've disabled my comments section and made a place on my experimental discussion board for comments because most of the comments I had received were insulting to me and many others and many were also threatening.
It's easier to delete the insulting and threatening comments from my experimental discussion board.
The following link will take you to some scams practiced by some members of the psychological profession.
"What's Wrong with This Picture?" Scientific American, May 2001
When the psycho ex-mother-in-law from Hell, Bonnie Oekerman, was stalking me, she would stand outside the apartment in Beaverton, Oregon where I lived with my two daughters and their mother and spy on me. She would also spy on me from an apartment on the second floor opposite from where I lived. (Now remember, I divorced her daughter in 1980 and she and her daughter were still stalking me fifteen years later.)
I caught my psycho ex-mother-in-law on numerous occasions spying on me and my two daughters and their mother.
One day I called up my mother, Neta Hays, and asked her why Bonnie was still stalking me. Neta's reply was, "Because she loves you and cares about you."
I don't know about you, but that's one of the biggest BS reasons for stalking that I've ever heard. What the hell was Neta thinking when she made that remark. At the time of that remark I didn't know my relatives were members of the psycho Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman gang, but now, their strange remarks about various supernatural conspiracies and their paranoia from various delusions are somewhat understandable. It's sort of a shame that my sister, Chris Andrea Hays, refuses to talk to me or let her kids talk to me because of her delusions that I'm a homosexual Satanic ritualist. Also, my sister has a delusional belief that I'm some sort of space alien plotting to kidnap her and her kids and take them to another galaxy in my space ship.
It's also a shame that my "now-mentally-ill" relatives and members of the psycho Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman have been brainwashing my two daughters since my two daughters were very young.
I've heard from a lot of people that Bonnie and her crazy daughter have spent years conspiring to kill me for this or that delusional reason.
Here in beautiful downtown, homophobic, racist Washington County, Oregon we actually had a thunderstorm. We also had lightning and the lightning knocked out a bunch of computers around here and the DSL modem I use to connect to the internet. Apparently, the lightning hit a transformer a couple of miles from where I live. Maybe without the surge protectors we use the damage could have been more aggravating.
It took a couple of hours but I think we have things up and running again because I have been able to post for the last couple of hours or so and have encountered no difficulties.
As a person who has been falsely accused by a crazy white supremacist gang of rape, child molestation, homosexuality, being a member of Scientology, being a member of the space aliens who abduct earthlings, and being a member of the Illuminati conspiracy to conquer the world, etc., I find the article (the link is below) by Carey Roberts to be extremely interesting.
The following link will take you to a website about an innocent man unjustly imprisoned.
Cathy Winters and Faye Marie Oekerman belong to a gang of women who are crazy white supremacists. These women have a habit of telling some men that the women will accuse the men of rape, child molesting, and a few other crimes if the men don't give the women twenty dollars or more.
Sometimes the men pay up even when the men have not committed any crimes.
What a way to make money.
Update: This week I've seen two female members of the gang go into two retail establishments in Washington County, Oregon and harass the employees and managers.
The harassment very closely bordered on illegal activity on the part of the two females of the gang. Apparently, Roger has instructed his followers in Washington County to try and disrupt business at a few retail establishments.
It seems Roger and his gang recruit some women for the gang from the local women's shelter. The committee members who are in charge of the shelter must be asleep at the wheel.
The gang is crazy, but what can you expect from people who go into court and assault deputies and judges.
Another update: The crazy, homophobic, white supremacist Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman gang managed to con certain Navy JAG officers into believing I was still married to the psycho, Faye Marie Oekerman. Then the gang conned certain Navy JAG officers into giving Navy money and living quarters to my ex-wife. Then the gang conned certain Navy JAG officers into helping the gang hide my son while I was in the Navy from 1980 to 1984. Then the gang conned certain Navy JAG officers into forging my name to a couple of bizarre confessions after I had gotten out of the Navy and went to work for another government agency.
How difficult can it be for the Navy to investigate the illegal actions of the Navy JAG officers involved in all of this silliness and identify the Navy JAG officers who were conned by the gang, AND, when did the collateral duties of certain Navy JAG officers involve helping a certain group of crazy, white supremacists achieve certain goals of the white supremacist movement.????!!!!!
I mean, c'mon......can't the Navy even be trusted to investigate crooked Navy JAG officers who not only have obviously violated ethics rules, but also civilian law and the UCMJ?
By now most people in Washington County, Oregon know that certain Navy JAG officers deliberately lied to a bunch of local people by telling them I was AWOL when the Navy JAG officers knew I wasn't and had not been AWOL. Now most people know the Navy JAG officers lied in order to protect their careers and also in order to con people into believing that certain Navy JAG officers had not illegally helped a crazy white supremacist group (the Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman gang) break a lot of laws and then cover up the illegal actions of the crazy white supremacists.
Look at it this way. If somebody cons me or you into helping them rob a bank, we will still be held accountable under law for our actions (I'm not talking about coercion), so why do certain Navy JAG officers feel they are above the law? I, personally, don't think anybody should be above the law, especially Navy JAG officers who are supposed to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.
But I guess reality sometimes intervenes and the truth is.... some Navy JAG officers are no better than the average criminal who preys upon innocent civilians. Crooked Navy JAG officers just get away with more because they're better liars and manipulators than the average criminal.
I'm watching this show called "The History Detectives". This guy and his buddy go around trying to solve historical mysteries. At the moment they're investigating a spyglass given to James Campbell by a pirate called Jean Lafitte.
Here is what they found out.......oh c'mon.....watch the show. It's a PBS show.
The following letter is from:
Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.
President, Equal Justice Foundation http://www.ejfi.org/
455 Bear Creek Road
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80906-5820
I think all of us attempt to raise our children into adults we will be proud of. We teach them to walk and talk, wrestle with them, and occasionally spank them when they test the limits. We show them how to defend and stand up for themselves, get them into sports, swimming, soccer, baseball, fishing, camping, and help them learn to love the outdoors.As they grow into teenagers we show them the use of tools, carpentry,
and work on cars with them. We teach them to camp, hike, and climb,
and try and provide opportunities for them to do so.We sit them in a corner and have them read books of all kinds until
it is second nature for them to be reading, and critique their
writing and make them rewrite the papers until they are meaningful.
We show them why mathematics is useful and necessary and drill them
until they memorize the times table though they resist with all their
childish stubbornness.We try and teach them honor, personal integrity, honesty, and
fairness. But how does one teach a boy courage and bravery? It is
only possible to test those virtues when life presents them a
challenge beyond their parent's control or influence. And nature is
cruel and unforgiving.In early afternoon on Saturday, August 2, 2003, my youngest son,
Matt, went for a swim with his buddy Ed in Clear Creek just west of
Golden, Colorado, near the mouth of what is known as Tunnel One on US
Highway 6 in the canyon.It was hardly the first time Matt had been swimming or climbing in
the area. He has been spelunking in nearby caves since he was about
10 or 11. He is now 25 and 6 foot 1 inch tall. Though he only weighs
about 145 pounds he is very strong from his hobby of technical rock
climbing.Clear Creek at Tunnel One has a kind of slide that, if one dives into
it correctly, carries the swimmer down into a deep pool. A low rock,
less than a foot out of the water, serves as a low diving platform.
On that afternoon something went terribly wrong.Ed dove in first and began bobbing down the current underwater.
Initially Matt thought Ed was simply goofing off and yelled at him to
knock it off. But in a few seconds it became clear that Ed was in
deep trouble. Without hesitation Matt dove in and started swimming to
his friend. As he caught up to Ed, blood in the water warned him
something was terribly wrong.When he got to Ed he could see a deep gash in his head and his limp
condition warned Matt that Ed was badly hurt. I don't know when it
occurred to Matt that Ed's neck might be broken but he carefully got
behind him and put his arms under Ed's from the back, cradling his
head on his chest and frog kicking toward shore.Clear Creek at Tunnel One is a rough, rapid mountain stream with a
bed of boulders and rocks. When Matt reached shore he was faced with
the very difficult problem of getting Ed, a full-grown man, out of
the stream over very slippery rocks without hurting him further.Matt slipped once, suffering a deep cut on his knee, but got Ed up on
shore far enough and to a flat enough spot that he could leave him to
seek help.After getting Ed ashore, Matt couldn't tell if he was breathing or
not. But yelling at him caused Ed to open his eyes.Warning Ed to be very, very careful not to move, Matt went toward the
highway seeking help. A couple with a cell phone heard him and went
down canyon where they could get reception and put in an emergency
call.Matt went back to Ed and the first responder called for helicopter
evacuation after Ed's head and neck had been immobilized. That
required shutting down US Highway 6 through the canyon so the chopper
could land on the road in the steep-walled canyon.Flight for Life then transported Ed to St. Anthony's Hospital in
Denver where he was found to have broken four vertebrate in his neck.
At present he is paralyzed from the chest down.But Matt didn't stop there. He found out where Ed's parents live in
Texas and called them and told them what had happened. He also got
ahold of men Ed works with, and even the president of the company Ed
works for came to visit him, with Matt staying with his friend the
whole time. Matt even arranged for Ed's dog to come visit him in the
hospital and has gone back every day since the accident.Clearly Matt has grown into a man in every sense of the word. I'm
proud of you son!
In the blogosphere there are all kinds of blogs. In a way this is pretty cool because you get to read the writings of all these people FOR FREE and some of the people and the postings are interesting.
You can tell from the links I have to the left that I prefer links to websites that provide some sort of information about a variety of subjects.
The following link is to the "website of the hour". (Hey, it's not an original idea, but for the moment it's pretty cool.)
The Rhetorica Network: Analysis of Rhetoric, Propaganda, and Spin in Politics and Journalism
I don't usually like to say negative things about other bloggers because basically blogging is done for fun and if people are willing to put out the effort to blog, then they don't need me to criticize them. However, there is an "attack posting" by Philip Shropshire. The "attack posting" attacked Steven Den Beste for his supposedly pro-war stance concerning Iraq.
It's rather difficult to refute the "attack posting" because it's basically irrational. I asked some veterans (I'm also a veteran) about the "attack post" and the general response was that it didn't make much sense.
In the US civilians make policy and members of the Armed Services execute the policy though various chains of command. The President, theoretically with the help and consent of congress, generally is in charge of foreign policy.
While members of the Armed Forces do not generally like to be at war or in war time situations, down through the history of our country members of our Armed Forces have performed in an outstanding manner and generally have defeated all who are dedicated to hurting or conquering our civilian population.
The "attack posting" seems to think that merely because some members of the Armed Forces express a desire not to be in Irag, that those members of the Armed Forces will not do their job and will contribute to undermining the foreign policy of the current president of the US. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Anyway, I thought I would satirize the "attack posting" until I realized that the "attack posting" is so ridiculous in and of itself that parody would be a waste of time.
Now for some other silliness. There is (I swear I'm not making this up) a blog called Instapunditwatch. This blog is dedicated to criticizing Instapundit. Man, I knew Instapundit was important but I never realized he was so important that he merited his own watch blog.
Man, I was feeling sort of depressed because I keep getting death threats from the crazy, homophobic, white supremacist Roger Weidner gang, but, man, to have blogs dedicated to criticizing personal blogs by Steven Den Beste and Instapundit....well, I didn't realize how tough they have it.
I'm not sure I could stand having somebody constantly blogging about how stupid my blog is. Oh wait, I constantly have people telling me how stupid I am, my blog is, and on and on. No wonder I'm depressed. I guess it's time to watch some standup comedians on Comedy Central.
Howard Bashman has two interesting posts. The first one deals with an antipathy of posts by Tyler Cowen of the Volokh Conspiracy. I'm not quite sure about that post but I do find it interesting.
The second post deals with a pro bono victory. When I first read this post I wasn't aware how much pro bono work is required of an appellate attorney. I know that in some law firms there are some hours set aside for various attorneys to do pro bono work and I suppose it varies from law firm to law firm, but I found Mr. Bashman's post about pro bono work interesting.
I've been watching the "History Channel" again. I know, I know...it's a bad habit and it's not a politically correct thing to do, but, hey, the Sleaze Report has to be sleazy sometimes. This particular show I've been watching is about the history of the Marine Corps in WWII and the Korean War. It's pretty interesting and Howard Bashman has a "twenty questions" episode in which one of the judges, Senior Circuit Judge Ruggero J. Aldisert, mentions his service in America's armed forces. Some of these judges have lived interesting lives. Judge Aldisert also mentions some other issues that I believe are important to the average American if the average American wants and expects to receive justice in federal appellate courts.
By the way, the "twenty questions" concept is sort of revolutionary, especially when included in a blog. Maybe Howard Bashman should copyright the idea.
While I'm meandering I might as well write something to do with education. Before my relatives became members of the mindless homophobic, white supremacist Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman gang, my relatives believed that education was good for a number of reasons; not only to succeed in a material sense, but also education used to be a means of disciplining oneself and sometimes it led to socially redeeming results like more Americans being able to participate in American life without being hassled for being a member of one of the numerous minorities we have in America.
However, since joining the crazy Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman cult my relatives have tended to read only one book, "The Bible", and have come to the irrational conclusion that learning anything that is not in the Bible is evil.
What this means is that now my relatives view public schools, universities, the Armed Forces of America, etc., as evil. In fact, everything outside their small, narrow circle of white supremacist morons is evil and a part of the "Satanic new world order".
Over the years, my relatives and the morons in the Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman gang have spent a lot of time trying to convince me to give up helping the Satanic Scientologists and their Illuminati brethren in their evil plan to conquer the world.
I have never been a Scientologist and I swear I have never helped the Illuminati in their efforts to conquer the world.
I'm hoping at least some members of the crazy Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman gang will read this and quit coming over to where I live and bugging me.
While I don't believe in the international Partriarchal conspiracy, I do realize that the extremely oppressive Patriarchy practiced by the white supremacists basically relegate women to the role of household laborer and pawn in the white supremacist movement to set up a new, fascist government.
For example, a female roommate of mine has hated my guts even before I ever met her. Does she hate me for anything I ever did to her or anybody else? No. She hates me because she has been told to. Even though her hatred of me is irrational, she continues the hatred because she has been told to and the persons telling her to hate me control the way she thinks.
It's sort of amazing.