George Zimmerman

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/seminole_news/031612-911-calls-released-in-Sanford-shooting

The story between the shooter 28-year-old George Zimmerman and the deceased 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was first broken to me by 'The Young Turks'.  The above link will lead you to 911 calls made by the shooter and various residents in an apartment complex in Sanford, FL. According to various sources, Mr. Zimmerman who is a neighborhood watch leader initially observed a 'suspicious' person walking through the gated community.  While on the phone with 911 Zimmerman continued to follow Trayvon Martin even after the 911 operator told him the police are on the way and to stop following the 'suspect'.

What happened immediately before the shooting is unclear but from what I gather, Zimmerman caught up to Martin and confronted him in some fashion.  There was a total of two shots fired and during and after the first shot, some have said a warning shot, Martin can be heard yelling for help and for his life.
It is said that the second shot was the one to end Martins life.  There have been no eye witnesses so far but several reports have stated that Zimmerman had been on the ground at one point in time since his coat was wet and had grass on it. It must be stated that Martin had gone to a convenience store and had iced tea and skittles candy on him at the time.  Although Martin did not live in the complex he was staying with family there.

From all the reports this does not seem to be a case of self defense.  Here's why.  Zimmerman while on the phone with 911, was chasing or tailing Martin even though police were minutes away. Zimmerman called from either his home, clubhouse, or vehicle.  Once cannot claim self defense if you have identified a potential threat (Martin) and then proceed to chase the threat.  If Zimmerman then engaged the potential threat with deadly force, even if they began to fight when Zimmerman caught the threat, the very act of chasing down the threat while you have safe haven elsewhere prohibits self defense. Florida has a law called the 'castle doctrine' which most plainly states that you are awarded legal protection in bona-fide self defense cases where you have a legal right to be, say in your home, business, or even a store. This law will not protect Zimmerman.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/17/2700249/shooter-of-trayvon-martin-a-habitual.html

Top 10 Reasons

....gay people should not get married.  This is a lazy repost but I thought it might be good to touch on the subject.

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all like many of the principles on which this great country was founded; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of marriages like Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

from:http://www.stopgeek.com/top-10-reasons-gay-marriage-should-be-illegal.html

Reddit Atheism

Reddit is a social news website that has quite a following.  If you want to know more about atheism, you can go here and check it out. http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/faq#Doatheistsbelieveinghosts or reddit.com.

You can troll the site and find hoards of images like the one above.  It can suck you in and waste an incredible amount of time, so fair warning!

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Here's what happened; in the 1960's, we were at war with the Soviet  union, cold war and a little bit of hot, war in Southeast Asia.  SO, we fear them because they put up Sputnik, which by the way people forget, was an emptied out casing of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Sputnik itself means fellow traveler so it's ll peaceful but it was a ballistic missile head, without explosive, and that was a signal in America and we freaked in America ! NASA got founded on the fear factor of Sputnik. SO then we go to the moon on the fear that Russia will control the high ground. Then we go to the moon, space enthusiast say "OH! We're on the moon by '69, we'll be on mars in another 10 years. They completely did not understand why we got to the moon in the first place. We were at war. Once we saw that Russia was not ready to land on the moon we stopped going to the moon. That should not surprise anybody looking back on it.

Meanwhile however, that entire era galvanised the nation, forget the war, it galvanized us all to dream for tomatoes to think about the homes of tomorrow, the cities of tomorrow, the food of tomorrow, everything was future world, future land the worlds fair, all of this was focused on enabling people to make tomorrow come. That was a cultural mindset that the space program brought upon us and we reaped the benefits of economic growth because you had people wanting to become scientists and engineers who are the people who enable tomorrow and to exist today. And even if you are not a scientist or technologist you will value that activity and that in the 21st century are the foundations of tomorrows economy's and without it we might as well slide back to the cave because that's right where we're headed right now, broke.

I'm tired of saying this but I have to say it again! The NASA budget is 4/10's of one penny on a tax dollar. If I held up a tax dollar and I cut horizontally into it 4/10's of 1% of its width, it doesn't even get you into the ink! SO I WILL NOT ACCEPT A STATEMENT THAT SAYS "WE CAN"T AFFORD IT!"

Do you realise that the 850 billion dollar bank bailout, that sum of money is greater than the entire 50 year running budget of NASA. And so when somebody says we don't have enough money for the space program I'm asking its not that you don't have enough money , its that the distribution of money your spending is warped, in some way that your removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow, the home of tomorrow, the city of tomorrow, the transportation of tomorrow, all that ended in the 1970's after we stopped going to the moon, it all ended, we stopped dreaming. SO, I worry that the decisions that congress make doesn't factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. They're playing for the quarterly report, they're playing for the next election cycle and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation, tomorrows gone.

If you double NASA's budget up from half a penny on a dollar, make it a penny, go ahead make it a penny,  go ahead be bold, that is enough to go to Mars, soon with people, and go back to the moon and on to asteroids. NASA as best as I can judge is a force of nature like none other and so what worries me is that if you take away the manned program, a program which if you advance frontiers, a program which heroes are made. There's a force operating on the educational pipeline that will stimulate the formation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and technologists. You birth these people in to society, they're the ones that make tomorrow come.
A half a penny. That buys the space station the space shuttles, all the NASA centers, the rovers, the Hubble Telescope, all the astronauts, all of that, nobodies dreaming about tomorrow anymore. The most powerful agency of the dreams on a nation is currently underfunded to do what it needs to be doing. And that's making dreams come true. How much would you pay....for the universe?

Pat Robertson

Life is stranger then fiction.  Maybe that's because of our poor imagination.  But what we have here is an agreement on something between me/this blog and Pat Robertson.  Don't let me lead you astray, he is an awful bigot, a frothy fecal pile, a religious huckster, and loathsome vacuous sick evangelist and yet we can agree on marijuana, please watch.





They say if you live long enough........I fear that he may have ulterior motives but I'll take any progress I can get.

Pet owners

I found this video on youtube and it is very powerful. Watch first.



I had this experience once and I don't care to repeat it.  We had a doberman, who when he was 15, started to have seizures.  I was also 15 then as well so I knew this dog my whole life.  He could no longer walk all the time and had to have his back legs carried when it came time to go to the 'bathroom'.  He wasn't always disabled for he could walk again in a few days after a seizure.  The adults in my life came to the determination that this was his time and that he should be euthanized.

I can remember that day quite well.  Saying goodbye, knowing that was our last few hours together, made for a strange day indeed.  When our appointment came and he was put on the exam table, I felt rather emotionless.  When the Dr. put the needle in and pushed in the fluid, it was a rather peaceful, almost eventless event. But the part that is ingrained most firmly in my memory was his eyes.  He was looking at me as he fell asleep and I can remember how they almost turned black, as if it was truly a light bulb going out.  His eyes were closing as he grew weaker, until his head was resting on the table.  So there he lay motionless, dead, pain free, while one last goodbye was said and we left for home.

As a male I feel it is a requirement, almost a duty to not show emotion of the sad sort even at events like this. But I can tell you I feel nearly overwhelmed reciting this story, not only in words but in clear memory.  The job that these people do is an unenviable one that I could not do.  At one point in this film the Dr. says you begin to feel like putting a gun in your mouth.  I can see how easy it would be to feel that way and I hope the reader does as well.  According to the Human Society there are about 3-4 million homeless animals euthanized every year.  It should seem immediately apparent there is a moral wrong being committed by our nation.  The best solution it seems is to spay or neuter your pets.  Not only for the quality of life for the animals but for the well being of the people who have to do this ghastly deed that ALL of us are indebted to.

I wanted to promote this video to get the word out, for I do not know what else to do to help.  Education about this topic seems key to any success.  As anyone who has lost a longtime pet can appreciate the work involved for anyone who has to euthanize so many animals.  It is a grave misdeed to breed indiscriminately, to care not for the consequences of breeding too many animals, and for the rest of us to not put social pressure on fellow citizens, friends, and family members who partake in the actions which lead to the wholesale slaughter of otherwise good pets.

Due Process

You know about all those crazy people in the past who said conspiracy theory this murder laws that.  You know, those hucksters that tried to make you fear your government and said the government does not have your interests at heart. Well all fiction aside, Orwell's 1984 is becoming real.  In this video, by The Young Turks, highlighting a talk by Eric Holder, Attorney General of the U.S., who was the overseer of "operation fast and furious", where the U.S. government allowed weapons to be funneled into Mexico, who then later blamed the U.S. for our 'poor' policy of gun control, who gave a talk about assassinating U.S. citizens.  It is now law in the U.S. that the executive branch can now order the killing of U.S. citizens anywhere in the world without regard for what a court may say.  In fact we have already killed some but how many, nobody knows.



http://www.theyoungturks.com/

When will this paranoid insanity end.  We have become a nation of scared denizens.  We can blame both parties here, for this is worse than what Bush II has done.  He may have set the stage but Obama has taken the reigns and is sending freedom down the road to oblivion.  They no longer need to present evidence or show it to a court.  They have no need to make charges.  No lawyer will look into your defense for you no longer have one.  They are now judge, jury, and executioner which is in direct conflict with the constitution.  I don't know why there is no outrage and I am positive many among us would defend these psychotic laws and logic with an appeal for our safety.  We need to get the terrorists.  Terrorists, Terrorists, Terrorists.  Its such a joke in any other context except for this is real life.

If we want to end this nightmare, the only politician which opposes this on all fronts is Ron Paul.  Sadly I have strong doubts he will win and in the past he has said "it is not about winning. It's about the message."  Although he's correct that it's about the message we would be in a superior position if we could get him elected.  I suppose having a constitutionalist in power really is a radical agenda. Who knew?

True Conservative?

As evidenced by this blog, I both enjoy and am vexed by politics.  I have always thought of myself as a conservative, not necessarily a far right winger but probably a conservative moderate.  I have become particularly confused by the rhetoric espoused by the Republican presidential candidates, so I began to investigate what are the issues that separate the two ideals. A search of "am I left or right", or "am I a republican or democrat" reveals many multiple choice quizzes in which to provide an answer.  I find many of these tests to have a unfair bias in the questions and which some questions are outright egregious.  To my slight confusion and surprise, these tests reveal I'm a hard liberal?!

One of my chief concerns in the past has been of gun control or better stated, ones free ability to have arms.  I am guilty of sometimes being a single issue voter for I reason that if a politician doesn't trust the populace to have arms, I cannot trust him to put MY freedom in his charge.  Without knowing who to quote on this statement but I see truth in it, "The second amendment protects all the others."  A quick study of history reveals that every populace who has had sweeping gun control policies, a brutal government quickly follows who often uses violence to further its own aims.  In reading the second amendment, it seems very plain, that the founding fathers intended for private firearm ownership to be a normal part of life but many liberals and democrats have viewed the "militia clause" to mean that only the military or national guard should have access to weapons.  Another short motto as follows, "an unarmed man is a subject, an armed man is a citizen."

With that said I begin to wonder what classification my values fall under and what it would take to slide to the right.  First off I value separation of church and state, as outlined in the constitution, I value the secular state.  I also value environmental standards.  I value individual rights, an almost tripe utterance with no meaning of its own.  I also value free expression, protesting the government and corporations, helping the poor, and smaller government.  Both parties pay lip service to these values but I have to state that the republican party as been the most ardent violator of these principals.

The republican party swaggers up to the podium and invokes god at nearly every turn at the same time they are opposed to the welfare state.  If they believe in the tenants of Jesus Christ, they must also give as much support to the poor as possible and yet giving to the poor seems to be a democratic idea.  Or better stated, the government giving to the poor as opposed to the church giving to the poor and yet the government gives welfare out in orders of magnitude more than the church does.  Very confusing.  When I say welfare state I do not merely mean cheese and milk, I mean all welfare programs, living assistance, unemployment insurance, and yes even health care.  Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter heaven."

The environment: Since when did protecting the environment become only a democratic ideal?  I suppose since it 'infringes' on the 'rights' of business to pollute indiscriminately that this becomes a leftist anti-business issue.  I would agree that many environmental policies go haywire as in the case of connecting wind farms to the power grid by not letting power lines be built though the forest. And yet in many, many instances, we let business pollute on a horrendous scale.  When an animal farm dumps it's waste into public rivers and waterways and disrupts all life in that ecosystem, why does bipartisan outrage evaporate?  The same republicans who love the outdoors, who love to go boating, hunting and fishing also pay for this environmental cost for the benefit of a tiny minority.  Very confusing.

Rich Santorum has seen broad support in the party.  I participated in the republican caucus in Spokane, WA and in our precinct Ron Paul narrowly won with Santorum only one vote behind while he took second in the overall county vote.  (http://elections.msnbc.msn.com/ns/politics/2012/washington/republican/caucus/#.T1W1_ocgdTI) Even though Paul took a narrow second in Washington total counts, Santorum has done very well in other parts of the country.  These polling results show that Santorum's views are indeed indicative of the party as a large percentage.  Santorum does not support the separation of church and state but would insert HIS version of the bible into the law of the land.  Would your religious views align with his?  I would be certain that statistics would prove me correct in saying that Santorum's views DO NOT represent the nation as a whole and yet his supporters care not for this fact.  Santorum would fit in very well with middle eastern Imams and Ayatollahs in regards to the structure of government they both pursue. Very confusing.

Expansion of government has been the norm under both parties but it is the republican party that advocates the loudest for smaller government.  And yet it was Bush II and his party that created the Patriot Act, no child left behind, and expansion of the TSA to name only a few. By the way the Patriot Act is anything but and in fact it should be called the 'Repeal the fourth amendment act'. If they want smaller government why have they increased it exponentially. Very confusing. I won't bother much with the TSA here (which gives a good idea for a future post) other than to say; how can normal men and women do this as a job everyday.  It is disgusting what we have become and how did we survive before this aggressive abuse?  Oh, we did just fine.

I really don't understand why conservatism has been reversed to mean abuse of power.  I don't know why 'conserving' our resources by keeping our water and air clean now equates to a 'radical liberal agenda'?.  I would have to suppose by what conservatives call conservation is; keeping the money changers and abusive business in power.  One question which seemed to separate left from right was: Do corporations have a social responsibility or do they simply need to create money for the shareholders?  Certainly the main goal of business or a corporation is to make money but to suggest that a business has no social responsibility is a backwards idea.  They may not need to feed the starving but at the very minimum a corporation should do no harm.  Instead our corporations, as evidenced by the wall street debacle, have become predatory and acutely greedy.

And I haven't covered 'gay rights' which is another anomaly of the republican parties lip service to individual rights.  Very confusing.

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.- Einstein

Micro Quotes

There is no shortage in this world of racking misery, hate, war, intolerance, greed, suffering, and injustice. In fact there are vast reservoirs of these regular wonders of humanity, ready to be tapped at a moments notice.  In America we are largely saved from the worst, most vile displays but unfortunately we need only to look in the news to find proof of these things.  More disturbing yet, we can look within ourselves to find the same.

Jesus of Nazareth said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor" and "do to others what you would have them do to you".  The Buddha said "everything depends on everything else. The one contains the many and the many contains the one" and "The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you".  The Dalai Lama said "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." and "We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves." Secular Humanism says "We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations" and "We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair,  tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness"

In every society resides a philosophy.  In fact we can find examples of love and tolerance within these philosophies, often times in large troves, and yet we find people who need no excuse to commit heinous atrocities on one another, either in the name of or in purposeful ignorance of said philosophy. This is why I am glad to be a part of the push back against intolerance and ignorance.  I am willing to take a stand against theocracy. For the secular state I am willing to fight.  For the secular state we live in gives permission to question all things, even the state itself.  Having the freedom of mind to question leads to the betterment of all humanity.  Freedom of mind is the antonym of pessimism, despair, and fear.