Prediction: Internet in government's hands

Via Carolinagirl1965

"At which point, they will be rationing bandwidth, just like ObamaCare will result in rationing of healthcare," he relates (see earlier story). "And when that happens, if they're choosing websites that get bandwidth, and they're choosing between Daily Kos [and] MoveOn.org vs. National Review and American Spectator, who's the government going to choose?

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Occupy Portland Protesters Preparing Weapons For Confrontation With Police, Seen Hammering Nails Into Wood, Making Shields

Via The Dorkfish Express

That's a deadly weapon. You come at me with that and you will be killed. .357 trumps your piece.
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Weasel Zippers
VERBATIM POPST
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And Obama and the Dem leadership backs these thugs.

PORTLAND — Since that announcement Portland Police have become aware of information that is concerning. We understand a call has gone out to Oakland, Seattle and San Francisco and perhaps other cities encouraging people to come to Portland and engage in resistance. People in the camp are expecting 100-300 re-enforcements from various locations. There may even be as many as 150 anarchists who will arrive soon. There is information that people may be in the in trees during a police action and that there are people who are attempting to obtain a large number of gas masks.

There is a hole being dug in one of the parks and wood is being used to reinforce the area around it. There are reports that nails have been hammered into wood for weapons and that generally there are people in the camps preparing for a confrontation with police.

Last night Portland Police officers provided security while Portland Parks and Recreation security manager posted “No Camping” signs in the park. 36 signs were posted in all, although some were taken down by the occupiers almost immediately.

People were seen carrying pallets into the camp shortly after 1:00 a.m. this morning. The destination of the pallets is a structure with graffiti in the northwest part of Chapman Park, also known as “The 420 Hotel”. The people there are very suspicious of any passers by, we are not sure at this point what exactly they are doing. We have been told it looks like they were making shields.

A Bold Way to Save Education in America

Scientist And Scholar Art Robinson Is Raising Big Money (2010)

We use his homeschooling curriculum

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Godfather Politics

VERBATIM POST

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By Art Robinson

Dr. Art Robinson is an internationally respected scientist, educator, successful businessman, skilled public speaker, and expert on energy, medicine, and emergency preparedness. He worked on medical and defense issues during the Reagan administration and on energy issues during the Clinton and Bush administrations. He is a Republican candidate for Congress. He is hoping to replace the very liberal Peter DeFazio in Oregon District 4 in the 2012 election. If you would like to support Art in his campaign against DeFazio, contact him at Art for Congress.

The American tradition of public education began in one-room school houses when frontier farm families hired dedicated teachers to teach their children.

When I attended public schools in the 1950s, I received an excellent education. American schools were rated the best in the world. Those schools prepared me for Caltech, and Caltech prepared me for a wonderful life in science. I owe my career and accomplishments to the great start I received in the public schools.

Those public schools were locally controlled and locally funded. Teachers and parents worked together on the content of curriculum, student discipline, and all aspects of school life. In addition to being academic institutions, public schools became centers of sports competition, social events, and other aspects of community life.

Unfortunately, our public schools are no longer locally controlled. They are largely controlled by federal and state agencies and special interests empowered by government. Local school boards still meet, but the most important decisions are out of their hands.

As local control diminished, so did the academic quality of our schools. U.S. schools are now rated as among the worst in the developed world. This is more than a tragedy – it is child abuse.

When 50 million American children – in whose hands the fate of our nation rests – receive poor quality elementary academic educations, the future of our country is in serious jeopardy. The federally and state controlled public schools that are ruining our children’s educations should be abolished – and replaced by the locally-controlled public schools that served our children so well in the past. No school should be permitted to ruin the life of a single student.

A vast federal bureaucracy and numerous special interest organizations it empowers now stand between our students and our teachers. It should be eliminated. All aspects of a student’s upbringing are the responsibility of the student’s parents and any professional whom the parents wish to engage. Together, they should provide the student with the best possible academic opportunities. This effort must not be imperiled by those who use education for their own purposes, rather than for the student’s best interest.

Americans have responded to the deterioration of their schools by providing more and more tax money, but more money has not worked. Much of the money never reaches the students or the teachers. It funds a literal army of non-teachers, administrators, and federal, state, and local bureaucrats – who generally spend their time making life miserable for the teachers and interfering with their efforts to teach.

Tax funding for Oregon schools is now, on average, about $10,000 per student year. Suppose that one of our thousands of great teachers were to be given 30 students, a check for $300,000, and asked to teach those students for nine months. Do you think the teacher would have sufficient resources? (Some schools receive less than the average of $10,000, but even $200,000 would suffice for this example.)

The teacher could rent the best room in town, hire an assistant, raise her own salary, buy everything the students need, fully fund all extracurricular activities, and have money left over. The teacher could, of course, do this more efficiently in a school with other teachers. This single teacher example illustrates, however, that education resources are sufficient – if the resources go directly to the classroom.

The local school board would assure that resources do go to the classroom and provide sufficient supervision, which need not cost much. Following World War II, my uncle taught school in Iowa. In addition to teaching a full load of classes, he was given a few dollars extra to be the superintendant of schools.

I have been an educator all my life. Starting with earning a little money for college by tutoring students in high school, I eventually became a faculty member at the University of California at San Diego, teaching chemistry to 300 undergraduates each year and supervising graduate students. Currently, our family business provides curricula, books, and teaching aids to approximately 60,000 home schooled students in the U.S.

In the 1950s when our schools were under local control, there was almost no home schooling in America because there was no need for it. Now, millions of American children are being home schooled because their parents want better educations for them than are provided in the academically inferior schools that are under federal, state, and special interest political control.

Not even nuclear war could “abolish” American public education. It is an integral part of our way of life. However, American schools must be returned to local control. The federal Department of Education should be closed, and education returned entirely to the states and the people as the Constitution specifies. The states and localities can collect the needed taxes. No increase in overall taxes would be needed.

Local control is close to the parents, where real concern for the student lies. Also, local control places our school districts in competition with each other for academic excellence, so students benefit.

Improvement of our public schools cannot wait. It cannot be neglected in hopes that they will gradually improve over the coming decades. The 50 million children in these schools now will not have a second chance at some future date.

Beyond high school, the U.S. system of private and public universities is also functioning below its potential because of political control. Oregon State University, located in Oregon District 4, serves as an example. This university receives more than $250 million in federal research dollars each year, including approximately $30 million as direct earmark funding from incumbent Congressmen during the last congressional session. By comparison, OSU private funding for research is now less than $6 million.

Is it any surprise, therefore, that in the 2010 election, OSU facilities and personnel were mobilized in favor of the incumbent Congressional candidate in District 4 and against the challenger? OSU courses often contain partisan political content, even science courses with no logical political purpose. OSU has become a very partisan political institution, which can lead to reprehensible injustices to students, as evidenced by my own family.

By contrast, the California Institute of Technology receives only about half of its funds from political sources. The other half is supported by income from Caltech’s endowment, which mitigates the effect of outside political influence.

Oregon State University and the University of Oregon (also in Oregon District 4) are very important institutions. Both universities would, however, be much better off if they were not completely dependent upon politicians for their immediate existence. Very large independent endowments should be built for both universities. These could be built with both public and private funds, but then be administered by the universities without political control.

Public education, from first grade to the university levels should be as independent of federal and state political influence as possible.

Art Robinson for U.S. Congress
P.O. Box 1250
Cave Junction, OR 97523
(541) 255-2785

www.ArtForCongress.com

How kids hide alcohol in candy

Via Cousin Bill

HERE

Occupier Scorecard

Via The Feral Irishman

HERE

FOR MY CHILDREN

NamSouth Re-post
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by Harriet Cobb Lane

[Note: This was written by Mrs. Lane so that her children's children would
have some idea of their turmoil during the Civil War. This was found in
the attic of an old house near Bentonville, North Carolina, many, many
years ago. The gentleman who purchased the house gave it to me, J.C.
Knowles, Jr., May 1989]

A story giving some of the experiences of the War of 1861-1865 and of the
times when Sherman fought the last battle of the War at Bentonville, North
Carolina, and of the privations of those who lived along the line of its
march in Wayne County, North Carolina.

I am a daughter of Mr. William D. Cobb and wife, Ann Collier. My father
lived on his plantation nine miles from Goldsboro, Wayne County, on the
south side of the Neuse River. He was a stock farmer and did not raise
cotton until the war began in 1861. All southern farmers then raised
cotton to help clothe the Confederate soldiers. We did not approve of
succession, but wanted to fight for States Rights under the flag which
our fathers had fought for.

I was born and reared on the plantation. Before the war, the planters
employed governesses for their children, while young. Then they were sent
to preparatory schools before entering college. My sister and I were sent
to the Misses Nash and Kellock's Preparatory School in Hillsborough,
Orange County, in 1860, and we were there when North Carolina seceded
from the Union, and we helped with some of the other school girls, to
raise the first Confederate Flag over the Court House. North Carolina
seceded May 20th, 1861,

My father gave four sons to the Confederate service. They were among
the first to volunteer when Governor Ellis called for volunteers to defend
the State. My brothers, Col. John P. Cobb, Capt. Bryan W. Cobb, and Dr.
William H.H. Cobb, all volunteered as privates, but were made officers in
the 2nd Regiment of North Carolina State Troops. My brother, Dr. William
H.H. Cobb graduated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania just in time to get home
and volunteer. At first he was in the 2nd Regiment, but was later
transferred to the 4th Regiment as Assistant Surgeon. My fourth brother,
Rev. Needham B. Cobb was Chaplain of the 4th Regiment; all were first sent
to Fort Steel for a few days, then to Virginia, and fought under Lee. My
brother Needham's health failed the latter part of the war, and he moved
with his family to Raleigh.

MORE

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FOR MY CHILDREN

Occupy Oakland Protesters Warned To Clear Out Immediately

Oakland police served anti-Wall Street protesters with written notice that they must disband their camp immediately Friday night.

Officers distributed fliers to Occupy Oakland protesters at Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall, where they have had an encampment for a month.

The memo warns protesters that the camp violates the law. The notice said the city and police support free speech and the right to assemble but that the camp itself is illegal.

Protesters are warned they will face arrest if they don’t remove all camping materials.

The warning comes in the wake of the fatal shooting of a man shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday at 14th Street and Broadway, near the encampment.

Also on Friday, both Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and the Oakland police officers’ union called on activists to leave the plaza.

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Pompeii Is Crumbling—Can It Be Saved?

Last month, part of a major wall came tumbling down in Pompeii, the ancient Roman city frozen in time by a first-century eruption of Mount Vesuvius. It was only the latest in a spate of collapses at the site, which experts say is in critical condition.

Though the site is said to be safe for tourists, the disintegration is alarming enough to have spurred the European Union to pledge 105 million euros (145 million dollars) for preservation.

Troubles at the World Heritage site, near modern Naples in southern Italy, began in earnest last year. In November 2010 Pompeii's Schola Armaturarum, a large building once used by gladiators for training, crumbled overnight due to water infiltration. Just a few weeks later, a 12-meter-long (13-yard) wall protecting a structure known as the House of the Moralist had fallen down in heavy rain.

Now that poor weather has returned, more trouble has followed. In late October, a portion of Pompeii's perimeter wall came apart.

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SWAT teams dispatched as gun battle unfolds near Escobares

Via Survival

Gunmen crossed the Rio Grande into the United States near a shootout between where the Mexican military and a group of gunmen was taking place.

Several area SWAT teams responded about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to a ranch near Escobares, just across the U.S.-Mexico border, where a shootout broke out south of the Rio Grande.

The shootout reportedly began shortly after noon but details were not immediately available. Residents on the U.S. side reported seeing members of the U.S. Border Patrol and Starr County Sheriff’s Office securing the area near the border.

Border Patrol spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey said agents had been tracking a suspected drug load near La Rosita and pushed it back to Mexico.

Border Patrol alerted Mexican authorities of the suspected load and then found an injured Mexican national on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, Huey said. Emergency crews rushed the man to an area hospital. His condition remains unknown.

The man, a suspected cartel gunman, had been shot by Mexican authorities, a separate U.S. law enforcement official said.

The official confirmed a group of as many as 15 gunmen had crossed the Rio Grande, though it remained unclear whether they were Mexican soldiers or cartel gunmen.

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Vox on Paterno

Vox Popoli
VERBATIM POST
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One of his biographers, Joe Posnanski, defends Joe Paterno:

I’m not saying I know Joe Paterno. I’m saying I know a whole lot about him. And what I know is complicated. But, beyond complications — and I really believe this with all my heart — there’s this, and this is exclusively my opinion: Joe Paterno has lived a profoundly decent life.

Nobody has really wanted to say this lately, and I grasp that. The last week has obviously shed a new light on him and his program — a horrible new light — and if you have any questions about how I feel about all that, please scroll back up to my two points at the top.

But I have seen some things in the last few days that have felt rotten, utterly wrong — a piling on that goes even beyond excessive, a dancing on the grave that makes me ill. Joe Paterno has lived a whole life. He has improved the lives of countless people. I know — I’ve talked to hundreds of them. Almost every day I walk by the library that he and his wife, Sue, built. I walk by the religious center that tries to bring people together, and his name is on the list of major donors. I hear the stories, the countless stories, of the kindnesses that came naturally to him, of the way he stuck with people in their worst moments, of the belief he had that everybody could do a little bit better — as a football player, as a student, as a human being. I’m not going to tell you these stories now, because you can’t hear them. Nobody can hear them in the howling.

But I will say that I am sickened, absolutely sickened, that some of those people whose lives were fundamentally inspired and galvanized by Joe Paterno have not stepped forward to stand up for him this week, have stood back and allowed him to be painted as an inhuman monster who was only interested in his legacy, even at the cost of the most heinous crimes against children imaginable.

Shame on them.

And why? I’ll tell you my opinion: Because they were afraid. And I understand that. A kind word for Joe Paterno in this storm is taken by many as a pro vote for a child molester. A quick, “Wait a minute, Joe Paterno is a good man. Let’s see what happened here” is translated as an attempt to minimize the horror of what Jerry Sandusky is charged with doing. It takes courage to stand behind someone you believe in when it’s this bad outside. It takes courage to stand up for a man in peril, even if he stood up for you.

And that’s shameful.

I don't know Joe Paterno at all. I don't know Joe Posnanski either. But I very much agree with what he is saying here, which is that one act of omission, one moment of cowardice, one moral failing, is not definitive of any man. And I also agree wholeheartedly that is shameful for people to pile on Paterno in an attempt to morally preen. Posnanski isn't saying that Paterno did the right thing or that he shouldn't have lost his job. Failure has consequences, after all. But the loss of a man's halo doesn't render him a devil, merely another fallen man.

The situation reminds me somewhat of when my father was being tried in federal court. Virtually none of his peers, including a number of his friends, were willing to step forward and testify on behalf of his character. No one was being asked to lie or spin anything, merely to recount their personal experience of a man who had paid their salaries, given to their charities, hosted them in his home, or eaten at their table over the course of thirty years. They didn't have any substantive reason not to do so, but were simply afraid of the social consequences of stepping forward and saying "this man may be guilty of what he is accused, but because that is not the entirety of who he is, let me tell you what I know about him." I was extremely proud of my friends, several of whom volunteered to testify on my father's behalf without even being asked to do so.

I wasn't angry, only disappointed with those who hid behind the rationale of "not wanting to get involved". What a lame excuse that is, as if anyone would ever seek to get involved in such unpleasantries. But even though I was disappointed, at no point did I lose any affection or respect for people I had known nearly all my life. It would have been outrageous for me to judge them on the sole basis of a single moment where their moral courage failed them.

The irony is that some of those posturing so dramatically about Paterno are exhibiting a failure of moral courage similar to the one that gave them grounds for criticizing the man in the first place. The man merits criticism , to be sure, and I think he deserved to lose his job, but it is simply ludicrous to claim, as some have done, that his behavior was on par with Sandusky's or even the university administration's. There is an important difference between a fundamentally decent man whose moral courage failed him at a vital moment and a fundamentally indecent man, and it is not only foolish, but downright societally destructive to equate the two.

Polish riots 11/11/11

Link has many pictures.
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Link

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Banner over San Diego calls for impeachment

The event was scheduled to coincide with announced plans for Obama to attend the Carrier Classic game on the deck of Carl Vinson in San Diego Bay. Those plans were announced earlier this week.

The banner said, "Impeach Obama" and then included an announcement for a 3 p.m. protest at North Island.

North Island, the sponsors explained, is short for North Island Naval Air Station. The banner was dispatched to fly directly over San Diego and cover all of the major highways for Veterans Day.

Roger Ogden, an organizer for "Stop Obama Now!!" said his group and an estimated 8,000 members of the "Impeach Obama Tea Party" on Facebook joined for the project.

Volunteers are contributing donations from $5 up to pay for the project.

"Some of the participants are also from several other local patriot groups," he said. "The participants voice many reasons why Obama should not be in office. In general, people believe that he is not a loyal American and was not fit or qualified to become president in the first place and that he has committed many acts, while in office, to confirm that opinion. Participants are also outraged that the news media has glossed over many troubling facts about his background and unconstitutional actions while in office."

He said, "Conservatives, by nature, do not like to be rebellious or confrontational and I have been looking for new ways for my members to speak out that may be more suited to their demeanor and which are not controlled by the corporate media. Sky banners are a good way to get a short message out to many people."

He said he hopes "America will grasp this message … We don't want it to be partisan … because it's not about party politics. It's about him being eligible for the office of president."

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Calif. Mayor Chooses Occupy Rally Over Veterans Day Memorial

Pig.
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The mayor of Richmond, Calif. plans to skip her city’s Veterans Day memorial events to attend an Occupy rally, a choice that’s prompting anger and criticism.

Mayor Gayle McLaughlin will miss a Veterans Day salute Friday in favor of an Occupy Richmond “public speak out,” the San Jose Mercury News reported.

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Slavery in America Planted by British

A paradox in popular thought today is that though the British flag is fully representative of the African slavery brought to, nurtured and perpetuated on the shores of North America, the flags of the American Confederacy are held to be the preeminent symbols of African slavery, and solely blamed for its existence. It is ironic that in a nearby predominantly black neighborhood, the British flag flies on a front porch column with no complaint from the black residents.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
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Slavery in America Planted by British:

“The abolitionists of the [post-Revolutionary] era were, for the most part, Federalists. Southern Federalists…openly opposed the institution. In 1789 an anti-slavery society was founded in Maryland. Further south, in North Carolina, the astute and scholarly Federalist politician, Hugh Williamson, worked against any extension of slave power.

If the institution of Negro slavery gained first a foothold, then an entrenched position, the greed of the British crown was largely responsible. As early as 1726, the planters of Virginia became alarmed at the growth of the Negro population and imposed a tax on imports of slaves. The Royal African Company interfered and had the law repealed. South Carolina restricted slave imports in 1760 only to be rebuked by London.

In 1712, the Pennsylvania legislature moved to curb the increase in Negroes, but the law was annulled by the Crown. Massachusetts in 1771 and again in 1774 passed laws designed to abolish the slave trade, but the [British] colonial governors refused to approve them. Queen Anne, who personally held a quarter of the stock of the Royal African Company, the chartered organization that monopolized the slave trade, ordered it to provide New York and New Jersey with Negroes and directed the governors of these colonies to give it full support.

Jefferson charged the British crown with forcing Negro slavery on the colonies; Madison asserted that England had checkmated every attempt by Virginia “to put a stop to this infernal traffic”; Bancroft taxed Britain with “steadily rejecting every colonial restriction on the slave trade (and) instruct(ing) the governors, on pain of removal, not to give even a temporary assent to such laws.” In the words of the rabidly anti-Southern historian and politician Henry Wilson: “British avarice planted slavery in America; British legislation sanctioned and maintained it; British statesmen sustained and guarded it.”

(The Negro in American Civilization, Nathaniel Weyl, Public Affairs Press, 1960, pp. 24-25)

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Slavery in America Planted by British

Blood and War at my Doorstep (Volumes I & II)

Just found out about the book this morning and it looks like an impressive work, indeed.

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Brock,

Do you know of author Brenda Chambers McKean? A friend gave me a recent book by her (Blood and War at My Doorstep) and you (and I) are mentioned in the acknowledgments. Seems to be a solidly-researched book on the fate of NC civilians during the war, most interesting and well-written.

Bernhard

Amazon.com: Blood and War at my Doorstep (9781450025577 ...

Brenda Chambers McKean: Books ... Price For Both: $69.98.

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Brenda Chambers McKean Book Collection