We need term limits, now!

The following is an excerpt from an article I came across on Gas Buddy:

"SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers enjoy a perk not available to their colleagues in any other state: unchecked use of gasoline charge cards that stick taxpayers with the bill.

Through the first seven months of the year, California taxpayers have spent $220,000 to pay for lawmakers' gasoline, according to a review of records requested by The Associated Press. That includes July, when lawmakers already were past their deadline to approve a budget and the state faced a $15.2 billion deficit."

Makes term limits look more inviting. I used to believe the ultimate term limit was the best way, vote 'em out. After all, are we not as a nation of voters supposed to understand that the politicians work for us and we hold the ultimate authority?

Now it seems the voter is more interested in the promises politicians make to them but cannot or will not fulfill. You know, tax the evil business that employ us or the evil rich who own the evil business that employ us. Promise to send our kids to college or preschool, pay for our health care with no cost to us, oh, and put a chicken in every pot and free cable with HBO.

We know they cannot or will not do what is promised, but continue to fool ourselves into believing it. When will we wake up and realize that the politicians, with few exceptions, are in it for only one thing, the power to control our lives.

You may say, "but that's California, not my state." Well, you better wake up, historically what happens in California will sooner or later spread to the rest of the nation. Do you want to wait until its too late, or act now while we still have a chance to stop it before it starts?

Once a politician gets a taste of power, unless he is exempt from the human condition, he will crave more and more until his primary interest is maintaining power, not the betterment of the nation.

"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson

Is YouTube saying life begins before birth?

While I’m an a strong supporter of allowing a child the choice to reach full term and have every opportunity to engage in the life that God has breathed in him or her, I’ve often been uncomfortable with some of the tactics of Operation Rescue.

Too often it seems that they engage in practices that in the end may do more harm than good to the progress of creating an America where abortion is not only undesirable but also unavailable. Still, this is America and we have a constitutional right, and some will say duty, to express our views as individuals and groups.

Some will argue that such expression needs to be respectful, reasoned and responsible. I would agree with that sentiment. But there are times when a bold statement is the only way to shake someone enough to truly look at the core issues.

YouTube recently removed a video uploaded to its site that strongly and graphically stated Barack Obama’s historic positions on the issue of abortion. The video contained images that are painful to view, yet convey a message that cannot be ignored.

The producers did not distort Mr. Obama’s positions, just stated them in such a way that the results of those votes were graphically depicted. YouTube said it failed to meet “Community Guidelines.”

Apparently those standards are subjective to the sensibilities of YouTube and it’s corporate owners, Google. As Google’s motto is “do no evil” it seems that they believe it is evil to tell the truth about the beliefs an individual who aspires to the highest political office in the land, the most powerful office in the free world.

But if the censorship of this video by Google means they believe that in the case of Barack Obama freedom of speech should be suspended if it depicts him in a negative light, then they, Google, through their surrogate YouTube are themselves violating constitutionally protected speech and in doing so committing “evil.”

Some might argue that the graphic nature of the depiction is offensive or over the top and removal was justified. But a perusing of the YouTube site will reveal a plethora of video ranging from near pornography to graphically depicted violence. So one is left with the reasonable assumption that the only “Community Guidelines” offended were those of the “Obama Community.”

Of course if YouTube removed the video because the depiction of an aborted fetus violated their policy against viewing dead bodies they then have another problem. If by pulling it they are saying they will not show images of a dead body, they are tactically admitting that an aborted fetus, rather than a “mass of tissue,” is in fact a human being.

"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson

Wow Crowds in The Villages Frighten Dems

Sunday we headed south to The Villages to be part of the crowd welcoming Republican V.P. Nominee Sarah Palin. We left early because the crowds were anticipated to be in excess of 30,000. That estimate was based in part on the 30,000 event tickets that were snatched up by Florida residents who were anxious to see this charismatic candidate.

However, on Friday before the event, the Republican Party of Florida announced that all comers would be welcome; no one would be turned away. With that, the doors swung wide and the thousands who couldn’t get to a local party office to retrieve their free tickets stormed this small but growing retirement community 65 miles northwest of Orlando and 85 miles northeast of Tampa.

We arrived about 3 hours before the event was to begin and after waiting in traffic for an hour, only to learn that the parking for that area was closed, we turned around and headed back to another access. When we discovered we were in stopped traffic moving at a pace that would easily give a turtle first place, and finding ourselves 3.5 miles away we decided to reevaluate.

I needed to be back home to get some rest before getting up at 1:30 am for work and realizing, with the crowds and traffic, it would be hours after the event before we were able to get out of the heavy traffic and begin the drive back home. So we made the hard decision and turned around and left.

It was disappointing to miss being a part of this event, but duty called. When I learned the following day that the crowds were estimated to be 60,000, I wasn’t’ surprised. Though I had in no way got close enough to get a visual, and when we left it was still 2 hours before the event, the number of folks already there was amazing and there was no apparent end that we could see.

I’ve read a number on online accounts of the event but really not that many. It was heavily covered locally, but national coverage was limited. Newspapers close to The Villages reported the crowd at 60,000 estimated by the fire chief whose job it is to know such things.

There are anecdotal stories of people traveling in excess of 100 miles to be part of this event, the first by Mrs. Palin out from under the wing of Senator McCain. The crowd was hoping for a glimpse of this energetic and engaging newcomer to the US political scene. The media was hoping for a gaff.

A number of liberal papers and news sites disputed those numbers citing unnamed individuals in the crowd or pitting their reporters estimate of the crowd as low as 20,000 against the numbers cited by the professionals. They questioned the validity of the estimates and on Washington Post columnist suggested that the McCain campaign released the numbers provided by the Secret Service, which the columnist offered doesn’t provide numbers.

I think they are trying to diminish the welcome Florida gave to Palin because of the poor showing for Obama earlier in the week. The Miami Herald described Obama’s visit to Jacksonville, a metropolitan area of 1.3 million and heavily Democrat as attended by an “overflow crowd…capacity 13,000.

Oh, by the way, The Villages is a community of roughly 70,000 with the much larger metropolitan areas of Orlando and Tampa 1 ½ to 2 hours away. So it seems that even in something a benign as crowd estimates, the bias of the media shows through.

"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson