Goodbye

Via Theo Spark

...........

Meet Landon.

His father, Marine LCPL Carpenter, gave his life defending our country in Afghanistan last year, a month before his son was born. Baby Landon's Mom wants his story to be known.

Who should be locked up?

A fellow called today and asked," Well, what would you do about all the drug pushers in public school, that's a real problem in todays schools, wouldn't you want to arrest those people who push drugs on your kids in school?"

My answer was this," If this is such a problem, why do you send your children to public school, where you have no control over someone pushing drugs on your child in the first place?" I don't have that problem, because my 8 children do not go to public school.

Quit asking the state to take care of your children people. If you are going to send them off to a public cage system, don't gripe about the dangers they face there. Who in their right mind would send their child to the battlefields of Iraq? Who in their right mind would tell their 8 year old, "son, I know there are many dangers in this world, but your a man now, deal with it, if something happens to you, I will call the school admins and chew them out."

You know there are dangers there and you send them for 8 hours a day EVERY day?

MORE

Our Great Challenge

It is easy to understand when politics fail. It is when changing players does not change the game. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are neither the problem nor the solution. They are irrelevant. They are the ever changing faces and names of a government that operates to the detriment of the people. They seek only the cover of elections to sanction their perpetual power grab, but these elections do not represent the views of the people or the choices they would make. They are simply an A or B on a list which does not include the rest of the alphabet.

MORE@TLInExile

Police brutality in Johannesburg 12/01/12

Via Censorbugbear

A taxi driver was dragged into a puddle and ordered to swim because he laughed at a police officer. A woman was pepper-sprayed and beaten with a stick because she wanted to close her shop. And a human rights worker had his phone confiscated and was arrested for taking photographs of a soldier beating a shopkeeper with the butt of his R4 assault rifle.

Parts of Joburg resembled a war zone on Thursday as the SA National Defence Force, the SAPS Tactical Response Team and customs officials took part in Operation Festive Season for a second day.

Two army Rooikat trucks stood at both ends of Delvers Street as officers focused their efforts on counterfeit clothing, and shopowners looked on helplessly as their stores were raided and their goods confiscated.

At 10am, a group of taxi drivers standing at a street corner in Jeppe Street were ordered to lie on their bellies and were body-searched.

One snickered under his breath.

“Are you laughing at me? Go for a swim,” shouted a police officer before dragging the driver into a puddle of muddy water on the pavement.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” said the taxi driver, dusting off his clothes, too afraid to be named.

Police officers sprayed pepper at curious bystanders, some at close range.

Shops that had closed their shutters received extra attention from the police and army. Using crowbars, they smashed the padlock to open the stores.

Eventually, the fire brigade was called to assist with its Jaws of Life and angle grinder machinery, sending sparks shooting across the pavements.

Around noon, the police used stun grenades to disperse the crowd that had gathered to watch the operation. The explosions echoed through the buildings, sending people running down Bree Street, some leaving their shoes and sandals behind.

A man in crutches couldn’t scurry away fast enough to escape the blast.

“We are living in another apartheid,” screamed a woman as she ran.

MORE

Fokker F-32

"The Fokker F-32 was truly the "Jumbo" of the 1930s era. " - wrote Ed Coates, a celebrated collector of aircraft images & data. - "This machine was the largest transport aircraft of its time and seated 32 passengers in (for the day) luxury accommodations. WAE purchased two of them but they proved to be a bad investment as mechanical difficulties coupled with the economic conditions of the Depression era could not support this type of airliner. The historic image below shows the aircraft upon its arrival at the new Alhambra Airport in March of 1930. "

MORE

Atlas Shrugged: Part Two Will Likely Hit Theaters Right Before The Election

Apparently gluttons for more movie critic punishment, the producers of the first Atlas Shrugged movie have announced that production on Part Two will begin in the spring.

John Aglialoro, who independently produced and funded the first movie to the tune of $20 million, and Harmon Kaslow, another producer, announced that they would begin principal photography on the sequel in April, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Ever attentive to timing, Aglialoro and Kaslow said they chose to announce the movie on what would have been Ayn Rand’s 107th birthday and are shooting to release it this October, right before the presidential election.

According to the Reporter, “for Part 2, [the producers] have brought on Duncan Scott, who produced We The Living in 1986, a three-hour long foreign film also based on a Rand novel.”

The first movie, which was championed by Tea Party groups like Freedomworks, was released on Tax Day last April. It’s based on Rand’s 1957 novel of the same name, and was originally intended to be the first of a trilogy. Things were looking pretty grim though after the movie was almost universally panned by critics, and earned a paltry $4.6 million at the box office.

MORE

Super Bowl 2012 & IF HEAVEN AIN'T ALOT LIKE DIXIE

Article via Brother Henry

Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent a professional lifetime studying politics, media and biases, and when it comes to big East Coast cities and their sporting teams, there’s little to debate.

“We Arkansans and Oklahomans sometimes call people from Boston or New York ‘Yankees,’ which we mean as a synonym for ‘rude, Northern person,’ ” Groseclose said. “Hank Williams Jr. might have said it best: ‘If heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie, I don’t want to go. . . . You can send me to hell or New York City. It’d be about the same to me.’”

MORE

Re-post 2010

If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I don't wanna go
If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I'd just as soon stay home

I was one of the chosen few
To be born in Alabam
I'm just alike my daddy's son
I'm proud of who I am
I went through a lot of good women
And shook old Jim Beam's hand
If I never see the pearly gates
I've walked through the promised land

If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I don't wanna go
If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I'd just as soon stay home
If they don't have a Grand Ole Opry
Like they do in Tennessee
Just send me to hell or New York City
It would be about the same to me

I've got wild honey trees and crazy little weeds
Growin around my shack
These dusty roads ain't streets of gold
But I'm a happy right where I'm at
All these pretty little southern belles
Are a country boy's dream
They ain't got wings or halos
But they sure look good to me

If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I don't wanna go
If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I'd just as soon stay home
If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I don't wanna go
If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I'd just as soon stay home
If they don't have a Grand Ole Opry
Like they do in Tennessee
Just send me to hell or New York City
It would be about the same to me

HANK WILLIAMS JR. IF HEAVEN AIN'T ALOT LIKE DIXIE

Rep. Paul: Repeal Patriot Act, NDAA

GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul is attracting strong support at a series of rallies in Minnesota Saturday, and few lines of his stump speech are receiving more cheers than his call to repeal the Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act.

Mr. Paul, rallying voters ahead of Tuesday’s Minnesota caucuses, told supporters at an afternoon rally that these laws -– particularly the NDAA -– “is not what this country is about!” The sentiment, as it was in campaign stops earlier this week in Nevada, was met with hearty cheers from Mr. Paul’s backers, many of whom were turned away or forced to listen from outside the venue on a brisk winter afternoon.

With a libertarian platform focused on reducing the influence of the federal government and boosting individual rights, Mr. Paul is a natural adversary for the more invasive provisions in the Patriot Act and NDAA. The latter especially is a frequently yelled slogan at Mr. Paul’s event, typically with a derisive sneer or as a rallying cry for supporters.

MORE

Pat Buchanan on Ron Paul

Via Bazz

Capitalism Institute - Why Did the South Secede?

Via Bazz

History is important. Through it we can understand our future, understand politics, understand economics, and understand almost everything a little better.

And that’s why having a proper understanding of historical events is important — having a warped view of history gives us a warped view of the present.

Of all of the misunderstood events in history, the American Civil War is probably the worst of the lot.

Most students believe that the South was fighting to keep all of the slaves in bondage, while the benevolent Yankees were fighting to free the slaves in captivity — nothing could be further from the truth.

History books are written by the victors. This simple-yet-powerful sentence explains why the “winners” of every war rarely are seen as the “bad guys” for quite some time after the war.

The winners get to rewrite the story to cast themselves as heroes whether they deserve it or not, and that story is going to be a powerful one. My intellectual hero — Richard Maybury — explained it in simple terms:

MORE