- EverVigilant.net - "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran
Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite times of year, a time to get together with loved ones and offer thanks to God for the blessings we have received.
This year will be no different. Friends and family will show up at the door bringing a dish of some sort to share in the traditional Thanksgiving meal. Among those we will be entertaining this year is our Uncle Sam, not because he was invited, but because it's tradition. He always shows up. Not just on Thanksgiving, but every other holiday as well. In fact, he seldom ever leaves.
At times I find myself wondering why we came to dislike him so. We used to actually enjoy his company.
What if all we are doing in the pursuit of an effective flu vaccine actually ended up creating a new strain? That is certainly a possibility. From Bloomberg.com:
Adrian Gibbs, the virologist who said in May that swine flu may have escaped from a laboratory, published his findings today, renewing discussion about the origins of the pandemic virus.
The new H1N1 strain, which was discovered in Mexico and the U.S. in April, may be the product of three strains from three continents that swapped genes in a lab or a vaccine-making plant, Gibbs, and fellow Australian scientists wrote in Virology Journal. The authors analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus and found its origin could be more simply explained by human involvement than a coincidence of nature. ...
... While the exact source of the new H1N1 strain is a mystery, their research has "raised many new questions," they said. The authors compared the genetic blueprints of flu strains stored in the free database Genbank and found the pandemic virus's nearest ancestors circulate in pigs.
If this latest strain did originate in a laboratory, that raises an even more ominous question: Was its release accidental or intentional?
You may recall this incident in which Steven Bierfeldt, a Ron Paul supporter, was detained by TSA screeners for no other reason than that he was carrying a box of cash:
Some may think it was stupid stunt. All Bierfeldt had to do was disclose the reason he was carrying that amount of money and he would have been on his way.
But it was a good thing he chose to disobey the TSA agent's unlawful request. His defiance has led to some positive changes:
Bierfeldt and the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented him in a lawsuit, announced in a news release this week that the TSA had changed its rules in response to the litigation.
"It's a huge victory for civil liberties that TSA agents no longer have free rein to conduct sweeping, baseless searches and detain passengers who don't pose a threat to flight safety," Bierfeldt said in a statement.
Sometimes refusing to play the role of a compliant sheep pays off in the long run.
America's earliest coins portrayed Liberty. Not rulers and politicians. Just Liberty. A symbolic representation of the country's highest ideal. In the beginning, Americans had an affair of the heart with Liberty. She was their muse and they were aflame in their love for her. They talked about her everywhere, in their churches and taverns and town squares.
But she hasn't appeared on our circulation coinage for more than sixty years, not since the beautiful "Walking Liberty" half-dollar. It represented Liberty striding gracefully into the rising sun of the future, arm extended in peace and carrying a bounty of riches. It was a beautiful representation, because abundance accompanies Liberty wherever she goes. Our devotion would be no less if it were not true, but it is one of her secrets: Liberty creates prosperity. ...
... Today's coinage, looking each year more like subway tokens, celebrate the state. Just as words replace deeds and paper substitutes for gold, politicians have displaced ideals. The American state, which was created to serve Liberty, is now commemorated instead.
Archaeologists have long understood the value of coins. The images depicted on them can reveal much about a particular civilization's culture and tradition. It doesn't require much effort to imagine what future generations will conclude about us based on the way our coins idolize the state.
It took the strength of two sheriff's deputies to keep a middle schooler still enough to receive a shot of the swine flu, or H1N1, vaccine at a recent clinic.
During a regular Wheeling-Ohio County Health Board meeting Tuesday, health department Administrator Howard Gamble told board members about the student's attempt to flee Wheeling Middle School during a vaccination clinic held there last Friday.
He noted the boy's mother could not bear to watch the scene and left the gymnasium. Out of apparent fear of receiving the injection, the student ran out of the building. The school's resource officer, Ohio County Sheriff's Deputy John Haglock, coaxed the boy back inside. Once at the shot station, however, Haglock apparently needed some help keeping the boy still, and another deputy assisted
No one actually held a gun to the kid's head, but that is essentially what will happen if/when such vaccinations become mandatory. We're already faced with the prospect of going to prison if we refuse to buy health insurance, so nothing's impossible.
The War to End All Wars (a.k.a. World War I) didn't end anything. It merely set the stage for one of the bloodiest, most violent centuries in the history of mankind. That's probably why Congress, on the heels of the Korean War, decided to change the traditional November 11 celebration of Armistice Day to Veterans Day in 1954.
War has become a way of life for our country. Today, rather than commemorate the end of one major hostility, we celebrate all subsequent and ongoing hostilities with little or no concern for their moral justification. As long as those involved are esteemed as heroes, nothing else seems to matter.
Michael Gaddy has questions about the "'facts' disseminated by the Army and the state's propaganda wing, sometimes referred to as the mainstream media (MSM)," regarding the Fort Hood shootings:
All too convenient for the Army was the rapid release of negative information related to the alleged shooter. It was said he received a negative evaluation report and that he had caused "red flags" to be raised some months ago concerning emails. Do we know anything this detailed about the "suspects" who were released? The caveat was added that it was unclear as to whether the suspect was the author of those emails. So, months ago, alarms were raised about emails the suspect might have sent, yet, in all those months the Army has been unable to determine who wrote them. Yeah, right. If red flags were in fact raised months ago, why did the Army do nothing? ...
... While it is doubtful we will ever learn the truth of exactly what happened at Fort Hood, we know with a degree of certainty the truth will never be revealed by the Army or the media.
The Fort Hood tragedy is already being considered a terrorist attack. Walid Phares, Ph.D, writing for Fox News, had this to say:
What happened at Ft. Hood is not about being frustrated by America's foreign policy or exacting revenge for racial slurs. Nor is it about simply being a Muslim-American serving in the military or about being a member of any faith. The murders at Ft. Hood are about the radicalization of individuals by an extremist ideology -- jihadism -- which fuels acts of terror. The main question we should be asking is when did Hasan become radicalized and who indoctrinated him? Everything else will fall in place once we have these answers. Moreover, this would allow us to detect other potential terror acts that may be in the making.
"Who indoctrinated him?" Dr. Phares realizes the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was trained and employed by the most deadly and efficient killing machine in the world, right?
No matter. For the next few weeks the talking heads will be focusing on the terror angle, especially because of reports like this:
Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" -- an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" -- before opening fire, the base commander said today.
Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said officials had not yet confirmed that the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment before the rampage Thursday.
In the end, it won't really matter why this psycho shrink went on a shooting spree. That this might have been yet another example of "spontaneous jihad syndrome" is a seed that has already been planted. The intent is to shift the public's attention away from the horrors of war and their effects on those directly involved. Instead, look for this to be used as an excuse to intensify the "war on terror" both at home and abroad.
Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a psychiatrist, but he went through basic training just like every other soldier, so he would have been taught to kill. Also, someone in his position would have been expected to encourage killing by counseling other soldiers in a way that would not have interfered with that aspect of their jobs.
So what puzzles me most about this tragedy is that people would be so shocked to see a member of the military doing exactly what he had been trained to do. Perhaps it's because this particular act of violence was committed against Americans here in the U.S. and not against foreign strangers in some backwards country in the Middle East.
The economic downturn has people looking for work anywhere they can get it. As a result, cops find themselves fighting for their lives against some of the most loathsome and despicable criminals in recent memory: unlicensed contractors.
The allegedly "racist" University of Mississippi mascot Colonel Reb has already been banned from school sporting events. Now, university officials are cracking down on the "racist" behavior of Ole Miss fans. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
University of Mississippi football fans who refuse to stop chanting "the South will rise again" are on the verge of losing one of their favorite fight songs, the school's chancellor said Monday.
Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones said "From Dixie With Love" will no longer be played at games if fans continue the racially offensive chant. ...
... Jones said the words in the phrase are "harmful" because they've been used by integration opponents in the past. For years, the university has worked to rid itself of an Old South image that included the 1962 violent standoff over James Meredith's admission as the university's first black student.
"I think the vast majority of our students don't understand the significance of this. I think most of the students who are participating in saying those words, don't know how painful they are," Jones said.
Once again, ignorance, self-righteousness, and political correctness wins out over heritage, tradition, and just plain fun.
Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite times of year, a time to get together with loved ones and offer thanks to God for the blessings we have received.
