Live Free or Die

Does that not say it all? What is the point of living if you can not be free? What, then, is freedom? Freedom is leave to do whatever you wish without stepping on the toes of others. It is the ability to rise or fall on your own merit. It is enjoying the fruit of your own work. If you can't have that, why live? But do not go to your death quietly. After all, you want to live. All life does. So put your survival instinct to the cause of your own freedom. Do not ever give your freedom away, for what is of equal worth? Fight for it!

However, don't fight like these bozos. It is not yet time for violence and there is no excuse for killing a random policeman. It is beyond contempt to attack a funeral. No, now you have to write to you congress critters, vote, and most of all, reject the notion that anyone owes you anything.

The Smith

I have learned something about myself. I have described myself in the past as too much an artist to be a good engineer and too much an engineer to be a good artist. There is a name for that. They were called smiths in times past. A smith makes things, often without a pattern or even much forethought. They make things for a purpose, then for an aesthetic, at least that is how I see it when it's all said and done. That's about how I operate. I was in the basement last night, making a knife. I had an idea of what it should be, but no idea how to get there. I just did it. I just put things together and shaped them. I can work from a plan, but my best work is done without them. I can make pretty things, but my best works are the ones are the ones that are built to be nothing more than what they are. They are the ones that last.

This is how liberty dies...

...to the sound of thunderous applause. 

Sorry... I'm a nerd. Star Wars must be referenced whenever possible.

Seriously now, only a fool can believe that a nation with the most advanced medical system in the world, as in the system with the best survival rates, most new medicines, best technologies, etc, can be improved by imitating systems with worse performance. Perhaps even a fool can see that. No, this is the realm of the insane.

Too, only the insane can believe that forcing people to buy something is still freedom. The federal government has never done that before, have they? I have some documentation that says that they can't do that, documentation that I have sworn to defend with my life. 

Where does this leave me? I hope this unlawful act is struck down.

And now, a closing word from a man who is now spinning in his grave faster than GE turbofan...

If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

Take your socialism and depart to places that already practice it. Leave America for those who still value liberty. You make me sick...

Making stuff

I love making stuff. It's sometimes even better than doing stuff going places. To be honest, I'd rather be boarding today, but that's not in the cards. Instead, I'm making some soda bread for St. Patrick's and doing some machining. I know St. Paddy's was earlier this week, but I never got a shot at it with old work-sleep-work going on. Today is therefore catch-up day. Have to go before this turns into cat blogging now as both cats are stumping for pets and doing the keyboard waltz.

Ding dong, the which is... retired...

I had to fire my phone after it pocket dialed 911 the other day. It was the last straw in a string of abuses. See, I used to have an LG Shine. It was great! It was perfect for Tetris and it did the usual phone things very well. However, it had a close encounter of the wrong kind with a Mag-Lite and that was the end of that. I had insurance on it, so AT&T sent me a replacement.

The cellular phone industry may be the one place where winds change faster than fashion and where obsolete is defined as anything over six months old. There was no more LG Shine, so AT&T sent me what they assured me was even better, an LG Xenon. Touch screen, slide-out full keyboard, the whole nine yards. Cool, right?

EPIC FAIL!

I can't use touch screens. I'm too old and have lost too much of my soul. That's how they work, right? Soul detection? Like in the Simpsons where Bart sells his? Anyway, I could not get the phone to behave. I'd reject calls I wanted answer, pocket dial people, turn the alarm off without touching the phone... it was bad. I pulled my "prehistoric" Nokia brick phone out of storage and used that until the bright, shining, moment that I got my Sony 905. 

It's a camera with a phone on it. Awesome! It has the usual Sony headaches, but I love it. It's about time such a device was sold here in the US. 

Anyone want an AT&T Xenon in really good shape?

German Food

I went to a German restaurant last night. I've never tried explicitly German food before, but now I have and I have to say it is delicious. There was some sweet red cabbage dish that I did not care for, but everything else was fantastic. On the way home, I delivered the woman in whose honor we had gathered and she threatened to show off the two dishes that she remembers from growing up in Germany. I anticipate with eagerness.

Ninjas?

My wife and I are pregnant. This is so cool! Anyway, we have both hoped for twins so we can have two kids in one pregnancy and then call it quits. Well, the ultrasounds don't look good: just one kid in there...

UNLESS: how cool would it be if we had twins after all and we didn't see the other one because it was a ninja? Ninjas are born that way, right? Right? 

Oh, well. I can wish. Seriously, I hope it's a girl. We shall see.

Man are from Mars, Women are from Venus

EXHIBIT No. 939876:

Women are used to a temperature of 460 C. That's why they are so often cold here on earth.

Men are used to minus 46-ish C. That's why I wear t-shirts in December.

Freedom

Frank J. over at IMAO has been writing some serious work for a while at Pajamas Media. He wrote one this week that blew me away. It's about freedom, that most important and most precious of all things... yes, more even than life. Life without freedom is not worth living because to live in cage or in chains is to live for somebody else. We are people, not ants. Anyway, here is the link.