Frustration and Prop 98

Did I mention I’ve been frustrated?

This is particularly important for those of you in California preparing to vote on Proposition 98. However, I believe everyone will benefit from the post, so please stick around.

I received two things in the mail today.

First, I received an over-sized postcard from the National Tax Limitation Committee telling me that all good conservatives and anyone who is in favor of limiting taxes must vote YES on 98 and NO on 99!

Proposition 98: The only Prop which protects all property: homes, small businesses, farmers, renters, open space, & houses of worship from being forcibly seized by government and given to developers. Republican Party Endorsed.

Second, I received an email from my mom, who insightfully sees things as they are and not as they are being deceptively disguised. Here is her email to me.

Friends, family

After nearly four decades of voting in California elections I find that not much has changed. The initiative system is still being used by special interest groups to confuse voters with emotional appeals. Prop 98 is about rent control. It is not about eminent domain. Almost all donations to the Pro 98 funding have come from apartment and mobile home park owners, many of whom are out of state landlords. About 1.1 million Californians benefit from rent controlled properties. As you know, California is an increasingly hostile environment to low and fixed income people. Rent control allows seniors to stay near family and offers low income workers affordable housing. If you disagree with rent control, let that be the issue, undisguised.

Proposition 13 is NOT endangered by rejecting Proposition 98. This claim is meant to alarm
millions of homeowners. Proposition 98 WILL endanger public water works, coastal and
wetland projects, etc . Proposition 98 is so badly drafted that California courts will be hearing
cases for decades, an expense our state does not need.

I realize that some of you may not agree with me, if so, thank you for your time. If you do agree
that a No on Prop 98 and a Yes on Prop 99 makes sense, please pass this email, or your own, on to your friends and family.

Please vote on June 3rd, the drafters of this legislation have chosen a “low turnout” election hoping to slip this through unnoticed. Thank for letting me make my case, I promise to return the courtesy.

I love my mother. Now this is a perfect example of what I was getting at in my last post. I am willing to bet that most of you know little to nothing about what is truly within Proposition 98. I would further bet that most of you will vote according to a “Guide” that has been mailed to you or that you will pick up at your church or that you will download from your political party’s Web site. Finally, I guarantee that most if not all of you will not think a thing about any of this until you grab the guide on your way out the door, if you even remember to vote. Sound about right?

So what? Am I expecting you to read through every proposition and measure before carefully casting your vote? Well, ideally, yes. But, realistically, no. What I am expecting you to do is vote based on more than junk mail and party guidelines. Get out your google; consider who is footing the bill for these propositions; and perhaps most importantly, find some real people who are going to be effected by these proposals and get their take on it. Will they be biased? Probably. But will they have a reason? Most definitely. Determine what those reasons are and then make an informed decision.

Regarding my mail today, I can’t help but laugh a little. On the one hand you have a committee of no-names hiding behind junk mail, spending tons of money telling you to vote YES on 98. In true salesmen fashion they appeal to your emotions, suggesting that anything but a Yes vote will mean that the government will forcibly seize you from your home, small business, farm, apartment, open space, church or temple. How could you possibly be against this? In fact, how would you dare be against this? Notice that they managed to include virtually every possible property or location you could care about?

On the other hand you have the plea of a woman who is friends with many people who actually will lose their homes if you vote yes on 98. Every day she interacts with grandmothers and grandfathers who are able to be in the same state with their families because, thanks to rent control, they are able to afford a small, modest apartment or mobile home. She lives near numerous people who proudly work long days for next to nothing because, at the end of the day they have a roof over their head and a safe place for their children.

This is exactly the type of information you should be pursuing when voting on such propositions. This is the kind of information that should cause you to question what you are being told and think about things a little more carefully. Listen, believe what you will, but at least have a legitimate reason for your belief. If you are a landlord wanting to price your tenants out to the street so you can make a buck, then I guess that’s your right. If you are sympathetic to the plight of the landlord, then I suppose you can still vote Yes on 98. But if you are voting Yes because junk mail told you so or because “Republicans support 98″ then you are simply voting irresponsibly. If you mark your ballot according to what the most persuasive commercial said, then you are only part of the problem (hint: follow the money and you will learn a lot).

Please take a moment to visit the No on 98 Web site. If Proposition 98 does not apply to you, I hope you will take what I have shared today and apply it to the propositions and measures of your own county and state. It is the responsible thing to do. The lives and livelihood of many people may be determined by your vote. Make it count.

Politics and Frustration

Most of you have noticed that I have not been on as much in the last few months. What with the new kid and school and so forth, who could blame me? On top of that is the giant exhale after the initial Ron Paul push (yes, Ron is still working and still campaigning despite what your local paper or Faux News might have told you). But to be honest, politics is exhausting and equally frustrating, so perhaps a break was in the cards.

Over the last six months I have confronted people online and in person about the issues facing our nation. I have tried to explain why the Federal Reserve is an unconstitutional drain on our society that benefits only the elite; I have shed light on the unconstitutional and fraudulent income tax scam; I have demonstrated how the current administration (as well as past ones) have used “war” to increase their own power and decrease American’s liberty; I have shown how legitimate environmental concern and responsibility has been distorted into “An Inconvenient Truth” in an effort to further control Americans (and people globally) and decrease our liberties. The list goes on and on.

I am proud to say that I have had people tell me that something I said led them to think differently, or look at things from a different perspective. I have heard from many people who, once they actually heard what Ron Paul stood for, cast their vote with a passion and conviction they had never felt before. Like myself, I have heard from people who felt liberated one they understood that they did not have to be either a Republican or a Democrat, but that they could vote each issue as they saw fit. These people have had a huge weight lifted. Liberals are coming to see that just because Rush is a Conservative juggernaut, that alone does not make everything that comes out of his mouth evil or necessarily wrong. Conservatives are realizing that they can listen to a show on NPR or respect a Ted Kennedy viewpoint. More and more people are standing up and breaking free of the pigeon-holes that our two-party society has buried them in.

I am sad to say that most of you reading this right now are not as convinced. And here is where the frustration comes. If I ever heard an argument in favor of the IRS that made any sense or demonstrated any significant understanding of the issue, it would not be so frustrating. Instead, I hear things like, “How will we fund our schools?” or “Who will pay to fix the potholes?” At times I will read the slightly more legitimate, “Shutting down the IRS is too radical and unrealistic.” Suffice it to say that the first two types of argument simply display the ignorance of the objector. The last argument, while legitimate, is, in a way, even more frustrating. These people seem to realize the illegality, unconstitutionality and detrimental effects of the IRS, but think it is simply not worth the effort to try to change anything. Wow.

The same goes for people’s arguments in favor of the Fed, the “War on Terror,” Global Warming and so on. Most people don’t even know what the Fed is or what it does; if you dare say something against Bush or our foreign policy you might as well be a terrorist (which is, in fact, happening); and if you dare suggest that maybe climate change is not solely due to man you are nothing but a gas guzzling, white collar conservative. Something’s wrong here.

I could go on and on, as most of you know. But I will finish with this one plea. Please put the same sort of effort into researching these humongous topics that affect our world in so many significant ways as you do into researching what car you are going to buy next, what school you are going to put your kids in or what toothpaste you will use. To begin, go read Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto and Andrew Napolitano’s A Nation of Sheep.

AJ, PJ and the DR

Abby doesn’t like going to the doctor. Well, actually, it’s not the going so much as the being there. Well, actually, it’s not so much the being there as it is having anyone at the doctor’s office make any sort of contact with her. She’s shy. So, today’s trip to the doctor was not a fun one.

Abby’s been fighting a cold for about a week now. Her molars have also started to break through. The result of all of this has been low-grade fevers, a very runny nose, tooth aches, ear aches and a terrible cough. The result of these things has been scary nights next to a 100 degree girl; trying to deal with someone who simply refuses to “blow” her noise; watching from across the room as a precious little girl sits silent and still with her hands in her mouth trying to bear the pain; struggling to maintain as my little Abby holds her finger in her ear, tears running down her cheeks, crying out to me about the hurt in her head; and thinking of her being jolted out of a restful sleep by a coughing fit. It’s been a tough week.

To be honest, however, I am grateful that things are not worse. Abby fought off a flu earlier this year (the first time she had ever been sick), and that was not a good time. Some of you remember it. I’m happy to say that she is nowhere near that sick. In fact, she is already much better than she was and is only really having to deal with the cough right now - hence the trip to the doctor.

Unfortunately, having a loving, doting, sister is not always a good thing. While Abby has always found comfort placing her hand down Alison’s shirt, what’s a girl to do when mommy isn’t around? Put her hand “lovingly” on her baby sister’s face, of course. I have no doubt that Abby is gently and lovingly comforting her little sister, as far as she is concerned. However, the flexible, wire-framed baby seat that Penny sits in tells quite another story. From the perspective of the stressed and flexing chair, if Abby were to quickly release her “loving” grip, Penny might be flung back over the couch - perhaps even to the kitchen depending on the wind. All that to say that Abby is a wonderful older sibling who graciously shares her love, affection, and communicable diseases with her little sister. Yes, Penny has started to get a cough. And if there is anything more heart wrenching that a 2 year old with a cough, it is a two month old with a cough. Penny already struggles with reflux, and earned a gold medal in Nagano for “Weird Throat Noise Making,” so the addition of a cough is all the more frustrating.

About the doctor’s visit. Things were going along smooth…who am I kidding? As soon as Abby made eye contact with the nurse, she hid behind Alison’s chair. It only got worse when the nurse tried to take Abby’s temperature. While it should not have been difficult - the nurse using one of those little metal spears that you simply hold under the child’s arm for a few seconds - watching made me think of one of those on-stage sword fights where after all the convincing clanking of metal, the victor buries his weapon in the one place that virtually every actor killed by a sword takes the wound: just under the armpit. I was half expecting Abby to silently collapse on the floor in defeat. Suffice it to say that once the doctor arrived, things didn’t get any better. Though all she had to do was check Abby’s ears and listen to her breath. Go figure.

Seriously, though, if any one else were to make such commentary about my little girl, I would defend her to the death - the completely silly and illogical death. Little girls get to hide behind their mother’s chairs and take refuge behind their father’s legs anytime they feel the need. And for that matter, so do big girls, and teenage girls and girls who have gone off to college, and girls who are getting married, and even girls who have girls of their own. I will never tire of hearing “uppy daddy.” I will never cease to be the wall between Abby and whatever she fears. I hope she never tires of being held or guarded or simply cherished.

Same goes for you Penny.

Lord, help me be the best father I can be (and please do something about those coughs!)

So keep the girls in your thoughts and prayers.  Things are not nearly as bad as a father makes them out to be.  Abby is on the way out and we have caught Penny early on the way in.  They are both using an inhaler to help relax the lungs (Abby does not like that either) so that might help.  We’ll see.

Got Gardasil?

So what’s the deal with Gardasil?  That depends who you ask.  Big Pharma would have you believe that apart from so-called vaccines like Gardasil your children are at serious risk of cancer and so forth.  The truth of the matter, however, is quite another story.

Fortunately, more and more people are becoming more and more aware of the dangers of Big Pharma (as well as other Big Corporations).  Whereas “TV said it was ok” seemed a good enough justification in the past for writing off so many things as “conspiracy theories,” each day we are witnessing an increase in the number of news reports, even from the main-stream media, either warning of the dangers or reporting the outcomes of such things as new “vaccines,” genetically modified food and more.  It seems that the crazy people who warned us of such dangers were on to something.

Instead of laying out the dangers of Gardasil for you here, I am going to point you towards a couple of people who have been working hard to shine the light on this atrocious and even criminal behavior.  Below are some links for Mercola.com and NaturalNews.com.  Both of these are great resources and I would encourage you to keep an eye on each of them.  Follow the links below and be sure to check out the related links they offer. 

(You may be asked to sign up for the Mercola articles in which case it’s up to you.  I have never had a problem with spam from Mercola and his newsletter has turned out to be one of the few I actually check out every time it comes.  If you are hesitent to give out your email, just go sign up for a new email to use only for such things.  You should do that anyway and only provide the information you want to provide when signing up for that new email address.  Gmail from google gets the job done.)

 

Mercola: The HPV Vaccine: Preventive Care or Human Sacrifice?

Mercola: Thousands have Gotten Sick from Gardasil HPV Vaccine

Mercola: Vaccine Companies Investigated for Manslaughter

Mercola: Gardasil — New Video Reveals Hidden Dangers

Must Read Natural News Special Report: The Great HPV Vaccine Hoax Exposed

These are just a handful of the tragic stories and dire warnings surrounding Gardasil as well as many other vaccines.  Get your google out and do some investigating of your own.  This is serious stuff.   

 

 

 

Oh Canada!

Big Pharma is rearing its ugly head in the Great White North. 

A new law, C-51, which seeks to outlaw up to 60% of natural health products sold in Canada, is being pushed by the major pharmaceutical companies (as if that’s surprising).  Follow the link below to read the whole story, then spend some time browsing Natural News for a ton of great information.  This is a site that you need to visit regularly.  In fact, sign up for their email alerts today.

Canada’s C-51 Law May Outlaw 60% of Natural Health Products; Big Pharma Pushing to Criminalize Supplements

Fun Stuff

Have you heard of Make Magazine or the Maker Faire? What about Instructables? If not, then check them out now.

Maker Magazine touts itself as the first magazine devoted entirely to DIY (Do It Yourself) projects and their Make Faire is an awesome two-day family friendly event in the San Francisco Bay area celebrating the DIY lifestyle. But don’t think of it as a home and garden show or even a cool gadgets showcase. It is a tinkerers paradise and a great place to both catch a glimpse into the future and race evil looking power tools.

Instructables is more of the same. It is an online treasure trove of DIY projects and fun activities. Fun to read and even more fun to do.

Just thought you might enjoy that. Have fun. Til next time!