Jamie's New Business Venture

Looks like Jamie has struck up a new venture. 4 blokes, beer and a BBQ. This has Jamie stamped all over it.

Canberra (Reuters) While multi-million dollar bids have turned out to be fake, the current value of the company of these entrepreneurial young men stands at a healthy A$61,101 ($45,940).

The blokes, who have received 105 bids and more than 200 emails since the 10-day auction started on January 25, are offering themselves for the weekend of February 18-19 and are even promising a possible international guest.

"It's easier than chatting to randoms in a pub and you know we'll be your friend from the moment you arrive til the moment you leave. That's our promise to you!" they said.

Blog of the Beloved

My Beloved has a new blog. Or should I say this one is like the Pheonix, having arose from the ashes of a dead blog. Now if she can just keep it up this time...

Right To Petition For Redress Of Grievance

"I thought the feds usually ignored lawful petitions. I thought "Right to Petition" just meant one could hold a protest or something, but that there was no obligation on the part of the feds to 'provide satisfaction', so to speak.

Am I wrong? If you know anything different about the specifics of Right to Petition, please correct me." Triton

Yes, the Feds ignore the Citizens and yes the Feds want people to believe that a petition is nothing more than a protest. However that isn't why it was placed into the Constitution. It was a way of keeping the government from ignoring petitions. When our Founding Fathers were creating the Constitution, and subsequently the Bill of Rights, they were no doubt thinking upon immediate history as well as the Rights they had as Englishmen. So lets look at three of the more obvious documents.

Over the course of years many petitions from the Colonists to the King of England had been ignored. The reasons varied with taxation, trade, and trial by jury as well as other issues of law. Indeed, the King's ignoring the petitions was the reason we had separated from England. The Colonists Petitioned expecting Redress and, in their words, recieved injury. The following is from the Declaration of Independence.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

They petitioned as they had been assured that Right by the British Bill of Rights, passed in 1689. This was passed because it was found that Parliment would ignore or even punish those who petitioned the government

"That it is the right of the subjects to petition the King, and all committments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal."

The origins of this Right goes back to the Magna Carta of 1215. As everyone should already know the Magna Carta is the basis for many of the Rights we have. Also Common Law dates back to this time which is where our Law and Rights were defined until the advent of "statutory" law which was created by merging Maritime and Equity. But I digress... The Magna Carta gave a rather specific and some would say drastic measure for enforcing the Right to Petition: seizure of "federal" property.

If we, our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us - or in our absence from the kingdom to the chief justice - to declare it and claim immediate redress. If we, or in our absence abroad the chiefjustice, make no redress within forty days, reckoning from the day on which the offence was declared to us or to him, the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. Having secured the redress, they may then resume their normal obedience to us.
Any man who so desires may take an oath to obey the commands of the twenty-five barons for the achievement of these ends, and to join with them in assailing us to the utmost of his power. We give public and free permission to take this oath to any man who so desires, and at no time will we prohibit any man from taking it. Indeed, we will compel any of our subjects who are unwilling to take it to swear it at our command.

The Right to Petition is much more than simply the Right to make noise. The Founding Fathers intended for there to be teeth in this Right for it was they who wrote "If money is wanted by Rulers, who have in any manner oppressed the people, they may retain it, until their grievances are redressed; and thus peaceably procure relief, without trusting to despised petitions, or disturbing the public tranquillity."

Petitions Under Fire

St. Pete Beach in Florida is suing it's Citizens for petitioning the city government to place an faux-eminent-domain issue on the ballot.

From a WND article
According to the city's charter, citizens can call for a vote on "any adopted ordinance," but city officials decided to sue because they say the state won't allow citizens the right to vote on a redevelopment plan like the one under consideration.

What's more, they have denied they are using taxpayer funds to sue taxpayers.

We are going to see more and more of these eminent domain land grabs and more and more denied/ignored petitions in the coming years. Those petitions wont just about eminent domain either. Now that the FedGov has ignored a lawful petition it will trickle down to the states/counties/cities in short order. Keep an eye on the case We The People v. The United States to see how the higher courts will rule on the Right To Petition as their rulings affect every lower court beneath them.

John Effin Kerry And The Political Spectrum

"They say you can tell a lot by somebody's friends," Kerry said. "These three individuals [Coulter, Bork, Buchannan] are on the furthest side of the ideological spectrum."

Kerry listed three people to my left. Also he seems to think there is only one end to the spectrum. It seems Kerry is so far to the left that he can't even see the right end of the spectrum.

Baaaa

Feeling a bit sheepish this morning! Seems I didnt pay enough attention when I dressed this morning and grabbed a pair of pants that have a nice hole in the butt. I discovered this some 4 hours after arriving... Fortunately I sit on my butt all day and for those times I need to walk around I have a jacket that is juuust long enough!

Prayer Request

I am sure you all have seen this over at Dif's but if not... There are two young boys, twins, that were born very premature. They are both only about 2 pounds. Please pray for them and their families.

Whale Puke

An Australian couple came across a 32 pound lump of whale "puke" and not knowing what it was they decided to take it home. Their little bit of curiousity is going to "net" them at least $295,000.

France Goes Nuclear Part Deux

Triton not only writes a short story, he also connects his short story with his Conspiracy Wednesday! Great Stuff. Triton even remembered the leap days.

Got FatWallet?

I dont know about you guys, but I know I dont make enough. I know that it is good to be content with whatever I have and I believe that. But I also know that it is difficult to have a single income family these days. We do a number of things around our house to save money with a big thing being coupons and getting price-matches (Wal-Mart comes in beautifully for that) Recently a coworker showed me a website called Fatwallet.com. All sorts of good stuff on there, with links to free stuff, online contests, coupon codes and free shipping codes. These things are out there, might as well take advantage of them. I recommend using IE for it as there are contest sites that just wont work with Firefox.

www.fatwallet.com

We The People: Update

By Order of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Bob Schulz, representing himself, and Mark Lane, attorney for the other 1700 named Plaintiffs, have been directed to file their legal Briefs by February 22, 2006.

The single issue on appeal is whether the People can use the Petition Clause of the First Amendment to hold the government accountable for the protection of their Individual Rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America.

The constitutional question before the Court is: “Whether the government is required to respond with specific answers to the questions contained in the Plaintiffs’ Petitions for Redress of Grievances and whether the People can retain their money until their grievances are redressed.”

We don’t believe we need to remind people of the importance of this case. No court has ever been asked to, nor has any U.S. court ever declared the meaning of the Petition Clause of the First Amendment

Soon now. We The People are one step closer to getting a ruling on this long forgotten Right. This is the Right that we must use to force our Government back into its pen, back to it's Constitutionally defined powers. If this Right is not upheld in the Courts (and it hasnt been yet) then our only non-violent option left is to retain our money.

Short Stories: France Goes Nuclear

As posted over at Triton's, the French Government reaffirmed their nuclear option for retalliating against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it. So I thought perhaps if anyone is feeling creative they could post a short story about France actually using a nuke and its outcome. Would it galvanize the Muslim states? Cow them? Finally cause "moderate" Muslims to reign in the fundamentalist?

Post in the comments or if you post on your blog let me know and I will link to it.

War Drums a'Beatin

Seems that the war drums are out in full force again. This time for Iran. I knew this would be coming and it has been obvious who the FedGov's next target would be. Even my local paper is starting their drums with pieces such as this political cartoon.

This isnt going to be about simply taking out a power plant and sending them to ground zero like Israel did with Iraq some 20 years ago. This particular tune is to justify going into Iran and giving them hated democracy. Surely taking out their ability to create nukes or "nukaler" power will be something that is bandied about, but once that is accomplished or nearly accomplished we will then turn our troops into missionaries for the god called democracy as we have done in Iraq.

If we really feel that Iran would be a threat if they get nukes, then lets just take out any plant that they have. Israel can reach Iran, our planes are closer. Quit the posturing, take out the threat and get it over with. Dont send our boys in there to try to free a people that arent willing to work for freedom.

Three More Reasons To Homeschool

As you are all no doubt aware there has been a huge increase in the amount of teachers being thrown in the slammer for having sex with their students. Well just this week alone three (count it one, two, three) homosexual teachers have gotten away with assaulting/raping children with no jail time.

So now there isnt even a threat of punishment for raping our children. No learning going on and teachers raping students. Why do parents allow their kids to go to school?

Book Meme

Okay, this is a bit overdue. I have been trying to wait until I was a little less braindead but that time doesnt seem to be coming any time soon. So without further ado, my abreviated version.

Five favorite fiction authors:
Robert Jordan
Terry Goodkind
Anne McCafferey
Terry Brooks

Five favorite non-fiction authors:
Dietrich Bonhoffer
Henry David Thoreau

Five favorite children's writers:
Shel Silverstein,
the author of Romona Quimby,
The guy who wrote the Bunnicula books,
Bob Reese (of Huzzard Buzzard fame, I will be buying these books for my little one)


Favorite book read in 2005:
pretty much the whole Wheel Of Time series (read it again)

Five books on faith that you would recommend:
Cost of Discipleship
Other good stuff
The best book is of course the Bible.

A fictional character you would like to emulate: Captain Kirk was pretty darn cool!

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? If yes, which one? hmmm too many to even begin to list (that and I am brain dead lately!) Someone else mentioned 7of9 and I could go with that!

A book you love with a short review:
The whole entire Wheel of Time series! good stuff. Believable character, detailed world, lots of action and an author whose views ya just cant quite pin down (try as you might)

Welfare State: An Alternative Approach

Here is my alternative approach (with the actual approach being to abolish it).

If we must have a Welfare State, then lets have a welfare State. Lets declare a specific state to be the only place where one could live to collect welfare for a period of longer than one year. And not just have a mailbox there. Actually reside there for 10 months out of the year. All the businesses and doctors and non-welfare-collectors that wanted to move there could move there. Then we could still have a welfare state, but without the problems being spread out amongst the working.

Dog Crap and Government

The purpose of this post isnt to equate government and crap (why state the obvious?) but rather to point out why we have the Government that we have.

Beloved and I recently bought a townhome. In our unit there are 5 dogs. We make sure our dog does her business in a fairly confined area and clean it on a weekly basis, but everyone else seems to just use wherever. Without cleaning up. After all, why clean up when there is an HOA that will eventually get around to it(I assume some time in spring) Anyways, after about an 1 hour of cleaning up other peoples crap (and there is much more to clean), I realized this is simply a symptom of why we have the gov that we have. No one wants to take responsibility for their own crap. Leave it to someone else. "It's not my job" and "Someone should fix this."

Well let me tell you something people. Deal with your own crap! And while you are at it, go the extra mile and deal with someone else's! If you think something needs fixing, then fix it! Broken glass a problem in your area? buy a $10 shovel and clean it up! Graffiti a problem? paint over it, offer to paint over it on other's homes or fences. Neighbor's yard an eyesore? offer to mow it for them. 2000 years ago Jesus commanded us to go the extra mile, today with all our modern equipment we cant be bothered to go the extra 100 feet. We have a Nanny State because most of us need a Nanny.

Anderson for House

Ex-Sherrif John Anderson is going to take on 20 year incumbent Joel Hefley for his seat in the US House of Representatives. It seems that the Sherrif is not getting any support from the Repugnican establishment. Havent we seen this before? Someone who stands for Rights not getting support... now where did this happen last? Locally that would be maverick Douglas Bruce, author of the Taxpayers Bill Of Rights (TABOR.) TABOR has kept Colorado from the serious deficits other states have encountered after tha last recession. Nationally that was Pat Toomey, an actual conservative running against Arlen Specter for a Pensylvania Senate seat. The Bush Administration and Repugnican party enthusiastically backed the non-conservative Specter.

Not much of Anderson's platform is actually known, but what is known beyond the shadow of a doubt is that Anderson's work made it easier for all Coloradans to conceal carry. Anderson was the first to implement Shall Issue in Colorado, right here in El Paso County. Because the predicted "blood in the streets" never happened other counties followed suit. Denver, being naturally against personal Rights, did not like this situation and made it difficult for anyone who might have to either do business inside of it, or even pass thru Denver (no Safe Passage laws) This caused the issue to come to a head and was taken up by State Legislature, who passed laws making the entire state "Shall Issue."

Even with nothing else known about Anderson at this time (and I am solidly a Libertarian, never again a republican) I say Huzzah for Anderson! I will post later if I can find his platform/stance/views.

Twoferone

What Your Underwear Says About You

You tend to buy new underwear instead of doing laundry. You are childlike (or childish), and prone to run around in your underwear.

The Underwear Oracle

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy. You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts. People may say you're hard to read, but that's because you're so internally focused. But when you do share what you're thinking, people are impressed with your imagination.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Tidbits

Sony has created a new record label. Apparently they feel there is a market for musicians whose sole qualification is that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Whats next? separate labels for musicians who are democrats or republicans?


The FedGov now deems the act of annoying someone on the web as a crime. Mind you, "annoying" is the actual term. Two questions. Just who is it that defines "annoying" and how is that so bad as to be raised to the level of a federal crime?