Someone Who Gets It

I'm not a fan of Frank Miller's comic book work, I find it overly sexed, overly violent, and overly stylized. Some of his early work was good, but he became a superstar in that industry and I think that leads to a lack of discipline and an increase in excess in artists. That said, he wrote and recorded an essay for NPR that is quite good. I particularly liked this part:

Patriotism, I now believe, isn't some sentimental, old conceit. It's self-preservation. I believe patriotism is central to a nation's survival. Ben Franklin said it: If we don't all hang together, we all hang separately. Just like you have to fight to protect your friends and family, and you count on them to watch your own back.

People don't realize it, but we are in a fight for survival and the odds don't look to good for us. Islam is much closer to world domination than it appears, for it only takes a certain percentage of people in a nation to rule it. They just have to be ruthless, focused, and extremely violent. The rest will follow out of fear, history shows that.

9/11

Like most bloggers on this fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I'm writing about that fateful day. Unlike many Americans, I refuse to ignore the photos, the footage, and the bad memories of the attacks. Those who willfully try to bury it so that they can "heal" are in terrible error, the kind of error that will guarantee defeat in what is really a massive cultural war. I've heard it said that Islamic fundamentalists are a small minority of Muslims, with a conservative estimate of ten percent (likely more). So, what is ten percent of 1.2 billion? That's over one hundred million. This is a war they started long ago and one that will drag on for decades if it continues to stay a low level war. So we must look at those pictures of still living people jumping and falling from the WTC towers, we must look at the wounded and maimed at the embassy bombings, and we must remember if we are to prevail!

Five years ago, my family was preparing to take my mother to the clinic to try to get to the root of her breathing problems. At the time, I couldn't drive and neither could she, so it was up to my dad to be the sole provider of transportation. So there was milling about, as trips to La Crosse were all day affairs with shopping wedged into the schedule. We turned on the DirecTV receiver and tuned into the CBS affiliate we got from satellite. At that time it was the one in New York City and they were showing live footage of the World Trade Center. Apparently a small plane had flown into one of the towers and it was being called an accident. I said it was probably a terrorist attack, as there had been talk of them using private planes loaded with explosives for some time. For some years I'd been keeping track of Islamic terrorists and the failed Millennium plot, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, and the assassination of the Northern Alliance warlord Massoud a few days earlier had my antenna up. Right away, Osama Bin Laden came to mind with his obsession at destroying the towers being well known.

As we were watching the live footage with the airheaded anchors babbling on, I saw a jet streak into the other tower. I said "That was another plane." Then I began ranting at the idiots on air to shut up and roll back the tape, while telling my parents another plane had hit the WTC. I knew it was Bin Laden and that the first plane hadn't been a small one like they'd said. We watched a little longer and I knew we were at war, one that probably would last the rest of my life.

A Victory for the Little Guy

Great news for those of us concerned about government spending and earmark abuses, Bill S2590 aka the Coburn-Obama bill passed the Senate unanimously. A big thank you to the bloggers of all political persuasions who worked on finding the identities of the two senators who placed holds on it. Now we will have some accountability on spending that is long overdue!

Romney Acting Presidential

It is always fun to predict who will be the front runners for a presidential election and lately Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts is emerging from the pack. Hugh Hewitt noticed that Mitt had issued a wonderful press release denying state protection to former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami when he lectures on the eve of 9/11 at Harvard. If only President Bush had the intestinal fortitude to buck the State Department and bar this fundamentalist from our country! Unfortunately, the State Department still believes Khatami is a moderate and probably think they are wooing the moderates in Iran. The same people who are being forced out of all positions of power in government and education right now. But that's State, they are controlled by bureaucrats who believe that talking can solve every problem.

Enough with that, I want to talk about Gov. Romney. Despite his accomplishments in turning around the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and taking a firm stand for conservative positions on gay marriage and health care reform, I admit I was suspicious of him. The reason why may surprise some -- it is because he is a Latter-day Saint. Now why would I be so wary of someone who is of the same faith I hold? It took me awhile to figure that out myself and no, it isn't just because Harry Reid is LDS too.

It is because I hold Mormons to a higher standard than I do other people. Our faith is more rigorous than most and more demanding of the individual due to our emphasis on accountability. As a result, I expect more honesty and compassion out of my fellow Church members, especially the active ones. More is expected of us due to our Church having a lay ministry and I'd like to think that we improve as people due to that service. Then there is an added layer of the history of persecution of Latter-day Saints, leading to a feeling that we will never be fully accepted by others, yet yearning for that very acceptance.

I wonder if Roman Catholics had the same feelings about John F. Kennedy when it first became apparent he would be seeking the nomination?

Heck of a Way to Start a Labor Day

The world is a tiny bit darker today, as I just read that Steve Irwin was killed by a giant stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. World famous as "The Crocodile Hunter", he was always a lot of fun to watch when pursuing dangerous wild animals. While some cringed at his enthusiastic boyishness, it was clear that he really loved animals. After so many close calls, it is a shock that he died while filming a tame segment for a children's show. I suspect he never even saw the buried stingray and the hit from its barb was an astronomically high rarity. My sympathies and prayers are with his family.

Odd & Ends

Trying to type with a demanding cat is what leads to today's short post. Sid is recovering from an abscessed wound with the side effect of being really demanding now that it is healing. His life has been unhappy ever since we took in another cat from a young couple who moved out West. They hate each other and have tried to kill each other when my dad and I were in Indiana for a funeral. Sid used to be top cat as far as terrorizing our property, but age has caught up to him and he's slowing down. Thing is, he doesn't think he has and has had his butt handed to him repeatedly over the past year or so. Anyway, it's good to see him happy again.

Great post at Captain's Quarters that illustrates why McCain-Feingold has turned out to be the perfect way to protect incumbents from challengers. McCain is a total piece of opportunistic work and I'm sorry so many haven't yet seen through his facade.

Found a new blog, Adamant, that has some fascinating posts of a scientific bent. I particularly liked this post on black coal vs. natural gas emissions. The other posts are well worth reading too.

Here is a good post on religion and the current conflict going on worldwide.

Tax Reform and the Fairtax

Last night, my dad and I rolled into the driveway at a quarter of midnight after a round trip of over 250 miles. Now why would anyone be out on a Monday night on that kind of trip?

The answer is we were giving a presentation to a Farm Bureau board in a distant county on the Fairtax. Or I should say, I was assisting my father as he gave the presentation. Yes, it is more volunteer work that I'm writing about. There are important causes that need volunteers and they are the ones people don't think about first. These are civic minded causes, not charities, and are very important because they are about things that affect most of us, not just some of us. In this case, it is one of the two things you can't escape in life and it isn't death. It's the other one, taxes.

We are being taxed to death in this country, mainly because of non-compliance that adds up to the hundreds of billions of dollars and the federal taxes inflicted in every step of production of products. That's one of the big reasons all our factories are being moved overseas, other countries give massive tax breaks as well as have cheaper labor. Most of the taxes we pay are hidden from us, as companies pass their tax burdens to us in the retail price of products but even with that it is still too expensive to manufacture in the USA. Well, unless you are the Japanese, who have it even worse and are building more and more automotive plants in the Midwest. Anyway, we need to do something to simplify taxes and take the burdens off of the middle class and poor, but most of all make taxation completely transparent to the American people.

The best solution to this and the only one that really guarantees fairness is the national sales tax proposal called the Fairtax. Please check out Fairtax.org and especially their FAQ here. It will take some studying to understand it totally, but once you do you will most likely approve of it. Right now, 50% of the lobbyists in Washington, D.C. are there lobbying for tax exemptions and legislation to for companies or organizations who want tax breaks. This is how our Senators and Congressmen dispense favors and is a source of great power in the Legislative branch. Pork in earmarks and riders attached to bills often includes specially worded exemptions for specific corporations without actually naming the company. We get the Fairtax in and the 16th Amendment repealed and we'll see the biggest transfer of power from the federal government back to the people since the Bill of Rights was passed.