A view of my hike last Sunday.
A short one but a good one in Bollinger Canyon.
Bollinger2 at EveryTrail
Map created by EveryTrail: GPS Community
Friday, October 2, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
ObamaCare doesn't cover illegal aliens?????
Uh…Obama is the smoothest talker we’ve ever had in the White House. If every car salesman was as good as he is, GM would be sailing because a lot more of us would be driving Escalades and Vettes, and they wouldn’t have had to sell Hummer…but really, Obamacare doesn’t cover illegals????
He’s not going to change the status quo. Right now if you are an illegal and cross the border and enter a government clinic and you can get free health care paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Your illegal status will not be questioned. We currently don’t have, and the “new” ObamaCare has, no mandatory proof of U.S. citizenship.
Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader) intends to pass Amnesty and to open U.S. borders to Mexico and his bill will allow anyone to enter the country. Chuck Schumer (Senate Democrat from New York state) is ready to introduce another Amnesty Bill. Basically, the illegal immigration issue is now merging with Health Care.
This health care for illegal aliens is a big issue in California. According to the Los Angeles Times:
1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes. They are predominantly illegal aliens working without a green card and will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
4. Over 66% of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by California taxpayers and they will be ELIGIBLE ObamaCare.
5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican Nationals here illegally and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal aliens and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
Do the math. There are 10.2 million people in Los Angeles County.
He’s not going to change the status quo. Right now if you are an illegal and cross the border and enter a government clinic and you can get free health care paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Your illegal status will not be questioned. We currently don’t have, and the “new” ObamaCare has, no mandatory proof of U.S. citizenship.
Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader) intends to pass Amnesty and to open U.S. borders to Mexico and his bill will allow anyone to enter the country. Chuck Schumer (Senate Democrat from New York state) is ready to introduce another Amnesty Bill. Basically, the illegal immigration issue is now merging with Health Care.
This health care for illegal aliens is a big issue in California. According to the Los Angeles Times:
1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes. They are predominantly illegal aliens working without a green card and will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
4. Over 66% of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by California taxpayers and they will be ELIGIBLE ObamaCare.
5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican Nationals here illegally and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal aliens and they will be ELIGIBLE for ObamaCare.
Do the math. There are 10.2 million people in Los Angeles County.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Chart of the Day - U.S. top tax rates will exceed France!
Great editorial today in the WSJ titled "A Reckless Congress" which you can find here:
A Reckless Congress
In it is a chart of what the top income tax rate, including state taxes, will be for several states vis-a-vis other countries if the Obama budget and House health-care plan become law. This is what it looks like folks:
Lucky me, I live in California where it will exceed Sweden, Belgium Japan, Germany Canada AND France.
A Reckless Congress
In it is a chart of what the top income tax rate, including state taxes, will be for several states vis-a-vis other countries if the Obama budget and House health-care plan become law. This is what it looks like folks:
Lucky me, I live in California where it will exceed Sweden, Belgium Japan, Germany Canada AND France.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A great article by Chuck Norris about the Somali Pirates
A great article by Chuck Norris about the Somali Pirates, published at Human Events (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31542).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Jefferson, American Hostages and Somali Pirates
by Chuck Norris
04/21/2009
A couple of weeks ago, Somali pirates hijacked a cargo ship with 20 American crew members on board. Thank God and the Navy SEALs that they all got out alive. But will Americans be as lucky next time?
During 2008 alone, these thugs raided more than 130 vessels, resulting in 50 successful hijackings and millions of dollars paid in ransoms. With at least five well-organized pirate gangs off the Horn of Africa -- including the al-Shabab militia, which is a group of Islamic extremists that some people compare to the Taliban -- all seeking and splitting the spoils of these sea traders, isn't it time America better protects our merchant mariners in volatile areas, such as off the Somali coast? Isn't it time they are armed with better deterrents than fire hoses, rubber bullets and sonic weapons? Isn't it time our Navy SEALs reach land and cut pirates off at the pass?
Ransoms only enable these hooligans. And negotiations never work with them. We need to cut them off so that no one else goes missing in action. For proof of that, we only need to look back and learn from our revolutionary predecessors. Our Founding Fathers not only demonstrated how we need to rescue our citizens but also instilled the notion within these pirates that America never will appease or tolerate captors and that we never will pay their ransoms again.
Some might not know that America has been dealing with African marauding mariners since our inception. Though it's not a direct parallel, I believe we need to do as Thomas Jefferson did during the Barbary Wars, in which Muslim extremists, or pirates, from the Barbary States (Tripoli, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, which were semi-independent provinces of Turkey) fought many countries, including the new United States, that they considered Christian nations.
While the United States was mopping up from the Revolutionary War, we also were squaring off against largely Muslim pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. These sea bandits cruised the coastlines stealing cargo, destroying villages, and enslaving millions of Africans and hundreds of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans. Because America was a newborn nation, we had relatively little naval defense. Our rebellion against Britain severed our protection by the Royal Navy. And while France helped during the Revolutionary War, we were on our own as of about 1783. And so our merchant ships were exceptionally vulnerable to attack in and out of the Great Sea. As a result, our cargo and seamen were captured, and our country's leaders were forced to negotiate with the Barbary pirates.
In 1784, envoys were dispatched to secure peace and passage from the Barbary States. Treaties were made. Tributes and ransoms were paid. Our cargo and captives were freed. And our ships traveled safely. But over the next decade and a half, we gave millions of dollars to these radicals, including an estimated 20 percent of our federal budget in 1800! (Despite that, men such as Thomas Jefferson argued vehemently against paying ransoms and tribute; Jefferson believed the only road to resolution would be through the "medium of war.")
America's first four presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison) each dealt with this east-west conflict of powers to varying degrees. Though numerous negotiations and treaties were made, including the Treaty of Tripoli (1796-97), Tripoli (in present-day Libya) still declared war against the U.S. in 1801. It sometimes is called America's first official war. The Founders believed in a foreign policy of noninterventionism, but Jefferson realized that protecting America's borders also meant protecting American lives and property overseas.
He confessed to Congress in 1801 that he was "unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense," but he still ordered a small fleet of warships to the Mediterranean to ward off attacks by the Barbary States. Marines and warships were deployed to the region. That eventually led to the 1805 surrender of Tripoli. It would take another decade, however, to defeat those pirates completely, or, should I say, cause them to retreat until a distant time when they would attack our country again.
America's victory back then over those sea radicals is commemorated today in "The Marines' Hymn," with the words "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
The voices of our forefathers cry out from the Barbary Wars in the hopes of imparting some wisdom to us. As the adage goes, we either will learn from history's mistakes or be doomed to repeat them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Jefferson, American Hostages and Somali Pirates
by Chuck Norris
04/21/2009
A couple of weeks ago, Somali pirates hijacked a cargo ship with 20 American crew members on board. Thank God and the Navy SEALs that they all got out alive. But will Americans be as lucky next time?
During 2008 alone, these thugs raided more than 130 vessels, resulting in 50 successful hijackings and millions of dollars paid in ransoms. With at least five well-organized pirate gangs off the Horn of Africa -- including the al-Shabab militia, which is a group of Islamic extremists that some people compare to the Taliban -- all seeking and splitting the spoils of these sea traders, isn't it time America better protects our merchant mariners in volatile areas, such as off the Somali coast? Isn't it time they are armed with better deterrents than fire hoses, rubber bullets and sonic weapons? Isn't it time our Navy SEALs reach land and cut pirates off at the pass?
Ransoms only enable these hooligans. And negotiations never work with them. We need to cut them off so that no one else goes missing in action. For proof of that, we only need to look back and learn from our revolutionary predecessors. Our Founding Fathers not only demonstrated how we need to rescue our citizens but also instilled the notion within these pirates that America never will appease or tolerate captors and that we never will pay their ransoms again.
Some might not know that America has been dealing with African marauding mariners since our inception. Though it's not a direct parallel, I believe we need to do as Thomas Jefferson did during the Barbary Wars, in which Muslim extremists, or pirates, from the Barbary States (Tripoli, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, which were semi-independent provinces of Turkey) fought many countries, including the new United States, that they considered Christian nations.
While the United States was mopping up from the Revolutionary War, we also were squaring off against largely Muslim pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. These sea bandits cruised the coastlines stealing cargo, destroying villages, and enslaving millions of Africans and hundreds of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans. Because America was a newborn nation, we had relatively little naval defense. Our rebellion against Britain severed our protection by the Royal Navy. And while France helped during the Revolutionary War, we were on our own as of about 1783. And so our merchant ships were exceptionally vulnerable to attack in and out of the Great Sea. As a result, our cargo and seamen were captured, and our country's leaders were forced to negotiate with the Barbary pirates.
In 1784, envoys were dispatched to secure peace and passage from the Barbary States. Treaties were made. Tributes and ransoms were paid. Our cargo and captives were freed. And our ships traveled safely. But over the next decade and a half, we gave millions of dollars to these radicals, including an estimated 20 percent of our federal budget in 1800! (Despite that, men such as Thomas Jefferson argued vehemently against paying ransoms and tribute; Jefferson believed the only road to resolution would be through the "medium of war.")
America's first four presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison) each dealt with this east-west conflict of powers to varying degrees. Though numerous negotiations and treaties were made, including the Treaty of Tripoli (1796-97), Tripoli (in present-day Libya) still declared war against the U.S. in 1801. It sometimes is called America's first official war. The Founders believed in a foreign policy of noninterventionism, but Jefferson realized that protecting America's borders also meant protecting American lives and property overseas.
He confessed to Congress in 1801 that he was "unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense," but he still ordered a small fleet of warships to the Mediterranean to ward off attacks by the Barbary States. Marines and warships were deployed to the region. That eventually led to the 1805 surrender of Tripoli. It would take another decade, however, to defeat those pirates completely, or, should I say, cause them to retreat until a distant time when they would attack our country again.
America's victory back then over those sea radicals is commemorated today in "The Marines' Hymn," with the words "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
The voices of our forefathers cry out from the Barbary Wars in the hopes of imparting some wisdom to us. As the adage goes, we either will learn from history's mistakes or be doomed to repeat them.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Comandante Obama - The president has made America look like a banana republic.
Peter Robinson authored an article on February 27, 2009 for Forbes online in which he relates a conversation he had with a Colombian and a Cuban:
"But you don't understand," the Colombian said. "We've seen this before."
"He's right, my good friend," the Cuban said. "We Latin Americans know the pattern. Believe me we do."
The American tried to shrug off the Latin Americans' warning. To his consternation, he found that he couldn't. Peron, Fidel, now Chavez, they insisted. The emergence of misrule, corruption and economic stagnation in Latin American nations follows a particular sequence or progression. Now the sequence was unfolding in the United States.
"It starts with a cult of personality," the Cuban explained. "One man declares himself the jefe, the caudillo, the big leader."
They went on to explain to Robinson the progression followed in Latin America and the parallels they see with Obama.
THE CULT OF PERSONALITY
- The election was based on “hope” and “change”.. he had failed to advance a genuine agenda
- Academics and the mainstream media have been “only too willing to place themselves in thrall to Obama”:
“On Feb. 17, for example, the president had signed an $800 billion "stimulus" bill, at least three-quarters of which was devoted not to stimulus but to political payoffs. Less than a week later, he had hosted a White House "summit" on fiscal responsibility. Had the press noted the contrast? Had it objected? The very idea. “
NATIONALIZATION
The Columbian noted that next comes nationalization:
Fidel had nationalized the Cuban sugar mills, Chavez the Banco de Venezuela, Morales the Bolivian oil and gas industries.
Obama? He may not have been issuing sweeping diktats. But as the American had to admit, he had already presided over a vast expansion of the federal stake in banks, in the automobile industry and in the mortgage markets. And in his address before Congress, he had proposed a new federal presence in health care, an industry that accounts for a full one-seventh of the economy.
CENSORSHIP
The last step is censorship. The Cuban said it is coming. The American said ”no way...we have the First Amendment“. The Cuban noted we soon will have the Fairness Doctrine.
Revoked in 1987, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to air contrasting views of public issues. Reintroduced today, the Fairness Doctrine would force radio stations to pair conservative talk show hosts, who draw big audiences, with liberal hosts, who, as Al Franken's brief radio career demonstrated, draw barely any audiences at all. As the American had to grant, the Fairness Doctrine would thus make talk radio unprofitable, in effect censoring Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Michael Reagan, Laura Ingraham and other conservative stars.
The re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine--and the imposition of censorship. Was this possible? As the American had to admit, it now appeared not only possible but likely.
Welcome to the New America. All Hail to the Comandante!!
"But you don't understand," the Colombian said. "We've seen this before."
"He's right, my good friend," the Cuban said. "We Latin Americans know the pattern. Believe me we do."
The American tried to shrug off the Latin Americans' warning. To his consternation, he found that he couldn't. Peron, Fidel, now Chavez, they insisted. The emergence of misrule, corruption and economic stagnation in Latin American nations follows a particular sequence or progression. Now the sequence was unfolding in the United States.
"It starts with a cult of personality," the Cuban explained. "One man declares himself the jefe, the caudillo, the big leader."
They went on to explain to Robinson the progression followed in Latin America and the parallels they see with Obama.
THE CULT OF PERSONALITY
- The election was based on “hope” and “change”.. he had failed to advance a genuine agenda
- Academics and the mainstream media have been “only too willing to place themselves in thrall to Obama”:
“On Feb. 17, for example, the president had signed an $800 billion "stimulus" bill, at least three-quarters of which was devoted not to stimulus but to political payoffs. Less than a week later, he had hosted a White House "summit" on fiscal responsibility. Had the press noted the contrast? Had it objected? The very idea. “
NATIONALIZATION
The Columbian noted that next comes nationalization:
Fidel had nationalized the Cuban sugar mills, Chavez the Banco de Venezuela, Morales the Bolivian oil and gas industries.
Obama? He may not have been issuing sweeping diktats. But as the American had to admit, he had already presided over a vast expansion of the federal stake in banks, in the automobile industry and in the mortgage markets. And in his address before Congress, he had proposed a new federal presence in health care, an industry that accounts for a full one-seventh of the economy.
CENSORSHIP
The last step is censorship. The Cuban said it is coming. The American said ”no way...we have the First Amendment“. The Cuban noted we soon will have the Fairness Doctrine.
Revoked in 1987, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to air contrasting views of public issues. Reintroduced today, the Fairness Doctrine would force radio stations to pair conservative talk show hosts, who draw big audiences, with liberal hosts, who, as Al Franken's brief radio career demonstrated, draw barely any audiences at all. As the American had to grant, the Fairness Doctrine would thus make talk radio unprofitable, in effect censoring Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Michael Reagan, Laura Ingraham and other conservative stars.
The re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine--and the imposition of censorship. Was this possible? As the American had to admit, it now appeared not only possible but likely.
Welcome to the New America. All Hail to the Comandante!!
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